The very way the issue has been posed is misleading and the end result each year has been a futile expenditure of hot air, followed by voting to grant China the same most favored nation status as many other countries. First of all, free trade is a mutual benefit, whether it is domestic or international.
International trade is neither a favor nor a contest.
Like all other voluntary transactions, international trade takes place only so long as both buyer and seller want it to. But, instead of concentrating on the millions of consumers, international trade policy is too often focused on the desires of producers, including the producers of technology that can enable China to more accurately aim nuclear missiles at American cities. It is not yet clear how many of our nuclear secrets were stolen and sent to China, but what we have sold to them is enough to qualify as one of the most reckless acts of a reckless administration. The question here is not whether it makes us feel good but whether it actually accomplishes anything, as far as helping the victims of human rights abuses. It makes great political theater but nobody seems to have any more rights in China afterwards than before.