Bill Introduced to Impose 100% Tariffs on Hundreds of Chinese Products, End PNTR

Three Republican senators reintroduced a bill to end permanent normal trade relations with China, and to set tariff rates of at least 35% for Chinese goods, if the Column 2 tariffs are not that high, as well as 100% tariffs on 38 pages of Harmonize Tariff Schedule lines enumerated in the bill.

Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the bill.

The bill authorizes the administration to set tariff rate quotas for imports if China is the sole source of those goods.

Imports from China have been subject to Column 1 tariffs since 1980, but that trading status was made permanent in 2001.

The bill's text said: "Since the entry of the People’s Republic of China into the WTO, the United States has lost tens of thousands of factories, millions of manufacturing jobs, and trillions of dollars of intellectual property. The United States now suffers chronic annual trade deficits that exceed $1,000,000,000,000, primarily driven by the predatory trade practices of the People’s Republic of China."

Cotton said that if the bill becomes law, it would end Chinese Communists' leverage over the U.S. economy. Rubio said offering PNTR to China "was one of the most catastrophic decisions that our country has ever made," and called reversing that decision a "no-brainer."

The bill also gives the president the authority to ban imports from China if they are a threat to national security, if the article is produced by violating human rights, or its sale constitutes an unfair trade practice.