Tom Cotton Calls for U.S. to Revoke China’s Permanent Most Favored Nation Status, a Decision Biden Supported

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Monday announced new legislation calling for the United States to revoke permanent most-favored-nation (MFN) status for China — a designation Joe Biden supported as a senator — and approve it on a yearly basis instead.

Cotton said the U.S.’s decision 20 years ago to give China permanent special trade privileges, or MFN status “supercharged the loss of American manufacturing jobs.”

Cotton said in an interview on Fox & Friends on Monday morning:

This week is the 20th anniversary of Joe Biden voting to give permanent Most Favored Nation Status to China. Just think about that — Most Favored Nation status to a Communist country. And over the last 20 years, that decision has supercharged the lost of American manufacturing jobs.

And Joe Biden just defended it last week. That’s why I’m introducing legislation this week that would repeal permanent Most Favored Nation status and require the president and the Congress to decide on it annually.

Cotton said having Congress and the administration vote on it every year would give the U.S. the ability to punish China if it does something that goes against the U.S.’s interests.

“Let’s say China shoots missiles at our ships in the Western Pacific or cracks down on Hong Kong. Then we would be able to say each year, we are not going to renew Most Favored Nation status for China,” he said.

Cotton added, “Joe Biden supported it 20 years ago, Joe Biden supports it now. Joe Biden will continue to send our jobs to China if he’s the president.”

The revocation of MFN for China would restore the U.S.-China trade relationship back to what it was before 2000, when it was extended on a yearly basis.

Cotton’s bill comes as Biden has claimed he would crack down on Chinese made goods and make sure “everyone is playing by the same Made in America rules.”

However, as Breitbart News recently reported, when Biden was vice president for eight years, he ignored opportunities to help American manufacturers.

American companies have invested billions of dollars in China since 2001, which helped to build Chinese factories and contributed to the siphoning away of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

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