Publisher's Synopsis
It is now ten years since Congress extended PNTR to China. PNTR, or normal trade relations, is another name for MFN, or most favored nation trade treatment. Without MFN, the average tariff on Chinese goods coming into our country would be over 40 percent. When you have MFN, your average tariff of your goods coming into the country is around three percent. So you can see this was an enormous gift to China when we made that permanent. Congress' vote was a precursor to allowing China to join the WTO, which it did in December of 2001. The purpose of today's hearing is not to second guess what Congress did ten years ago. I must say that Congress did that at the urging of the Clinton administration and at the urging of many of our major multinational corporations and financial firms. The purpose of today's hearing is to look at the arguments made in favor of China's WTO entry by its proponents and look at the results.
