In New York, I'm Michelle Brier for Marketplace. The U.S. and China are talking trade this week in Washington. They are trying to negotiate a deal that would allow China to join the World Trade Organization after more than 13 years of wrangling. Senior Contributing Editor George Lewinski reports from Shanghai that the deal looks to be in the bag. In November, the 132 nations that belong to the WTO start a new round of rule-making to strengthen the world trading system.
China wants to be able to help make the new rules.
At a big business conference in Shanghai today, former U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said he was pretty certain Beijing and Washington would strike a deal. China made all sorts of market-opening concessions to the U.S. when its premier Zhu Rong Ji came to visit the States last April. But Bill Clinton didn't want to push it through Congress. Now, American business sources in Shanghai say they are absolutely confident that Congressional leaders, both Democrat and Republican, will be able to win approval. After all, it already sells just about anything it wants to in the American market.