AP News Wire Lawyers with the Clinton administration say preliminary construction work on a new X-band radar system on Shemya Island would not violate a 1972 arms control treaty. The rails are scheduled to be laid in 2002, and the actual missile interceptor system is expected to be based in Interior Alaska. President Clinton has not yet accepted his lawyers' analysis. He could then leave it to the next president to decide on the more advanced construction work that would breach the treaty. At the same time, the Senate has begun debating normalizing trade with China.
Some trade negotiations are already underway.
A trade delegation from China met in Fairbanks this week to discuss some of Alaska's agricultural products. This stack of potatoes is a familiar sight in local stores, but the US Department of Agriculture wants to make them just as common in stores in China. This week negotiations are being held to find ways to get the Alaska Grown potatoes into a country with more than a billion consumers. There is no way to know how much money would be generated through agricultural trade with China. First there has to be markets, and then producers have to grow enough products to sell.