Mentioning the result of the vote at the US House of Representatives on November 13, the US Trade Representative said that she feels ‘disappointed’ but she still believes that PNTR will be ratified before Vietnam becomes an official member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). 

“This is the top priority of the Bush Government. Actually both the Republic and Democratic parties commit to strongly support for PNTR with Vietnam so I believe that PNTR will be approved. This job is only the issue of process and time, not the content,” Ms Schwab said. 

If the US Congress approves PNTR in December, this status will be applied on Vietnam at the time the country becomes an official member of the WTO. 

Under the rules of this organisaton, 30 days after it receives the Vietnamese National Assembly’s approval letter of the WTO Accession Protocol, Vietnam will officially be its 150th member. 

The Vietnamese National Assembly plans to consider for approval this protocol on November 28 and Vietnam can become an official WTO member in early January 2007. 

The issues are only process and time 

On November 13 the US House of Representatives rejected the PNTR bill with Vietnam because the number of aye vote was less than two thirds. The vote was conducted on the first working day of the US House after its election. 

Ms Susan Schwab told VietNamNet that the selection of the process and the time for the vote led to the rejection, not because congressmen didn’t support the PNTR with Vietnam. 

“The US House chose to vote on suspension calendar because they thought that this is the best and the fastest measure. However, this was the first working day after the Congress election so many congressmen didn’t come. That’s why they couldn’t have the necessary number of two thirds of ayes”. 

The US Trade Representative emphasized that she hopes the PNTR bill would be re-vote at the lame duck session of the US Congress in early December under the normal process and at that time the bill would be surely approved with a majority of ayes. 

Asked how she can be sure that PNTR will be approved when many congressmen of the both parties, including up to 94 Democratic congressmen had no votes, Ms Susan Swab said that the vote on November 13 was still good compared to other votes related to trade of the US Congress. 

“Reviewing recent votes related to trade in the past eight years we can see the great support of the both parties to PNTR when there were up to 228 aye votes. The Democratic Party particularly had up to 90 ayes, including the votes of US House’s leaders”. 

She said that the support is also very strong at the Senate when all the members of the Finance Committee had aye votes for the bill. 

“It proves the high support at the two parties for the approval of PNTR with Vietnam, the remaining is only paper work”. 

Tactical mistake 

Analysing the result of the vote on November 13, Tom O’Doore, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi (Amcham Hanoi), told VietNamNet that the vote was a mistake in tactics of the Republican congressmen. 

They didn’t use the normal process in considering a bill. Accordingly, the bill must be discussed and voted at the US House’s Committee of Ways and Means, and then brought to the US House of Representatives. At that time, the bill will be approved with 50% + 1 aye votes.

If the bill is voted on under this normal process, the number of aye votes is 10 votes more than the necessary level. 

According to Mr Thomas O’Doore, the fact that many Democrat congressmen had no votes doesn’t mean that they don’t support PNTR with Vietnam but that’s the way they protest the methods of Republican congressmen. 

A Democrat congressman said that Republican congressmen committed a mistake on tactics when they arranged the vote on suspension calendar immediately after the Congress election, which made congressmen not to have time to consider the bill and the party’s leaders had time to campaign for more aye votes. 

This congressman said that the bill would have been approved very easily if the Republican congressmen waited for several days more and the bill was voted under the normal process. 

President Bush and his government strongly urged the Congressmen to early approve the PNTR bill before he comes to Vietnam.