Decades of U.S. Leaders Unite for China Trade

The White House East Room was filled, observed Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, with people who “don’t agree on many issues.” To Henry A. Kissinger, who held Albright’s job four administrations ago, they were people who “cannot even be charitably . . . described as colleagues.”

Consider the cast: President Clinton and two now-quite-amicable predecessors, Jimmy Carter and Gerald R. Ford. (George Bush said that a scheduling conflict kept him away.) Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore. Alexander M. Haig, secretary of State to Ronald Reagan. Anthony Lake, national security advisor to Clinton. Mickey Kantor, a former top Clinton administration official who helped get his boss elected. And Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security advisor who endorsed George Bush in 1988.

And there in the front row was Jesse Ventura, ex-Navy SEAL, ex-wrestler and now governor of Minnesota.

The melange of political views and approaches they represented took a back seat Tuesday morning to their raw star power--”through the lives of the people in this room,” said Clinton, “the last 50 years of America has unfolded”--and to their unanimity of support for Clinton’s campaign to give China permanent benefits of normal trade relations with the United States.

Clinton, in some of his most pointed remarks yet on the issue, tried to define the grumbling that the China trade legislation has brought bubbling up from across the political spectrum as Congress nears a vote on the measure.

“This agreement has become like flypaper for the accumulated frustrations people have about things in the world that they don’t like very much or that are spinning beyond their control or that they feel will have an uncertain result,” Clinton said. “And that’s the world we’re living in.”

But he added: “If we vote for this, 10 years from now we will wonder why it was a hard fight. And if the Congress votes against it, they’ll be kicking themselves in the rear 10 years from now because America will be paying the price, and I believe the price will start to be paid not 10 years from now, not even 10 months from now, but immediately.”

Gore, for one, was wowed.

“I just think that a gathering like this ought to have such tremendous weight in the way people analyze issues,” he said.

Each of the speakers offered a point to counter the arguments being made by opponents of the trade legislation.

The measure must be approved by a majority of both the House and Senate. Sufficient support in the Senate is not in doubt, but, with a House vote expected during the week of May 22, the outcome there remains uncertain.

Opponents have argued that granting China permanent normal trade privileges would lessen the pressure Washington could apply on Beijing to respect human and labor rights, protect the environment and adhere to weapon control programs.

But proponents say that failure to approve the measure would hurt U.S. economic and security interests because, with less commercial engagement with China, Washington’s leverage would be weakened. Meanwhile, China’s tariffs would keep American products, but not those of Japan and Europe, out of its growing market.

“A negative vote,” Ford said, “would be catastrophic, disastrous to American agriculture, in electronics, telecommunications, autos and countless other products and services.”

Carter cited progress China has made in human rights, as well as its failings.

“China still has not measured up to the human rights and democracy standards and labor standards of America,” he said. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that a negative vote on this issue in the Congress will be a serious setback and impediment for the further democratization, freedom and human rights in China. That should be the major consideration for the Congress and the nation.”

“So,” Clinton asked rhetorically, “why are we having this debate? Because people are anxiety-ridden about the forces of globalization or they’re frustrated over the human rights record of China or they don’t like all the procedures of the [World Trade Organization].

“Every one of you gets up every morning and there’s something you don’t like. That doesn’t mean you should be against this agreement.”