Lawmakers Are Warned to Back China Trade or Lose Contributions

February 9, 2000

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The Wall Street Journal / By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS

WASHINGTON -- Top business executives are issuing a blunt warning to federal lawmakers: Vote against the trade deal with China, and we will hold it against you when writing campaign checks.

Phil Condit, chairman of Boeing Co., and Robert N. Burt, chairman and chief executive of FMC Corp., said a coming vote to facilitate China's entry into the World Trade Organization will be a measure of every lawmaker's friendliness to business.

"We aim our donations ... at people who support free enterprise and what we see as the free-enterprise system," Mr. Burt said. "Free trade is certainly one element that goes into that."

With trade agreements under attack from environmentalists, human-rights activists, religious groups, labor unions and others, businesses are lining up their protrade forces. A critical test of their success will be their ability to win congressional approval of permanent normal trading relations with China, part of the China-WTO agreement the administration hammered out with Beijing last year. The vote hasn't been scheduled yet.

Members of the Business Roundtable, a group of senior executives of large companies, held a strategy breakfast with Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Commerce Secretary William Daley and White House economic adviser Gene Sperling, then talked with U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. Later some 15 executives fanned out on Capitol Hill to press their case with more than a dozen lawmakers.

Business has taken a two-pronged approach to winning congressional approval of the China-WTO deal. In dozens of congressional districts, business groups are trying to drum up popular support for the deal, largely by playing up the export-related jobs they say it will generate. Executives encourage their employees and others to contact their representatives and senators in support of the deal.

"The fact is every time we sell an airplane in China, our employment here goes up," Mr. Condit said.

In Washington, business groups are engaging in old-style, face-to-face lobbying with lawmakers. Campaign contributions, always a favorite tool of both labor and business, will be an element of that strategy.

Boeing, its employees and affiliated entities contributed $1.7 million to candidates and parties for the 1998 election -- making it the 34th-largest single source of campaign money, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington watchdog group. Boeing gave 63% of its money to Republicans; the rest to Democrats.

Through its political action committee and soft-money donations to parties, FMC contributed $241,000 for the 1998 election, 77% of it to Republicans. The company's PAC has contributed $93,000 so far in the 2000-election cycle, according to data compiled by the center.

Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes.

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