Lawmakers Reintroduce Bill to Revoke China’s Trade Status 👉 Updatem News

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said China’s PNTR status has enriched the CCP while costing American jobs.

A group of lawmakers on Thursday reintroduced a bill in both the Senate and the House to suspend normal trade relations with China and codify higher tariffs on goods from the country.

It came after President Donald Trump signed a memorandum during his first day in office directing federal agencies to examine U.S. trade deficits and unfair trade practices by America’s trade partners, review economic trade relations between China and the United States, and assess bills regarding China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status.

In the Senate, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Jim Banks (R-Ind.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) reintroduced the Restoring Trade Fairness Act, which aims to end PNTR with China. The status, conferred by Congress in 2000, allows China to enjoy trade benefits such as ultra-low tariffs.

Its companion bill was reintroduced in the House by Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee and co-founder and chair of the Bipartisan Uyghur Caucus.

Tariffs introduced by the previous Trump administration and the Biden administration have effectively ended China’s PNTR benefits. The bill, if enacted, will phase in mandatory higher tariffs over a five-year period.

If the bill becomes law, tariff rates on goods from China will be at least 100 percent for strategic goods such as mineral products, wind turbines, and certain chemicals and drugs. The rate on other goods will be at least 35 percent.

The legislation will also bar certain countries, including China, from de minimis treatment, which allows shipments valued under $800 to be imported duty-free and subject to minimal customs inspections.

According to a report published in November 2023 by the U.S. International Trade Commission, China had been the leading source for total de minimis imports “by a large margin,” and packages from Chinese e-commerce giants Shein and Temu reportedly accounted for more than 30 percent of U.S. de minimis imports in 2022.

The rule has also been blamed for contributing to the U.S. fentanyl crisis as the drug and its precursors flowed into the United States in small packages.

In a statement, Cotton said China’s PNTR status has enriched the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while costing American jobs.

“This comprehensive repeal of China’s PNTR status and reform of the U.S.–China trade relationship will protect American workers, enhance our national security, and end the Chinese Communists’ leverage over our economy,” he said.

Moolenaar and Suozzi also lauded the bipartisan effort to bring the bill.

“The bipartisan consensus that both parties recognize the need to reset our economic relationship with China is a big win for our nation and the Select Committee,” Moolenaar said in a statement.

All countries except Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, and Russia have been granted normal trade relations (NTR) status by the United States, and China has been granted NTR status annually since 1980.

In 2000, Congress passed the U.S.–China Relations Act to make China’s NTR status permanent. President George W. Bush made the status official in 2001, a month before the communist-ruled country was accepted into the World Trade Organization.

Trump imposed additional tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018 after an investigation by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) found that the CCP had engaged in a range of harmful and unfair trade practices, including forced technology transfer and state-sponsored cyberattacks stealing U.S. trade secrets.

Trump signed a trade deal with Beijing in 2020 requiring structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime, including the regime’s practices concerning intellectual property and technology transfer.

However, a 2022 review by the USTR said the regime “largely took superficial measures” to reduce negative perceptions and had “persisted and even become more aggressive, particularly through cyber intrusions and cybertheft, in its attempts to acquire and absorb foreign technology.”

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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