Nancy Pelosi: “At the beginning of June the President asked for a special waiver in order to grant most-favored-nation status to China.…”

“At the beginning of June the President asked for a special waiver in order to grant most-favored-nation status to China. The House will soon be taking up this vote. In the past, since the Tiananmen Square massacre, I have worked with our colleagues to try to shape a compromise measure. The actions on the part of the Chinese Government in terms of violation of trade proliferation and human rights have been so extreme that this year I am forced to vote no on MFN for China. In terms of trade, the Chinese want favorable trade treatment for their products coming into the United States while having huge barriers to United States products going to China, to the tune of one-third of their exports coming to the United States and only 2 percent of United States exports being allowed into China. In terms of proliferation, the Chinese are proliferating chemical, nuclear, and missile technologies to unsafe guarded countries like Iran and Pakistan, and all this money they earn from their missile sales and trade consolidates their power to allow them to continue to repress their people. Some will say that economic reform will lead to political reform. This has not been the case, even according to the Clinton administration's own country report.”