2. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Trade with China supports more than 200,000 directly related manufacturing and service-sector jobs in the United States; add Hong Kong and the number reaches 400,000. Big companies get the headlines, but smaller firms across the United States are seeking -- and gaining -- business opportunities in China every day. And US imports from China help generate employment in the United States in transportation, distribution, retail, financial services, and other sectors.

3. We Close Our Door, They Close Theirs: We Sell Less, Our Competitors Sell More. We should not hand our global markets to our competitors. If we close the US market to China, China will close its market to the United States. The United States sells high-quality industrial and agricultural products to China. But for nearly every item we offer, there is a supplier in Europe or Asia waits to pick up the opportunities we discard.

4. No New Taxes. Tariffs are taxes. Revoking NTR would raise import taxes tenfold on billions of dollars of imports from China. The cost of higher tariffs will be borne by Americans of every income level, leaving less money to spend on other products made in the United States and costing jobs in the US economy.

5. Trade Means Change in China. China’s economic engagement with the United States has been a key part of China’s turn toward the market economy and away from self-isolation since 1978. The past 20 years have brought massive social reform and economic advancement for China’s people. Cutting US economic ties with China would turn the clock back in China itself, strengthening the hands of repressive political interests linked to economic nationalism within the PRC.

6. US Business Contributes to Progressive Change in China. American firms bring to China ideas, work styles, management methods, adherence to market economics, commitment to the free flow of information, dedication to environmental responsibility and worker safety, and other American corporate attributes that remain unfamiliar in China. Their influence over China’s transformation is modest, but real. That influence would not survive the elimination of NTR.

7. American Values. Policies have consequences. Economic retribution aimed at unpalatable Chinese domestic practices will cut into American jobs and slice at market-oriented Chinese entrepreneurs -- without eliminating the targeted abuses in Chinese society. Responsible American voices, including those in the Christian evangelical community, understand that crippling US-China economic ties will be counterproductive, endangering those very social elements within China that are most compatible with American’s ethical norms.

8. Without NTR-based trade, productive relations with China in other fields would wither. Closing US markets by canceling NTR would shatter chances for productive US-China cooperation across the board, to the detriment of many US non-trade interests. US-China cooperation on issues ranging from regional security concerns to non-proliferation questions and environmental problems, to name a few, cannot be expected to continue normally if the economic basis of US-China relations is eliminated by US action.

9. Hong Kong Needs NTR. Hong Kong, a free-market, rule of law-based service center for Pacific Rim trade and investment, has continued to operate as a solid international trade partner since the reversion of sovereignty in 1997. No one in Hong Kong, from democrat Martin Lee to Chief Executive C. H. Tung, wants the United States to tamper with normal US-China trade relations. The US should not pull the economic plug on the world’s freest economy.

10. Maintaining NTR is essential to US success in negotiations over China's entry into the WTO -- our best shot at raising exports and reducing the trade deficit with China. The key to reducing the trade deficit with China lies in the opening of China's markets for US goods and services. US and Chinese negotiators are close to concluding talks on the terms of China’s accession to the WTO. When the deal is sealed, it will mark the most significant opportunity for US exporters, farmers, manufacturers, workers, and service firms in the history of US-PRC relations. But the United States will not gain the fruits of its successful negotiations unless it accords full WTO-member status to China upon China’s accession to the WTO. That means permanent, not annually reconsidered, NTR trade status. In the meantime, sustaining NTR annually is a baseline requirement for the successful conclusion of US-China negotiations on WTO.