Speaking of Washington DC, former Secretary of State George Shultz observed, “Nothing is ever settled in this town.” As if to give form to this observation, several members of Congress have introduced legislation revoking China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), previously called Most Favored Nation (MFN). Congress granted China PNTR status in 2000, guaranteeing that Chinese goods enter the United States, China’s largest export market, at low tariff rates.
Prior to China being granted PNTR, China’s tariff status had to be renewed every year, a process that touched off months of acrimonious debate. In 1990, one year after the killings in Tiananmen Square, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine) introduced conditions that would apply to annual renewal — conditions like freeing all political prisoners and halting the export of products made with prison labor — that most observers recognized would not be fulfilled. At the same time as the Mitchell-Pelosi legislation was put forward, Congressman Gerald Solomon (R-New York) introduced a resolution of disapproval to immediately terminate China’s MFN.
Both chambers of Congress passed the bills, but President George H. W. Bush vetoed them; his veto was narrowly sustained in the Senate. Every year thereafter, this kabuki show was repeated: the president would issue a waiver to the free emigration conditions of the Jackson–Vanik amendment, Congress would vote it down, the president would veto, and finally Congress would fail to override the veto.
Since both China and the United States are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United States is obligated to grant China the most favorable tariffs that it grants to other WTO members. An exception can be made for national security reasons. (A national security exception was used to revoke Russia’s and Belarus’s NTR/MFN in 2022.) Many in Washington, in both the executive branch and Congress, consider China to be the most serious national security threat facing the United States In addition to members of Congress, former president Donald Trump has voiced support for revoking China’s tariff status as has Florida governor Ron DeSantis
