News-Info-Alerts

Re: VN Trade Repeal Rejected

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: July 23, 2002

"WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelming rejected on Tuesday legislation to repeal normal trade relations with Vietnam, allowing the former war enemy to continue selling its goods in the United States at the same low tariffs enjoyed by most countries.

The vote, which came less than a year after Congress approved a historic trade agreement with Vietnam, followed President George W. Bush's decision in June again to waive Cold War-era restrictions on trade between the two countries.

The House voted 338-91 to reject an effort by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, to overturn Bush's decision. The Senate is not expected to consider legislation aimed at repealing normal trade ties with Vietnam.



Rohrabacher said Vietnam has a poor human rights record and has not done enough to help the United States recover the remains of Americans still missing from the Vietnam War.

The White House, in a statement, said that continued U.S. engagement with Vietnam provided the best hope of improving Hanoi's human rights record and "the fullest possible accounting of POW/MIAs (prisoners of war and those missing in action) from the Vietnam War."

Calling Vietnam's communist regime a "gang of thugs," Rohrabacher said normal trade status for Vietnam allows U.S. businesses to use taxpayer funds, in the form of Export-Import Bank financial backing, to do business more easily in Vietnam.

"Businessmen for the United States will be subsidized by the American taxpayer in building factories, manufacturing units in Vietnam in order to exploit their slave labor, their labor that isn't permitted to join a union, isn't permitted to quit their jobs," Rohrabacher said during floor debate.

Former President Bill Clinton in 1998 first waived so-called "Jackson-Vanik" provisions linking normal trade relations with progress on free emigration. In each year since, the House has upheld the White House's decision by larger margins, with last year's vote 332-91.

Last fall, Congress approved a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam. The pact entered into force in December, nearly 27 years after the end of the war.

Under the agreement, the Southeast Asian country of 78 million pledged to open its markets to more U.S. goods and services and strengthen its intellectual property and investment protection regimes in exchange for renewal of normal trade relations with the United States on an annual basis.

The United States will not grant "permanent" normal trade relations to Vietnam until the two countries have negotiated a second agreement on the terms of Hanoi's entry into the World Trade Organization, which is still some time away.

U.S. TRADE TO VIETNAM GAINS

In testimony last week before the House Ways and Means Committee's subcommittee on trade, Bush administration officials said the bilateral trade agreement helped boost U.S. exports to Vietnam by 27.5 percent during the first four months of 2002, compared to a drop of 15 percent for overall destinations in Asia.

But on the same day as that hearing, the Commerce Department also initiated an anti-dumping investigation of "certain frozen fish fillets" from Vietnam at the request of the Catfish Farmers of America, an industry group.

U.S. catfish farmers have been alarmed by an increase in imports from Vietnam over the past several years, which they allege are being sold at less-than-fair value.

In 1999, the United States imported frozen "basa" or "tra" catfish fillets valued at more than $4 million. By last year, that tally had risen to $21.51 million.

The U.S. International Trade Commission will vote by Aug. 12 on whether the fish imports from Vietnam have materially injured or threaten to materially injure U.S. catfish producers. A vote that injury has occurred would set the stage for the Commerce Department to set preliminary anti-dumping margins on the frozen fish fillets.

©2002 Reuters Limited"