22 September 1999Chinese Expected to Resume WTO Discussions in Washington
(Barshefsky presses for Africa, CBI trade bills) (440) By Bruce Odessey USIA Staff Writer Washington -- A Chinese team is expected to visit Washington soon to resume negotiations with the United States over China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky says. Barshefsky told reporters September 22 that she has had no formal response yet on the U.S. invitation. "My preliminary understanding is that they will come, probably next week," she said, however. Since the two sides resumed their WTO discussions after nearly five months of tense relations, she said, they have not yet addressed substantive issues. "The talks up to now have been, frankly, more sort of the ice breaker type than anything," Barshefsky said. Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott told reporters September 14 he doubted U.S.-China negotiations would conclude in time for the Senate to vote during its current session on granting permanent normal trade relations (NTR) with China as WTO accession would require -- in effect, approving or rejecting any U.S.-China deal. Congress's session will likely end in late October or November. Likewise, Lott doubted the Senate would vote on overturning President Clinton's June decision extending NTR treatment to China for another year. NTR was formerly called most-favored nation (MFN) treatment. The House of Representatives defeated a motion to overturn Clinton. Lott did say he has scheduled time in October for the Senate to consider trade bills that would expand preferential tariff treatment for imports from sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean and would reauthorize the expired Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program of preferential tariffs for developing countries. The House already passed an Africa trade bill, called the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. The Senate Finance Committee has approved a less-generous version of the Africa bill in a package with a bill extending to Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) countries the same tariff treatment given to Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Supporters of the package have said they expect to have the 60 votes needed to defeat any filibuster of the package -- senators from some textile-producing states strongly oppose the Africa bill. The package also contains GSP extension and training assistance for workers who lose their jobs because of imports. If the Senate did pass the trade legislation package, then leaders could push for a House-Senate conference to produce a compromise version for final House and Senate votes. "We want Congress to act expeditiously on the Africa and the CBI bills," Barshefsky said. "We'd like to move to conference as soon as possible."
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