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China bill needs votes
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May 24, 2000: 12:26 p.m. ET
U.S. trade representative says PNTR bill still needs more votes to pass
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - A bill that would grant China permanent normal trade relations with the United States still needs a few more votes to pass in the U.S. House of Representatives, a top Clinton administration official said Wednesday.
"We're working our way toward success, but we're not quite there yet," said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, who brokered the pact to upgrade ties with China last fall.
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U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky talks with CNNfn about PNTR bill.
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"We're working very, very hard," she said, speaking to CNNfn's "In the Money" from Capitol Hill, where she and Commerce Secretary William Daley were pressing undecided legislators in an eleventh-hour appeal to approve the agreement.
The House Tuesday night began debating the fiercely contested measure, which would reduce China's tariffs on U.S. imports, open the country to more overseas investment and ease Beijing's entry into the World Trade Organization. The bill pits business lobbyists and the Clinton administration against organized labor; a core Democratic constituency that says the legislation threatens U.S. jobs and does not adequately address human rights abuses in China.
The House is expected to vote on the bill later Wednesday. The bill needs 218 votes to pass. Some proponents in Congress have said they have assurances from at least that many House members to approve the bill, but opponents also say they believe they can rally enough votes to defeat the measure.
 The legislation is expected to glide through the Senate next month.
Critics of the legislation say that China has a history of flouting international trade pacts. But Barshefsky argued that China's record of enforcing such agreements is sound.
"China's record of compliance with trade agreements is not at all as characterized by those who oppose this legislation," she said. "China has been a good actor on the intellectual property rights scene because of the agreements that we have negotiated ... Their textile shipments to the U.S. have been reduced, also because of agreements we have negotiated, with which China has complied."
The bill is in the best interests of the United States, opening the huge Chinese market to American businesses, she said.
"This is a series of one-way concessions made by China," she said. "The United States doesn't touch its trade regime at all. We don't change a tariff -- not one percentage point." 
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