Copyright 2000 The National Journal, Inc.
The National Journal
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March 25, 2000
SECTION: FOREIGN AFFAIRS; Pg. 936; Vol. 32, No. 13
LENGTH: 4199 words
HEADLINE:
Dismantling the Great Wall
BYLINE: Robert O'Neill
HIGHLIGHT:
Congress, the White House, labor,
and corporate America fight a
high-pressure battle over permanently opening
the China trade.
BODY:
Trade with China is not an abstract concept for Karl
Brown, the
president of S.B. Global Foods. From a small office in
the corner of a
warehouse in suburban Philadelphia, he ships
overseas tons of pretzels,
caramel-coated popcorn, and chocolate
chip cookies, which are made and
packaged in nearby factories.
Last year, Brown's trading company, which
employs only four
people, sold about 2 million bags of marshmallows
in
Hong Kong, where the toasting qualities of American-made
marshmallows are
particularly appreciated. In April, Brown plans
to visit China to see if he
can find a way to sell his company's
snacks to more than a billion
marshmallow-deprived people.
A few miles away from
Brown's warehouse, in a nondescript
building in a suburban business park,
Wendell W. Young III,
president of the United Food and Commercial Workers
Union, Local
1776, is thinking about China, too. Young has a stack of
material
on China's proposed entry into the World Trade Organization, none
of it very favorable: statements by the AFL-CIO leadership,
newspaper
editorials, the U.S. Department of State's human rights
reports on China,
and polls showing Americans' opposition to
giving China unconditional entry
into the world trading body.
It's not the sort of
issue that normally dominates the
concerns of a union that includes local
retail workers, nursing
home aides and hair stylists, and people who work in
the food
industry. But the issue of "fair trade," as opponents of new
trade deals describe their position, is felt even here. Young
speaks
forcefully against what he sees as the worst effects of
free trade: members
of his union having to work harder for less
because of the competition from
low-priced imports. "We always
say, 'Buy union, the job you save may be your
own,' " Young said.
During a recent Pennsylvania state labor convention,
about 600
union members crowded around Philadelphia's City Hall to protest
unfair trade practices, including forced labor in China. "I was
amazed
myself at the momentum that's taken place here on the
China issue," Young
said.
Caught in the middle of this trade debate is
Rep. Joseph
M. Hoeffel III, a Democratic member of Congress in this
predominantly Republican suburban district. Hoeffel, like many
other
members of Congress from both political parties, has not
taken a position on
China's entry into the WTO. But some time in
the next few months, he may
have to cast a vote on U.S. trade
with China that almost certainly will have
repercussions for him
in the November election.
Even before China trade became an issue, Hoeffel faced a
tough
re-election battle. China makes it even tougher. On one
side are
constituents such as Brown, who was part of a small
delegation of
businessmen who visited Hoeffel in his district
office a few days ago to
push for normalizing trade relations
with China. On the other side is labor,
whose support Hoeffel
needs. Indeed, after being elected to Congress two
years ago,
Hoeffel held his victory party in Young's union hall.
Not since Congress approved the North American Free
Trade
Agreement in 1993 have lawmakers faced such a potentially
divisive
trade debate. Corporate interests have been busy for
months trying to drum
up pressure from businesses in the
districts of members who are considered
to be swing votes on the
issue. Free-trade opponents, ranging from
labor-which is planning
a massive nationwide campaign-to Tibet independence
activists,
have hardly lost a beat since their epochal protest in Seattle
last November, and they are taking advantage of the grass-roots
nature
of their movement to influence lawmakers.
China has
long been the focal point of Congress's most
vociferous trade battles. In
past years, the House and Senate
have engaged in animated, but increasingly
predictable, debates
on whether to grant China the same privileges extended
to
America's other trading partners. China is currently among a
handful
of nations that are barred from automatically enjoying
what are known as
normal trade relations (NTR) with the United
States. The requirement for an
annual vote stems from legislation
enacted during the Cold War to punish the
Soviet Union for not
allowing Jews to emigrate, and it was later expanded to
include
other communist countries with spotty records on human rights.
The law does allow the President to issue a waiver and grant NTR
on a
temporary basis, as long as he promises to press for human
rights reforms in
the affected country. Congress then votes on
whether to disapprove the
presidential waiver.
During these annual debates,
opponents of NTR status
normally blast China for its human rights abuses,
forced labor,
heavy-handed rule over Tibet, population policies, and
national
security threats to America and Taiwan. And each year supporters
speak of the importance of engagement, the benefit to American
businesses and consumers of trade with China, and the dangers of
isolationism. Even through the recent years of allegations of
Chinese
nuclear spies and campaign finance abuses linked to
China, the vote has
remained roughly the same. The Senate usually
endorses NTR by a comfortable
margin, while the House is more
divided but eventually goes along. Indeed,
Congress has voted 19
times consecutively to allow annual extensions of NTR
status for
China.
But this year the stakes are
higher, and the debate could
become much more intense. The November 1999
deal that Beijing and
Washington struck on China's accession to the
Geneva-based World
Trade Organization, the body that oversees international
commerce, could mean a curtain call to the annual debate as
Congress is
asked, once and for all, to grant permanent normal
trade relations
(PNTR) to China.
The White House
and its pro-trade allies argue that
Congress should remove China from the
trade blacklist, because,
under WTO rules, the United States must grant
China the same
trade status as all other WTO members or risk being shut out
itself from the trade concessions Beijing has offered in order to
gain
membership. U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky,
who along with
National Economic Council Director Gene B.
Sperling negotiated the U.S.
agreement with China, believes the
prevailing arguments against voting for
the legislation this year
come down to politics-and lawmakers' inherent
dread of trade
votes of any kind. But it is not a question of whether
Congress
could prevent China from entering the WTO, Barshefsky and other
officials argue. China will get accession. The question is
whether China
will buy telecommunications equipment, wheat, or
pork products from the
United States-or from the European Union
or other countries.
The White House wants Congress to vote on the matter
before
Memorial Day. If a vote is not taken by then, President
Clinton faces a June
3 deadline to extend the current trade
waiver for yet another year.
Republican leaders have said they
want the vote to be bipartisan and insist
on getting more
Democratic votes before they pledge GOP support. But nobody
wants
the issue to come up too close to the elections. "We want a vote
as soon as possible this spring, and we're confident we'll have
the
votes to prevail," Sperling said.
The White House Effort
Since early
February, President Clinton has been holding private
White House
get-togethers with groups of 15 to 20 lawmakers at a
time. More than 60
members have now graduated from his personal
seminars on the importance of
China trade. (See sidebar, p. 942.)
Four senior Clinton Administration
officials, in separate
interviews, emphasized that the President is standing
his ground
in discussions with House Democrats. Unlike 1997, when the
President readily let members of his party off the hook for
voting
against him on "fast-track" trade-negotiating authority,
this year,
officials say, he is hanging tough. "He doesn't give
anybody a pass," a
senior White House official said.
Commerce Secretary
William Daley, who led the 1993
Administration campaign to win passage of
NAFTA, is in charge of
the Administration's effort to pass this trade
legislation. Daley
said in an interview that some House members have been
taken
aback by Clinton's passion on the issue. "We hear afterward that
a
lot of members are surprised, I guess-I don't know why-that
he's so intense
about it and so focused on it," Daley said.
"There's no sort of wiggle room
here. He's not fudging on this.
He believes this is incredibly important for
the United States,
and he's telling them that." Daley said the President
"doesn't
believe it's the sort of issue that Democrats or Republicans will
lose over" in the elections. And when Democrats worry about
organized
labor's opposition to the trade deal, Daley continued,
Clinton tells them:
"I'm a Democrat. I've been with labor.... The
economy's strong and that's
helping labor grow, and trade is an
important piece of it."
The Administration has set up a "war room" (see sidebar,
p.
941) to lobby members of Congress, tapped a host of senior
aides to plan
strategy, and given lists of names to seven Cabinet
members, each of whom is
assigned to talk up the China vote with
the lawmakers on his or her roster.
The campaign even has its own
Web site: www.chinapntr.gov. And the messages
are beginning to be
heard where House members, who are the prime targets of
both
sides in the trade debate, will pay the most attention-back home
in
their districts.
Back Home Politics
A television ad shows a sweater with
a "Made in China" label.
"Behind this label is a shameful story," a voice
says. "Political
prisoners and forced-labor camps," the narrator continues,
as
pictures of sweatshops fill the screen. "Wages as low as 13 cents
an
hour." Footage of Chinese ships unloading containers on
American docks is
followed by the telephone number of the local
member of Congress. "Tell
Congresswoman Myrick to vote no and
keep China on probation. Until this
label stands for fairness."
Rep. Sue Myrick's North
Carolina district, which extends
from Charlotte to suburban and rural areas
to the west, is a safe
Republican area that she has represented since 1994,
and she won
re-election in 1998 with almost 70 percent of the vote. But like
Hoeffel, she is torn on the China trade issue and faces
conflicting
demands from constituents. The ad aired in her
district was part of an
AFL-CIO campaign targeted at 11 members
of the House and three Senators.
Although Myrick's district has
very little organized labor presence, the ad
was followed by
about 300 to 400 phone calls to her district offices. Myrick
dismisses that response as a labor-led campaign, rather than a
spontaneous grass-roots groundswell. "The majority of people who
called
us during that time were AFL-CIO people," she said.
But the depth of feeling against the China trade deal
among the upper
management of textile-related companies in
Myrick's district is intense.
"Anybody that votes for (PNTR)-I'll
be damned if I'm going
to vote for," said Keith Turner, the
director of international sales at the
Gaston County Dyeing
Machine Co. "There's a strong perception, not just here
in the
Southeast, that China makes use of forced labor," he said.
Turner's perspective is that of a hard-nosed businessman in a
troubled
industry. Forced labor in China, as he sees it, is more
than a human rights
issue; it threatens the survival of the U.S.
textile industry, on which his
company depends. He fears that
"there will be a massive loss of
manufacturing jobs" in an area
that has already suffered from plant closures
since NAFTA took
effect in 1994 and textile jobs started flowing to Mexico.
Myrick, who is recovering from a battle with cancer,
has
not yet met with leaders of textile companies in her district on
this issue, but their position is expected to mirror that of the
American Textile Manufacturers Association, which has declared
its
opposition to permanent normal trade relations.
Myrick illustrates the dilemma of House members caught
between
competing business interests in their districts. "It's
very much a divided
district," said Myrick, referring to the
tension on trade matters that
exists between the textile areas
that make up the western end of the
district and the cluster of
pro-trade international companies and financial
institutions
symbolized by Charlotte's modern skyline. "There's a lot of
people (in the House) who are in the position I'm in," she said.
Myrick's record on trade reflects her divided district. In her
five
years in Congress, she has voted both for and against the
annual normal
trade relations extension for China. In 1999, she
supported most free-trade
legislation, including the NTR
extension, but voted against the House's
version of an Africa
trade bill, which was vehemently opposed by the textile
industry.
Voices representing the pro-trade forces
are also being
heard now in Myrick's district. Two weeks after the AFL-CIO
ad,
business groups countered with an ad campaign that was part of a
nationwide $ 1.5 million television blitz by the Business
Roundtable, a
group representing CEOs of the country's largest
corporations. The
roundtable will spend up to $ 10 million this
year on a campaign that
includes lobbying, ads, and grass-roots
organizing, according to spokesman
John Schacter. Together with
other business organizations, such as the U.S.
Chamber of
Commerce and the Emergency Committee for American Trade, they
have created a formidable army in support of the China vote that
is
marching beyond the Beltway into dozens of congressional
districts around
the country-including Myrick's and Hoeffel's.
(See sidebar, p. 944.)
Just recently, for example, officials of the U.S.
chamber
paid a visit to the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, the fifth
largest in the country, to try to spark interest in the vote
among local
companies. Among the attendees were such Charlotte
corporate giants as Bank
of America Corp. and First Union Corp.
Still, Myrick says she has not yet
heard as much from the
nontextile business community as she expected.
In Hoeffel's Pennsylvania district, too, the
Business
Roundtable is pushing the trade pact. "For us, it's important
that the congressman realizes that there are a lot of employers
in this
district" and that more trade means more jobs, said Jim
Murtha, the Business
Roundtable's district coordinator. Murtha
(no relation to Pennsylvania
Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha)
organized the meeting with Karl Brown and
other business leaders
in Hoeffel's district. "In the districts, the
meetings have more
impact" than a Capitol Hill office visit by a lobbyist,
Murtha
said.
Hearing from corporate executives
may not be enough to
sway a member's vote, however. "Members with a
free-trade
inclination need to hear from employees in their district," said
a senior aide to a pro-trade House Republican. But asking
management to
help motivate their work force on an issue like
trade may be too much to
ask, as one business owner in Hoeffel's
district found out. At Tinius Olsen
Testing Machine Co., which
has been manufacturing testing equipment for 120
years, overseas
sales account for more than a quarter of total sales. But
it's
difficult to impress on the company's unionized work force the
importance of exports. "What I learned from (NAFTA) is, just
don't
bother," said John Millane, the company's president,
recalling his failed
efforts to convince the workers on his shop
floor of the benefits of
international sales.
A patchwork of diverse
opponents-including groups such as
United Students Against Sweatshops and
the U.S. Tibet Committee-
is fighting against the China vote in Hoeffel's
district. The
Citizens Trade Campaign-a coalition of human rights, labor,
religious, and environmental groups that is leading the national
campaign against PNTR-is also active in Hoeffel's district.
All
of these groups plan a series of events to pressure Congress to
vote
against permanent normal trade relations, including visits
to members'
Washington offices on April 12.
Some of the local
activists have particular political
clout: Leon Obeler, a community activist
and member of the
Pennsylvania Consumer Action Network, worked for Hoeffel's
election campaign and was among a group of activists that met
with the
congressman recently to discuss the China issue. Obeler
is working to
organize opposition to permanent normal trade
relations, using everything
from coffee klatches and public
meetings to letter-writing campaigns. "In
terms of pressure we
can put on Joe, it's simply, 'Hey Joe, we worked hard
for you.
You owe us,' " Obeler says. (Hoeffel declined to be interviewed
for this article.)
Washington Pressures
Members report that the pace
of lobbying in Washington has been
slow until now, but that "it's picking
up," said Rep. Sander M.
Levin, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the House
Ways and Means
Trade Subcommittee and a key undecided vote. "But these
issues
build. There is no straight line to passage on major
legislation."
Leaders of both parties are
blaming each other for the
slow pace. The White House and Democratic
supporters demand
action by Memorial Day. But Republican leaders respond
that they
cannot proceed until the Clinton team does more to build support.
Republicans say they will schedule debate on the
trade
measure only when they are convinced that it can pass. But
Administration officials respond that they need a firm date for a
vote
so they can focus the attention of undecided lawmakers.
Democrats also gripe
that the GOP wants a delay to increase
election-year tensions between
Democrats and their union allies.
But any postponement could create
additional legislative
complications. If the delay goes on too long, it
bumps up against
the June 3 deadline, when President Clinton will have to
grant
the one-year temporary waiver if he doesn't have a vote on
permanent normal trade relations. That scenario could give
wavering
members an excuse to fall back to a one-year extension
as a middle course.
As election pressures intensify, supporters of China
trade may find that their best political goal is balance. If
majorities
or near majorities of both parties are seen voting for
China trade, neither
party is overly exposed to partisan attack.
That helps explain the call by
GOP leaders for support from at
least 100 House Democrats. That number will
not be needed to
achieve a majority, since perhaps 150 Republicans are
expected to
favor the trade deal. But that much Democratic support would
lessen the likelihood that the issue would be used as a political
weapon
against Republicans. "To hold Republicans together, we
need an indication of
strong Democratic support," said Rep. David
Dreier of California, a
Republican point man on the trade issue.
Separate
Democratic and Republican teams are coordinating
pro-trade efforts in the
House. Dreier heads the GOP's China task
force, with assistance from several
other members, including Jim
Kolbe of Arizona and Douglas K. Bereuter of
Nebraska, a senior
member of the International Relations panel. The GOP
group has
targeted 85 undecided House Republicans, Dreier said. Senior Ways
and Means member Robert T. Matsui of California heads the
Democratic
team, which is working closely with the
Administration. According to Rep.
Jim Moran, D-Va., and others,
the group counts about 60 Democrats as firm or
probable
supporters and about 80 others as undecided. The Administration
is looking for votes among the list of 110 House Democrats who
have
supported normal trade relations with China on previous
annual votes.
But China is not making that task any easier. A U.S.
Chamber of Commerce representative recalled being greeted on a
recent
visit to a Republican House member with an unusual but
telling comment.
"Those Chinese are sons of bitches," the
congressman said, before pausing
and beginning the conversation.
"Now, what did you want to talk about?"
China's threats in the
run-up to Taiwan's elections (see box, p. 938), its
arrest of
religious figures, and the State Department's recent assessment
of China's worsening human rights record offer little reason for
lawmakers to support the deal and plenty of political cover to
oppose
it.
Some Democrats want a legislative alternative to
a one-
time vote on permanent trade relations so that Congress can have
an ongoing voice in pressuring China for reforms. Rep. Levin is
circulating a package of recommendations, including creation of a
U.S.
congressional-executive branch commission on China, plus
annual review by
the WTO of China's compliance with its
commitments. The Administration is
willing to consider such
suggestions but wants to make sure that these
proposals add more
votes than they might subtract. House Minority Leader
Richard A.
Gephardt, D-Mo., recently floated the possibility of using U.S.
clout with international financial institutions, such as the
World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund, as leverage
against Chinese behavior.
House Republicans are concerned about how Gephardt
is
playing this issue. The Democratic leader has not said how he
will
vote on China trade, although he has expressed doubts
publicly about the
deal. But his chief deputy, Minority Whip
David E. Bonior, D-Mich., is an
outspoken foe of the deal. In
various public comments, Bonior has sought to
leave the
impression that momentum against the deal is building among
Democrats, although he retreated from an earlier claim that 30
House
Democrats have reversed their previous support for normal
trade relations
with China. GOP leaders have never counted on
support from either Gephardt
or Bonior, but they want to know
where Gephardt stands so that they can
shape their response for
both the legislative and electoral competitions.
"He's trying to
have it both ways," Dreier said of Gephardt's dealings with
both
sides on Capitol Hill and among the interest groups. Daley
indicated that the Administration is also in the dark about
Gephardt's
strategy: "I just know what I read in the papers, to
be frank with you."
Republicans, whose presumptive presidential nominee,
Texas Gov. George W. Bush, supports China trade, are also eager
to learn
whether Vice President Al Gore will back up his
rhetorical support for the
deal with hands-on contacts with
lawmakers. Such active lobbying could
dilute Gore's support from
labor. White House officials said Gore aides want
him to be
active on behalf of the China trade vote, but they want to ensure
that the Vice President's efforts are targeted in such a way that
they
don't undercut his desire to simply agree to disagree with
his labor
friends.
Many congressional Democrats remain nervous
about the
strong opposition to the deal by powerful unions such as the
Teamsters and the United Auto Workers. Members recall only too
well that
several House Democrats who supported NAFTA in 1993
lost their seats in the
1994 elections, at least in part because
local unions upset about the trade
vote sat on their hands during
the campaign. Promises of political support
from a lame-duck
President would not be likely to provide sufficient
recompense
for a pro-China vote, a Democratic aide to a pro-trade member
said.
All members, of course, have to make up
their own minds
on how they will vote. Some will view it in raw political
terms.
Others will also weigh what's good for the nation. But an
undecided Democrat, who demanded anonymity, was blunt about the
partisan
impact for his party. "The best possible result for
Democrats, in terms of
winning back the House in November, is not
to have a vote," he said. "This
vote would make (re-election)
more difficult for marginal Democrats,
especially moderate,
junior Democrats in suburban areas who have
relationships with
both business and labor, and need the support of both."
But Barshefsky said that postponement of the vote is
not
cost-free. "Not only would the U.S. lose the benefits of the
agreement it negotiated to open China to the world, but every one
of our
competitors will eat our lunch in China because each will
have the full
benefits of the deal we
negotiated."
National
Journal correspondents Richard E. Cohen and
Alexis Simendinger contributed
to this report.
LOAD-DATE: March 29, 2000
