The bill would extend permanent normal trade relations to China, guaranteeing China the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets that nearly every other country in the world has. For the past 20 years, China has received this benefit, but only after an annual congressional vote, which gave opponents a platform to attack China's record on a host of issues from human rights to religious freedom. In return for U.S. support for China's bid to join the World Trade Organization, China has offered to lower high trade barriers that American manufacturers and farmers have complained are costing them billions of dollars in lost sales annually. American corporations have spent millions of dollars lobbying on behalf of the China trade bill but they faced determined opposition from organized labor, which believes normalizing trade relations will result in the movement of more high-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs to China. In a last-ditch effort to sidetrack the legislation, opponents were considering offering an amendment to tie the trade benefits to Taiwan's security as a way to gain conservative GOP votes.
Lets Make a Deal'' to offer inducements to wavering lawmakers.
Among those announcing in favor of the proposal Tuesday was Rep. Martin Frost, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, and four other members of the Texas delegation. Frost said he would vote yes after the administration provided assurances of financial support being sought by Northrop Grumman to keep its defense plant in Grand Prairie, Texas. In an effort to gain support from black and Hispanic Democrats representing poor districts, the administration reached an agreement with Republicans on a package of tax breaks aimed at helping distressed rural and urban areas. R-Ill., announced the deal at the White House on Tuesday. Hoping to pick up votes of lawmakers from tobacco states, the administration also announced that China had agreed to drop an 11-year ban on the importation of U.S. tobacco.