A week ago, it looked like Chuck Schumer was well on the way to getting a major China bill through Congress. He began with his own proposed Endless Frontier Act, creating regional research and technology centers to create domestic jobs and compete with China. He deftly added several other get-tough-with-China bills that had strong bipartisan co-sponsorship, and renamed his omnibus bipartisan bill the U.S. Innovation and
Competition Act. But last Friday, the effort fell apart as Republicans blocked Senate floor consideration. What happened? For one thing, key Republicans started wondering whether they wanted to hand Democrats a big victory, and decided to hold out for more. As in the case of the now-defunct bill to create a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Democrats basically gave Republicans everything they wanted—and then Republicans balked after the deal had been made. For another thing, some Democrats tried to use the China bill to do the bidding of Big Tech, infuriating other Democrats. Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, persuaded Schumer to accept a disgraceful measure to protect Google and other Big Tech platforms from worker or consumer or antitrust regulation by defining such regulation as a restraint of free trade. When labor and consumer groups protested, the measure was weakened into a reporting requirement for now. But Wyden’s top trade staffer and architect of this ploy, Jayme White, has been named as a deputy
U.S. trade rep, where he can do more mischief. One key measure that made it into the Schumer package was a bipartisan bill sponsored by Democrat Gary Peters and Republican Rob Portman, called the Make PPE in America Act. But also included is a contradictory amendment by Sen. Mike Crapo, one of Schumer’s Republican allies, guaranteeing that China will face no tariffs on PPE for two years. This is happening at a time when Biden has pledged to fill the Strategic National Stockpile with PPE supply-chain products made in the USA, and China is deliberately trying to put U.S. suppliers out of business by flooding U.S. markets with cheap masks and other PPE. If he wanted to, Biden has the power to impose tariffs on Chinese PPE under existing law. Normally, when a new administration takes office, Congress lets them lead. Schumer didn’t. He was in such a hurry to pass his China bill that he tried to do it largely on the basis of legislative inside baseball, cutting deals with Republicans but not building up outside support from either business or labor. "We were kept completely in the dark," says one key labor leader. Some Biden officials, who would prefer to move more slowly and deliberately, evidently feel the same way. Schumer may yet prove to be the most astute master of the Senate since
Lyndon Johnson. Or he may prove too clever by half. When Congress comes back next week, there is still a decent chance that a China bill, contradictions and all, will pass. If it fails, it will be one more casualty of faux bipartisanship and splits on the trade issue within both parties.
