Clinton Plans Big Effort on China-WTO Trade Deal
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sensing a battle ahead, President Clinton is planning a major campaign early in the new year to convince the Republican-led Congress to approve a big trade deal with China, White House aides said on Friday.
A White House team meets on Monday to plot strategy for getting Congress to approve China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Commerce Secretary William Daley and deputy White House chief of staff Steve Ricchetti will be designated to head the team.
Clinton will hold a meeting of his Cabinet on Jan. 19 to discuss the effort, then use his State of the Union speech on Jan. 27 to appeal for an early approval of the market-opening WTO deal, which U.S. negotiators reached with their Chinese counterparts in mid-November 1999 in Beijing.
In addition, Clinton will use a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland at the end of January to stress the benefits of global trade, after the cause took a blow at a WTO conference in Seattle late in 1999.
White House spokesman Jake Siewert said Clinton will be pushing for a vote in late spring -- May or June.
He said the White House would like to see two groups that have a stake in increased access to Chinese markets -- the high-tech sector and agriculture -- press for congressional approval of the deal.
``You have some new constituencies that are very engaged on this issue, not just the big business and manufacturing sector, but also high-tech groups, which are very energized about opportunities in China, and farmers and ranchers who have a full appreciation for some of the opportunities in China,'' said Siewert.
He said the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis -- and the ripple effect it had on U.S. agricultural exports to the region -- showed American farmers the importance of the export market.
The trade agreement calls for China to slash tariffs and open a wide range of markets, from its farm sector to telecommunications industry.
In return for China rolling back its trade barriers, Clinton must persuade Congress to grant Beijing favorable access to U.S. markets, so-called permanent normal trade relations status.
Permanent normal trade relations would guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets as products from nearly every other nation. Without it U.S. businesses could not benefit from China's commitment to roll back tariffs and other trade barriers while foreign companies capitalize on China's new-found openness.
Business leaders were worried the U.S. election year plus U.S. labor union leaders emboldened by the collapse of the WTO talks in Seattle would spell trouble for the China trade deal in Congress.
The White House insisted it has virtually an ``open and shut case'' in favor of the deal.
``This opens China's markets to America's goods,'' said Siewert. ``The deal is fundamentally about opening China's markets. Ours are already wide open.''
Opponents of the trade pact, which would clear the way for Beijing to join the WTO, include the 13-million member AFL-CIO labor federation, the Teamsters and unions representing American steel and auto workers. They joined forces with environmentalists, human rights groups and consumer advocates in staging massive street protests that overwhelmed WTO meetings in Seattle Nov. 30-Dec. 3, 1999.