Sponsor
Richard Lynn Scott
Senator · R-FL
Senator · R-FL
The bill trades higher protection for U.S. manufacturers and stronger national-security leverage against China for higher costs and risks to consumers, exporters, and global supply-chain stability.
Import-competing U.S. manufacturers and their workers (small manufacturers, plant workers, and related middle-class families) would face less foreign competition and could regain market share and jobs as PNTR is revoked and duties rise.
U.S. national-security interests (including critical supply chains for items like rare earths and other strategic inputs) would be better defendable because the President could restrict imports and raise duties to strengthen resilience and bargaining leverage.
U.S. innovators, small businesses, and consumers could benefit from stronger incentives for intellectual-property protection and enforcement, potentially reducing estimated annual IP theft losses.
Consumers and businesses that buy Chinese-made goods (most households and many small firms) will face higher prices because revoking PNTR and steep tariff increases raise import costs.
U.S. exporters, farmers, and communities tied to exports (rural areas and export-dependent small firms) could be hit by retaliatory tariffs or export controls, reducing foreign market access and incomes.
Integrated global supply chains and firms that rely on Chinese inputs (importers, retailers, and transportation firms) could face disruption and higher costs, risking short-term layoffs and operational dislocation.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Withdraws NTR/PNTR for the PRC and applies higher HTSUS column 2 tariffs to all PRC-origin goods, with the President authorized to set still higher duties.
Official title: Withdraw normal trade relations treatment with respect to the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 18, 2025 by Richard Lynn Scott · Last progress December 18, 2025
This bill withdraws normal trade relations (NTR) / permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) treatment for products of the People’s Republic of China and, 90 days after enactment, applies higher tariff rates (column 2 HTSUS or higher as proclaimed by the President) to all goods of PRC origin. It defines the PRC to include the central government plus Hong Kong and Macau and bars future extension of NTR to the PRC under the Trade Act of 1974. The legislation bases the change on findings that China has not honored prior market-access and IP commitments, cites large estimated economic harms to U.S. industry and jobs, and frames the withdrawal of trade preferences as justified on strategic and national security grounds. It operates notwithstanding prior statutes that granted or preserved PNTR/NTR treatment for China.