The Restoring Trade Fairness Act aims to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from taking advantage of the United States and would level the playing field for American workers and its allies, according to bill sponsor U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI).
H.R. 10127 would revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), a status Congress voted to extend in 2000 hoping that the CCP would liberalize and adopt fair trading practices as it prepared to enter the World Trade Organization.
However, with PNTR status, the Chinese state-run economy has received preferential tariff treatment under U.S. law that has permitted a mass influx of products made in the communist nation.
Rep. Moolenaar says the gamble has failed and in the two decades since, the U.S. manufacturing industry has been depleted, American firms have had their intellectual property pillaged by CCP economic coercion, and the CCP has grown to be America’s foremost adversary.
“At the same time, the CCP has taken advantage of our markets and betrayed the hopes of freedom and fair competition that were expected when its authoritarian regime was granted permanent normal trade relations more than 20 years ago,” said Rep. Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP.
Last year, he said the bipartisan Select Committee overwhelmingly agreed that the U.S. must reset its economic relationship with China.
“Today, building on tariffs from the Trump and Biden administrations, the Restoring Trade Fairness Act will strip China of its permanent normal trade relations with the U.S., protect our national security, support supply chain resilience, and return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. and our allies,” the lawmaker said. “This policy levels the playing field and helps the American people win this strategic competition with the CCP.”
If enacted, H.R. 10127 would end PNTR for China and there would be no annual congressional vote for recertification, according to the text of the bill.
Additionally, the bill would codify tariffs in statute and create a new tariff column for China that would set a minimum 35-percent tariff for non-strategic goods and a minimum 100-percent tariff for all strategic goods, the text says.
The new tariff column rates would be phased-in over five years with 10 percent of the tariff increase implemented in year one, 25 percent of the increase implemented in year two, 50 percent of the increase implemented in year four, and 100 percent of the increase implemented in year five.
Among other provisions, the bill would provide tariff revenue to U.S. farmers and manufacturers injured by possible Chinese retaliation, and would require that additional revenue be used to purchase munitions vital to deterring CCP aggression in the Pacific, states the text.
American Compass, the Coalition for a Prosperous America, America2100, and the American Medical Manufacturers Association support the measure, which is companion legislation to legislation introduced earlier this year by U.S. Senate Republicans.