Posted on 11/18/2006 8:07:11 AM PST by radar101
During his trip in Vietnam on Friday, President George W. Bush vowed to put permanent normal trade relations with the country on the front burner when Congress returns next month. But he's getting resistance from San Francisco-based Gap Inc. and other major retailers. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has moved to block the trade bill, joined by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., where Nike Inc. officials share concerns of other California retailers about a provision in the measure they say will burden apparel vendors in the United States.
"We're still hopeful that it can be resolved," Feinstein spokesman Scott Gerber said Friday.
The bill is needed for U.S. firms to take advantage of low tariffs Vietnam will enact when it enters the World Trade Organization. And it is particularly significant for California, home to 42 percent of the nation's 988,000 Vietnamese. Los Angeles alone exports $331.7 million worth of goods to Vietnam each year and imports more than $2 billion annually.
"They are not in the league of, say, China, but they are a major player," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "Everybody views Vietnam as an attractive potential place in which to do business."
House GOP leaders tried to give the bill quick passage last week before Bush went to Vietnam. But it failed to get the needed two-thirds majority vote, and House leaders expect it to come for another vote in December.
"I believe it's going to happen," Bush told Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet at Hanoi's presidential palace.
Erik Autor, vice president of the National Retail Federation that represents Gap Inc., said the company is primarily concerned about a provision allowing the Commerce Department to investigate if it sees evidence of "dumping" - exporting a product to the U.S. at an unfairly low price.
The provision was inserted as a compromise between the Bush administration and Sens. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whose home-state textile industry leaders were pushing to keep quotas in the bill.
Autor called the possibility of random investigations - and potentially millions of dollars in retroactive bills for companies - "incredibly disruptive for trade."
He said the deal threw a wrench in his industry's strong support for permanent trade relations with Vietnam.
"It really distresses us that these backroom deals are being cut with the textile industry in ways that are going to undermine trade relations with Vietnam," he said.
And Kyser said now that Democrats are in control of the House and Senate, Bush can no longer be too sure of success on trade issues.
"The next two years we're going to have a lot of controversy with international trade," he predicted. Democrats, he said, "are not free-traders. They are going to be probably throwing bricks in the way of any additional trade bills."
Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, the only Southern California Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee that oversees trade regulations, said he favors moving forward with Vietnam trade measures.
But he acknowledged that Democrats plan to focus on human rights, environmental protections and international standards for intellectual property protections in upcoming trade measures.
Becerra voted against the bill because those issues were not addressed and because, he said, he was concerned that Republicans were trying to rush through a controversial piece of legislation.
"It is important to engage Vietnam, and I think they've made very clear signs of wanting to become part of the international community," Becerra said.
December 7, 2005 - Fenwick & West partner Sergio Garcia was one of several Bay Area business leaders who traveled with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome and Senator Diane Feinstein on a trade visit to Shanghai, San Francisco’s sister city in China.
"There are over 100 drugs in China's pipeline in development ... and there's a lot of things we don't know about what kind of drugs are being developed there,'' said Garcia, who specializes in life sciences and legal issues. "The USCF-Peking University agreement is a key on unlocking information between us.''
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/22/130419.shtml
Saturday, April 22, 2006 1:00 p.m. EDT Dianne Feinstein: U.S. Won't Defend Taiwan In a sharp break with official U.S. policy towards the two Chinas, Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced on Thursday that America is under no obligation to defend Taiwan if the tiny island democracy is attacked by Communist China.
"It is important to point out a common misconception," Feinstein told a gathering of Chinese-American business leaders in San Francisco, in quotes picked up by the San Jose Mercury News.
"Nowhere does the [Taiwan Relations Act] explicitly require the U.S. to go to war with the mainland over Taiwan," she insisted.
Passed by Congress in 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act is considered to be the foundation of U.S.-Taiwan relations, with supporters arguing that it makes the United States legally bound to defend the island.
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/chicna.htm
Another outspoken China-propagandist in the Senate is Dianne Feinstein. To her colleagues and Senate staffers she is known for her long, haranguing monologues, explaining her close ties with Jiang Zemin dating from the days she was mayor of San Francisco and the rosy perspective for U.S.-China relations, and a strong support for China's MFN-status. In doing this, she totally whitewashes China's repression in Tibet and the lack of human rights in China itself, as well as China's military threats and missiles campaigns against a free and democratic Taiwan.
CONCLUSION: She is running interference for China
The Long Beach Naval Station caper
On 8 March 1997, Associated Press / Dow Jones News Service reported in an investigative article that the historic Naval Base at Long Beach, California was about to be leased to the Chinese government-controlled shipping company COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Co.) for ten years at US$ 14.5 million a year.
The deal is amazing, because the city of Long Beach is going to pay some $200 million to prepare the base, and also contribute $ 200,000 for the Chinese shipping company's moving costs. According to the article, the base is valued by the City at $65 million, but preservationist groups estimate its value at some $ 300 million.
The article detailed how Mr. Clinton's White House in 1995 and 1996 pushed to turn the Navy Base over to the Chinese firm. One of the key figures in the deal was Johnny Chung, a shady Chinese-American businessman, who last year gave $366,000 to the Democratic National Committee. The money was later returned on suspicion it illegally came from foreign sources. Last year, Chung brought six Chinese officials to the White House to watch Clinton make his weekly radio address. One of the six was an advisor to Cosco.
The AP / Dow Jones report details how COSCO was involved in a number of shady activities, including the scheme to smuggle some 2,000 AK-47 rifles into the United States, with the purpose of selling them to streetgangs in Los Angeles and San Francisco (see our Taiwan Communiqué no. 71, June 1996, pp. 18-19).
In 1993, a COSCO ship was stopped by U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf after U.S. intelligence warned it might be carrying chemical weapons materials.
During the past year, COSCO ship were repeatedly detained for violating international safety regulations, and the US Coast Guard has put the company on a target list of shippers to monitor. It was also a COSCO ship which hit a crowded boardwalk in New Orleans in December 1996, injuring 116 people.
The New York Times ("Senators ask for inquiry on leasing of California base to Chinese", 13 March 1997) quoted U.S. federal officials as saying that COSCO ships are frequently the subject of surveillance, not only because of the weapons incident last year, but also because of concerns that China is evading export quotas on textiles and that its ships have been used to bring "all kinds of contraband" into the US.
According to the Wall Street Journal ("Blum Associate's link to China hinders plan to convert base", WSJ, 26 March 1997) Mr. Peter Kwok, a director of Dianne Feinstein husband's Newbridge Capital investment company (see above), is an advisor to COSCO's Hong Kong operation. On 20 March 1997, several members of Congress, led by California Congressmen Duncan Hunter, Cunningham and Bono introduced legislation in the US House of Representatives prohibiting the transfer of the Long Beach Naval Station to foreign-owned shipping companies.
Conclusion...Your letters to your political representatives are usless unless they contain BIG BIG Bucks!
Of course retailers would like to pay nothing for the goods they put on their shelves.
Of course it would be "budensome" to them if it were found that they were, indeed, stocking the shelves with goods bought at below cost and then had to pay market value plus penalties for doing so.
It is stupid to not support the anti dumping laws, but this is also a sign that states like CA and OR can come into play in a general election if the dems allow the Lou Dobbs of the world to take over trade law.
Is this opposition because both the GAP and Nike have their products manufactured in Viet Nam and they don't want the costs of that production "investigated?"
Made me wonder too.
I know Nike has products made in Viet Nam, but I don't know about the GAP.
He otta stick to UFO's.
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