quote: Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of arguably the worst congressional vote in this century. On that day in 2000, the Senate approved Permanent Normal

quote: Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of arguably the worst congressional vote in this century. On that day in 2000, the Senate approved Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with the People’s Republic of China by a vote of 83-15. President Bill Clinton signed the legislation into law, declaring: “China will open its markets to American products from wheat to cars to consulting services, and our companies will be far more able to sell goods without moving factories or investments there.” Republican Rep. Bill Archer of Texas, the lead sponsor of the bill, remarked, “The American people support this agreement because they know it’s good for jobs in America and good for human rights and the development of democracy in China.” quote.end https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/sep/11/normalizing-trade-with-china-back-in-2000-was-a-co/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/sep/11/normalizing... Call me cycnical but review above quotes, multiply by N over 3 decades, and we have a general sense of the type of smoke blown in our face by the representatives of Big Money and Big Business (and possibly some Globalist ideologues) that were elected by "us" to represent "us". Two possibilities, based on a working memory of what was said and when, regarding China and more broadly "free trade" and Globalism, here and abroad: option 1: "The West" (which c.f. above regarding "our" representatives) assumed that Chinese greed will exceed Chinese ideological zeal/control, and CCP would ultimately lose its grip over the Chinese nation. option 2: No such thoughts "clouded" "our" decision makers' decisions. The idea was always and in essence contrary to option 1 - how to evolve from sole Superpower order to a global elite order. China was deemed as large enough, significant enough, and strategic enough to be used as the instrument to evolve post WWII order to a global governance model, as the platform to dethrone USA from its superpower perch. Recently, it appears a sub-set of the US capitalist class has rediscovered a love of homeland or something like that, while another sub-set (with the better sort of propanda organs) is vehemently opposing them. I think the former didn't get the original memo. Sucks not to be in the uber-in circle.