China Trade Relations Act of 2025
China Trade Relations Act of 2025 would withdraw normal trade relations (NTR) treatment for products from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and require any future reapplication of NTR to follow specific procedures under the Trade Act of 1974. It ties any potential reintroduction of NTR to pre-WTO baseline rules and would keep a previously existing waiver authority in place for 90 days after enactment. The bill also adds new, explicit grounds to keep PRC products ineligible for NTR, most notably a broad set of human-rights and related concerns. It creates a formal reporting process to Congress, and establishes a waiver/extension mechanism that Congress can disapprove. In short, the bill would significantly tighten U.S. tariff and non-tariff policies toward PRC goods and tie future reentry to human-rights progress, with ongoing Congressional oversight.
Key Points
- 1Withdraws NTR from PRC immediately and requires any future NTR extension to follow Title IV, Chapter 1 of the Trade Act of 1974, using the pre-WTO baseline that applied before China’s WTO accession.
- 2Extends the effect of the existing waiver authority for PRC (from section 402(d)(1) of the Trade Act) so it continues for 90 days after enactment.
- 3Adds new bases of ineligibility for PRC to receive NTR, including a broad list of human-rights and related concerns (e.g., forced labor, political prisoners, lack of freedoms, Tibet issues, organ harvesting, restrictions on prisoners and international access, and economic espionage). Payrolls or credits/guarantees and US commercial agreements with PRC are blocked during periods of such violations.
- 4Requires periodic reporting to Congress (twice per year) on whether PRC is in violation of the specified criteria and on related laws and policies.
- 5Establishes a waiver mechanism: the President may temporarily waive the ineligibility for 12 months if it would substantially promote the objectives, with termination if the situation does not improve; waivers can be extended for successive 12-month periods only with congressional approval through a joint resolution of disapproval.
- 6Creates a joint-resolution process for disapproval of waivers, and renames the Trade Act section header from “freedom of emigration in east-west trade” to “east-west trade and human rights.”