CongressDaily / March 23, 2000
A panel of experts told the Senate Finance Committee today that Congress should question carefully what permanent normal trade relations status for China will do to promote U.S. interests. Former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, who served in he Reagan administration, cautioned that NTR's expansion in recent years into a device to bring about sweeping reform in China is completely unrealistic. He further suggested China's participation in the World Trade Organization would not change the fact that "they'll lie, cheat and steal on a breathtaking scale," and that WTO machinery could only impede the United States' ability to react. Former U.S. Ambassador to China James Lilley said commercial engagement is probably in U.S. interests, but he warned against sending threatening signals to Chinese hardliners about PNTR's potential to radically transform that country. "Don't blow your horn on this one because you will feed the group who don't want it," he said. In another trade-related development, the United States may take Japan to the WTO if a satisfactory compromise is not reached in telecommunications deregulation talks, Deputy Trade Representative Richard Fisher said today. "There are international conventions under the WTO that govern the cost of connectivity, and I'd like to say that the road to Geneva begins in Tokyo," Fisher was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. Fisher spoke in Tokyo after the latest round of talks over phone connection costs ended in stalemate. The focus is on the connection fees companies charge individuals and organizations that want to establish phone service and gain Internet access. Japan has proposed cutting the rates by 22.5 percent over four years, but the United States wants a cut of about 50 percent this year. Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and other officials have said the U.S. demands are too "drastic." Meanwhile, Sen. Blanche Lambert Lincoln and Rep. Marion Berry, both D-Ark., will accompany an Arkansas Farm Bureau trade mission to Cuba in late May, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. Lincoln and Berry, who have strongly advocated ending the 40-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the island nation, were invited on the trip because they serve on the Senate and House Agriculture committees respectively. Cuba was Arkansas' largest agricultural export market before the embargo, and Farm Bureau officials hope the trip will position state farmers to take immediate advantage of Cuba's market if the embargo is lifted.
by Stephen Norton:
