By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)
Several Republican senators on Friday filed a bill to end China’s Permanent Normal Trade Status (PNTR), citing concerns about American job losses and human rights abuses overseas.
The China Trade Relations Act, which would strip China of its PNTR, US Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Ted Budd, RN.C., and JD Vance, R-. Ohio
According to the bill’s language, if passed, it would revert China’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to its pre-2001 designation, requiring the president to renew the status each year with congressional approval. The bill also authorizes Congress to override a presidential extension of MFN status by passing a joint resolution of disapproval.
It expands the list of human-rights and trade abuses under the Jackson-Vanick Amendment, which makes China completely ineligible for MFN status, except for a presidential waiver.
According to the bill, such abuses would disqualify China from MFN status, absent a presidential waiver, including: using or providing for the use of slave labor; operating “vocational training and education centers” or concentration camps where people are held against their will; performing or ordering forced abortion or sterilization procedures; harvesting the organs of prisoners without their consent; hindering and preventing the free exercise of religion; intimidate or harass Chinese nationals who do not live in China; and engaging in systematic economic espionage against the United States, including intellectual property theft.
RELATED: Biden’s Links to Chinese Money Under Scrutiny
“For twenty years, Communist China has had permanent most-favored-nation status, which has supercharged the loss of American manufacturing jobs. China has never deserved this privilege, and China certainly doesn’t deserve it today. It is the Chinese Communists who are protecting American jobs and their forced labor camps and rampant human rights abuses. It is time to hold the party accountable.
Support conservative voices!
Sign up to receive the latest Political news, insight and commentary delivered straight to your inbox.
“The CCP cares about one thing: weakening America,” Scott said. “There is no reason for the United States to aid a communist government’s business operations through preferential treatment and ‘most-favored-nation’ status. It is completely absurd when they are working against us. It is time to put America’s interests first, not the CCP’s, and reverse this archaic law.
Scott, who voted against the CHIPS Act, expressed concern about subsidizing semiconductor production in China. He has called on the president to restore the top drug task force to a cabinet-level position to address the fentanyl crisis. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has called on the president to reinstate the post and hold China accountable for the fentanyl crisis.
“The Chinese Communist Party is not America’s friend, and it is not a force for good in the world,” Budd said. “From human rights violations to the theft of US jobs and intellectual property, the CCP must be held accountable.” Sen. Vance also pointed to job losses in Ohio as a result of MFN being granted to China two decades ago.
While job losses at home and human rights abuses overseas are important issues to address, the bill leaves out one of the most dire direct consequences of the unconventional warfare being waged against Americans every day: the illegal fentanyl and opioid crisis with direct ties to China, said international and national security law expert and Navy JAG attorney Jonathan Hullihan. told Center Square.
They argue that the Jackson-Vanick Amendment, or any other applicable laws, could be amended to include a requirement that China cease the manufacture and shipment of fentanyl precursors to Mexico. He points to the findings of the 2020 Countering Synthetic Opioid Trafficking Report, co-chaired by Cotton Cotton, which says China is a major supplier of synthetic opioids to the US.
Related: Taiwan Invasion War Game Shows Devastating Potential Outcomes for US
Fentanyl precursors are produced and shipped from China to Mexican ports, where Mexican cartels manufacture fake prescription pills to look real and lace them and other drugs with fentanyl. Mexican cartels, their operatives and gang affiliates then smuggle illegal drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border, fueling the opioid crisis, border agents told The Center Square.
“Fentanyl remains the deadliest drug threat facing this country,” the DEA warns, and according to federal data, children under 14 are dying from fentanyl poisoning at a faster rate than any other age group in the US. Fentanyl poisoning remains the number one killer of American adults aged 18-45.
“Eliminating China’s MFN is a long-term, brilliant move,” Hullihan told The Center Square. “But even more impactful is providing additional regulations that would require China to stop the production and shipment of fentanyl precursors to Mexico if China wants to regain MFN status. This would have a direct impact on the fentanyl crisis by cutting off supply to the cartels. The US has a history of telling China to crack down on fentanyl distribution, but that has not been effective.
“Under the Trump administration, diplomatic tools were used. Since then, the fentanyl crisis has escalated. More people have died from fentanyl poisoning in the last 20 years than our service members have in wars overseas. Our children, family members, friends and neighbors are in their homes, on college campuses, in schools, on playgrounds — in America. Dying due to poison from China Stripping China of MFN and making it conditional on drying up the cartels’ fentanyl supply would save American lives.
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.