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Why Granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations Status
Is Essential for American Agriculture, as well as the U.S.’s Overall Interest
- Written by
the Former Secretaries of Agriculture -
As former Secretaries
of Agriculture, we wholeheartedly support the President’s legislative
proposal to grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to the People’s
Republic of China. Only by passing PNTR will we be able to reap the
benefits -- economic and otherwise -- of China’s imminent accession
to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
China is home to
one out of every five human beings, more than 1.2 billion people strong
with a rapidly expanding middle class and an economy growing at 7 percent
a year. There is no nation that offers a greater potential customer
base for American businesses. But trade barriers of every kind have
limited our access to the Chinese market and contributed mightily to
the nation’s record trade deficit.
American farmers
and ranchers, in particular, need to do more business with China. While
the rest of the nation has enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, agriculture
is facing its third consecutive year of low prices and economic sluggishness.
Agriculture is highly dependent on exports, more than twice as much
as other sectors of the economy. But last year, every man, woman and
child in China took in less than a dollar’s worth of American agricultural
goods.
Chinese membership
in the WTO could help turn that around. Our farmers could take advantage
of dramatically reduced Chinese tariffs on everything from frozen beef
cuts to cherries and peaches. They could do business with private individuals
in China, without the interference of a state-trading entity. And our
farmers could compete on a level playing field, since China will abandon
export subsidies and eliminate unjustified sanitary and phytosanitary
barriers as conditions of WTO entry.
All these benefits
could be ours, but only if Congress approves PNTR.
We have nothing
to lose by passing PNTR. This is not like most other trade agreements,
where we have to give something in order to get something in return.
Since our market is already open to China, we are entirely on the receiving
end of all the concessions.
On the other hand,
we have everything to lose by rejecting PNTR. China is still likely
to become a WTO member, but we would be left on the outside looking
in. We would be holding open the door for our global competitors to
march into China, where they would cash in on the accession terms we
negotiated and seize market share that we would be unable to recapture.
We would be walking away from an increase of approximately $2 billion
in annual farm export sales. It would amount to a kind of unilateral
economic disarmament.
The economic case
for PNTR is a compelling one, but it’s not the only one. There are also
national security implications. Rejecting PNTR would weaken our ties
with a nuclear power that has the ability to tilt the global balance
of power in Asia.
It would also be
an irresponsible abdication of American global leadership. The world’s
most populous nation is gradually adopting wholesale economic reform,
which could lead to political freedoms never before enjoyed by its people
in thousands of years of existence. What kind of message would it send
if the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, instead
of helping cultivate Chinese reform through a policy of engagement,
instead chose to back away from China and fracture the bilateral relationship?
PNTR is not a referendum
on China’s governing regime. Support for PNTR is in no way a tacit approval
of China’s labor standards, human rights philosophy, Taiwan policy or
its approach to free speech and religious freedom. And rejection of
PNTR will not increase the wages of one Chinese worker or protect a
single political dissident.
In fact, it is only
through increased commercial ties that we can influence China’s politics.
In the process of exporting goods and services, we also export information
and values. As free enterprise in China grows, it will loosen the government’s
totalitarian grip, with new economic opportunities offering the Chinese
people an alternative form of material support and reducing their dependence
on the state. By helping China become a more open economy, we can move
them closer to becoming an open society.
As former Secretaries
of Agriculture, we believe that PNTR is critical to maintaining the
competitiveness of our farmers in the 21st century. As American citizens,
we believe that PNTR is an important step toward the ultimate goal of
a free, open, stable, democratic China.
The Honorable Bob
Bergland
The Honorable John
Block
The Honorable Earl
Butz
The Honorable Orville
Freeman
The Honorable Mike
Espy
The Honorable Clifford
Hardin
The Honorable Richard
Lyng
The Honorable Clayton
Yeutter
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