Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: More false trade hopes

Sunday, May 21, 2000 | 8:47 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

So what effect will the congressional approval of permanent normal trade relations, or PNTR, with China have on the world? After much consideration, it's easy to conclude there will be little gained from the passage of PNTR.

We already have a great amount of trade with China, but at this time it's way out of balance with our country holding the shortest end of the stick. Last year China exported $82 billion of goods to the United States with only $13 billion of goods going the other way. In reality, China is our fourth-largest trading partner following behind only Canada, Mexico and Japan. So right now it appears that our markets are already open to China, but the same can't be said of their market treatment of U.S. goods.

Every year Congress votes to allow normal trade relations treatment for China. This has been going on since 1980 despite China's sad human-rights records and lack of open markets for our goods. Arguments that normal trade with China will encourage that country to become more democratic and less threatening to the peace of Asia are often used. By now, after 20 years, most Americans must realize the mistreatment of religious groups and threats to incinerate Taiwan demonstrate that being nice doesn't impress China's leaders. What we have done is given China a huge open market, which provides billions of dollars it has used to buy and make sophisticated offensive military weapons.

So who has been encouraging our annual approval of normal trade relations with China and now wants to make it permanent? The United States Chamber of Commerce, farmers, large international corporations, most big-city newspapers, and hundreds of lobbyists representing groups hoping to profit from PNTR approval.

How do Americans feel about this issue? A recent poll showed they are about evenly split. Joseph Kahn of the New York Times went to a Wal-Mart, with an American flag flying over it, in a Minneapolis suburb. In Wal-Mart he found a store loaded with goods made in China being eagerly bought by customers.

Kahn concluded, "If there is a big group of Americans who refuse to buy Chinese-made goods for political reasons, they probably are not Wal-Mart shoppers. Though the store drapes itself in Americana and uses bright shelf tags to advertise 'Made in the USA' products, the chain is an importing goliath."

So it's you and I who are also pushing for the approval of PNTR with China by plunking down cash for that country's products. Wal-Mart knows a good deal when its cash registers are clicking up sales of imported merchandise from China.

Wal-Mart didn't want to tell the Times writer what percentage of its goods are made in China. Kahn writes that, "From car stereos to steel-toed work boots, Wal-Mart is the single largest United States importer. About half of its imports come from China, according to a study of Customs Department documents conducted by the Citizens Trade Campaign, which is critical of the company."

It appears China already has a good deal going here in the U.S. Our political leaders believe that by approving PNTR with China, it -- under World Trade Organization rules -- will have to open markets to us for a more fair balance of trade. It doesn't take a historian to go back only eight years to find other trade agreements and memorandums between the U.S. and China being violated by them. This includes violations of using prison labor, market access, limitations of textile exports and protection of intellectual property rights.

So the approval of PNTR with China will promote democracy in China, advance peace in Asia and open large markets for our goods, thereby creating more good jobs for Americans. If you believe this line of promotion for PNTR and it does pass into law, get ready for a letdown because this isn't the way China or the real world works.