December 18, 2025
Mr. Scott of Florida introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance
To withdraw normal trade relations treatment with respect to the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.
Section 1. Short title
This Act may be cited as the No Trade Preferences for Communist China Act
.
Sec. 2. Findings
Congress finds the following:
(1)
From 1980 until the passage of the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 6911 et seq.), the United States granted permanent normal trade relations status to the People’s Republic of China, contingent on an annual review pursuant to section 402 of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2432).
(2)
The receipt by the People's Republic of China of permanent normal trade relations status, concurrent with its ascension to the World Trade Organization in 2001, was contingent on its adherence to several commitments, including transitioning towards a more market-oriented economy, protecting intellectual property, ensuring non-discrimination against foreign entities in trade matters, and ending export and production subsidies. However, the People’s Republic of China has repeatedly and objectively violated each and every one of those commitments.
(3)
Evasion by the People's Republic of China of tariffs imposed by the United States cost the economy of the United States approximately $130,000,000,000 in 2023 alone, and concurrently the People's Republic of China chose to impose exceedingly high tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and other regulatory hurdles on businesses in the United States.
(4)
According to the United States Trade Representative, the People's Republic of China remains a priority watch list
country for intellectual property theft and has stolen between $180,000,000,000 and $540,000,000,000 annually from the United States economy through theft of intellectual property, trade secrets, business processes, and technologies.
(5)
The People's Republic of China continues a systemic program of top-down industrial planning through heavy subsidization of domestic industries, prioritizing the protection of state-owned enterprises and a dual-pricing scheme that has left industries in the United States unable to effectively and fairly compete. According to a 2022 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the People's Republic of China offered as much as $407,000,000,000 in de facto subsidies to its domestic industries in 2019.
(6)
While the People's Republic of China subsidizes its industries in violation of its commitments under the World Trade Organization, it has already failed to comply with yet another major trade agreement—the Economic and Trade Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the People’s Republic of China, signed on January 15, 2020, in which the People's Republic of China pledged to purchase an additional $200,000,000,000 in United States goods and services by the end of 2021. The People's Republic of China failed to meet that deadline and fell short of its pledged commitment by 60 percent for goods.
(7)
According to the United States Trade Representative, from 1994 through April 2025, the United States lost 5,000,000 manufacturing jobs and 90,000 factories. The world manufacturing output share of the United States declined from 28 percent in 2001 to 17 percent in 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2024, United States manufacturing as a share of gross domestic product was at a 20-year low. At the same time, the economy of the People's Republic of China grew from the world’s sixth largest economy in 2001 to the second largest in 2025.
(8)
In October 2025, the People's Republic of China threatened to hold the world hostage through broad export controls over the rare earths supply chain, spanning mining, refining, and manufacturing. The United States once held global dominance in rare earths but gradually surrendered by yielding to environmental pressure campaigns and an increasingly onerous regulatory regime.
(9)
Under article XXI of GATT 1994 (as defined in section 2 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (19 U.S.C. 3501)), countries may act for the protection of their essential security interests
without breaching their obligations under the World Trade Organization. The relentless assault by the People's Republic of China on the economic security of the United States through industrial espionage, forced technology transfers, and the systematic erosion of the domestic manufacturing base of the United States directly undermines the ability of the United States to sustain its industrial capacity. Those economic attacks, compounded by broader acts of aggression, such as military expansion in the South China Sea and egregious human rights abuses, constitute a comprehensive, ongoing, and grave threat to the national security interests of the United States. Accordingly, the behavior by the People's Republic of China merits the invocation of article XXI and Congress should therefore invoke that principle by revoking permanent normal trade relations status for the People's Republic of China to defend the strategic and economic security of the United States.
(10)
In 2022, members of the World Trade Organization similarly invoked article XXI to revoke permanent normal trade relations status for the Russian Federation.
Sec. 3. Withdrawal of normal trade relations treatment for the People's Republic of China
(a) In general
Notwithstanding title I of Public Law 106–286 (114 Stat. 880) or any other provision of law, effective on the date that is 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act—
(1)
normal trade relations treatment shall not apply pursuant to section 101 of that Act to the products of the People’s Republic of China;
(2)
normal trade relations treatment may not thereafter be extended to the products of the People’s Republic of China under the provisions of chapter 1 of title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2431 et seq.);
(3)
the rates of duty set forth in column 2 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States shall apply to all products of the People’s Republic of China; and
(4)
the President may proclaim increases in the rates of duty applicable to products of the People’s Republic of China to rates that are higher than the rates described in paragraph (3).
(b) People's Republic of China defined
In this section, the term People’s Republic of China means the government of the People’s Republic of China, the government of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, the government of the Special Administrative Region of Macau, and any agency or instrumentality thereof.