A Times Editorial

Advantages of trade

Free trade with China would bring profits to America's industries, including Florida's citrus,phosphate and high-tech businesses.

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 16, 2000

Any legislation as sweeping as the measure that would normalize U.S. trade relations with China creates losers as well as winners. However, the China trade legislation would, on balance, bring huge advantages to the U.S. economy. The agreement is predicated on long-sought concessions from China that will help dozens of American industries, including many close to home. Citrus, phosphate and high-tech businesses based in Florida would be among those profiting from sharply lowered tariffs and other concessions designed to open China's massive market to American goods and services. And Florida has very few of the less competitive industries that feel threatened by broader trade with China.

Based purely on economics, Florida's congressional delegation has every reason to support the China trade bill. Despite that, several Florida members -- including Reps. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Rocks Beach, Michael Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor and Karen Thurman, D-Dunnellon -- are still listed as undecided.

For Democrats such as Thurman, concerns about the agreement have more to do with domestic politics than global economics. Organized labor is doing everything in its power -- including threatening Democratic lawmakers with whom it normally is friendly -- to defeat the measure. Many of labor's concerns about the effects of globalization on the most vulnerable U.S. industries and workers are warranted, but they are largely irrelevant to the China trade bill. In the absence of an agreement, our import of cheap Chinese products already threatens some U.S. industries and creates a chronic balance-of-payments deficit with China. The lowering of historic Chinese trade barriers at least would give U.S. businesses a chance to balance the ledger.

For Republicans such as Bilirakis and Young, another kind of politics is involved. Bilirakis says he understands the economic benefits of the trade pact but worries that the agreement would give Beijing greater access to U.S. military secrets. That, too, is a misplaced concern. Selling more oranges and autos to China won't compromise American security, and the agreement would not supersede Washington's ability to control the transfer of satellite technology and other hardware China could divert to military ends.

The more valid concern for Bilirakis and many other members of both parties is the question of how the trade agreement would affect China's human rights record. Many sincere critics of China's Communist government oppose the pact because they say it would unjustly reward repressive behavior. However, opening China to the world offers the best hope for breaking the grip of Beijing's aging tyrants. China's growing international economy already has produced thriving pockets of free enterprise and democratic reform that the central government struggles to control. Bringing China fully into the World Trade Organization would bolster those new capitalists, while still leaving our government free to monitor and punish any future human-rights abuses.

In return for the broad trade concessions China has agreed to, our government promises only to support China's WTO membership and to make permanent the trade status we routinely have granted China on a yearly basis. And while freer trade does not automatically lead to freer people, we know that the isolation of China has only made Beijing a more unpredictable and repressive counterpart. The legislation deserves to be approved, and members of Florida's congressional delegation have particular reason to support it.

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