RNC’s Draft 2024 Platform Includes Revoking China’s Preferred Trade Status

Former President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump at Trump Tower on May 31, 2024 in New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

The Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to cancel the most favored nation status of the Chinese regime as part of a push to restore fair trade around the world, according to the party’s draft 2024 party platform.

The most favored nation status, a U.S. legal designation granted to some foreign trading partners, was given to China as part of the negotiations heading into its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2000. Prior to 2000, China’s most favored nation status was regularly reviewed.

Revoking the most favored nation status, which has given China permanent trading privileges for 24 years, would help the United States secure strategic independence from the Chinese regime, according to the 16-page “Make America Great Again!” platform, which sets out the Republican party’s agenda for the next four years.

The move would stop the Chinese regime from receiving preferential trade treatment, including lower industrial and agricultural tariffs for Chinese exports to the United States, and fewer barriers.

Besides revoking the tariff status, also known as the Permanent Normalized Trade Relations (PNTR) status, the Republican platform mirrors former President Donald Trump’s stance on strengthening the U.S. economy while cutting taxes, cracking down on illegal immigration, “unleashing” American energy and other issues.

The RNC approved the platform on the same day it was published, and the party is set to formally adopt it at the RNC convention in Milwaukee, on July 15.

According to the platform, the Republican Party “stands for a patriotic ‘America First’ economic policy,” with five pillars: slashing regulations, cutting taxes, securing fair trade deals, ensuring reliable and abundant low-cost energy, and championing innovation.

“We commit to rebalancing trade, securing strategic independence, and revitalizing manufacturing,” the draft document states. “We will prioritize domestic production, and ensure national independence in essential goods and services. Together, we will build a strong, self-reliant, and prosperous America.”

Trump Welcomes Draft Platform

Multiple Republican lawmakers have called for the Chinese regime to be stripped of its PNTR status, citing its ongoing human rights abuses, intellectual property theft, widespread intellectual property theft, and the rising trade deficits that have accumulated in U.S.-China commerce, among other issues.

The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly denied those allegations.

Elsewhere, the Republican party would phase out imports of essential goods, and prevent China from buying American real estate and industries, the draft platform states.

Specifically, under a section of the platform titled “Protecting American Workers and Farmers from Unfair Trade,” the draft document states that the Republican party will support baseline tariffs on foreign-made goods, pass the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, and respond to unfair Trading practices.

Under the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, foreign nations would be charged the same tariffs they place on the U.S.

The platform says the U.S. goods trade deficit has grown to over $1 trillion dollars a year, although data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis places that figure at $75.1 billion as of May 2024.

“As tariffs on foreign producers go up, taxes on American workers, families, and businesses can come down,” the document states.

Former President Trump, set to be nominated as the Republican candidate for president in Milwaukee next week, welcomed the draft document in a post on social media, describing it as a “forward-looking agenda with strong promises that we will accomplish very quickly when we win the White House and Republican Majorities in the House and Senate.”

“We are, quite simply, the party of common sense!” the former U.S. leader wrote.

Lawrence Wilson contributed to this report.