"According to Sec. of Commerce Bill Daley, PMFN isn't a legal necessity"
-- Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Website, February 10, 2000.

"...the Administration admits that this [Permanent Normal Trade Relations] is not legally necessary for satisfying international trade agreements..."
International Campaign for Tibet Website, February 15, 2000.

The Facts

• "As Congress begins to consider China's entry into the WTO, I want to clearly reaffirm the need to grant permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China in order to obtain the full market-opening benefits negotiated last fall. Opponents of PNTR have tried to confuse the issue by falsely claiming that some form of periodic review of NTR status would be consistent with our WTO obligations. That is simply not the case."
  --Secretary of Commerce William Daley, February 15, 2000
• "The United States must grant China permanent NTR or risk losing the full benefits of the agreement we negotiated... if Congress were to refuse to grant permanent NTR, our Asian and European competitors will reap these benefits but American farmers and businesses may well be left behind." --President Bill Clinton, in a letter to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, January 24, 2000
• "...failure to grant China permanent normal trade relations will put American farmers and factories at a vast disadvantage with respect to Europe and Japan and hurt our ability to enforce China's commitments in the WTO." -- Vice President Al Gore, quoted by the Associated Press, January 5, 2000
• "If we do not grant permanent NTR, we will risk losing the market access benefits of the agreement, and the right to enforce them through the WTO." -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 8, 2000
• "But we have one obligation: we must grant China permanent NTR or risk losing the full benefits of the agreement we negotiated, including special import protections, and rights to enforce China's commitments through WTO dispute settlement." --U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, to the National Conference of State Legislators, February 4, 2000
• "Congress must answer a simple question: will it grant China permanent Normal Trade Relations status, which is the same arrangement we have given to 132 of the other 134 countries in the WTO. Doing so is necessary to guarantee the full market-opening benefits of the agreement we negotiated with China." --Samuel R. Berger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Woodrow Wilson International Center, February 2, 2000