It will give our farmers, businesses and workers unprecedented access to China's 1.2 billion consumers. In services, China will allow foreign firms to provide services like telecommunications, filmed entertainment, insurance, banking, securities, engineering, law, accounting, construction, transportation, import and export trade, wholesale and retail distribution, and repair and maintenance. If we do not grant permanent NTR to China, we would handicap our farmers, workers, and businesses by allowing our Asian and European competitors to secure the market-opening concessions that result from China's WTO membership while denying them to Americans. We must not let that happen. The concessions made by China are important because China's markets, already vast, represent enormous potential for American workers, farmers, factories, and services firms.
China is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for American industrial goods and services.
The U.S.-China bilateral agreement deals with unique features of the Chinese economy. And it protects Americans from import surges from China and from unfair trade practices like dumping. China's commitments are specific, measurable, and enforceable through our trade laws as well as through WTO dispute-settlement procedures. Bringing China into the WTO enhances our ability to ensure the agreement is enforced, by supplementing the bilateral negotiations on which we now rely with the more substantial force of international pressure. The benefits of Chinese membership in the WTO go far beyond these commercial gains, however.