Sen. Susan Collins says she came reluctantly to the conclusion that supporting permanent normal trade relations with China was in Maine’s best interest, despite China’s dreadful record of human rights.

She made the proper decision. A decade of Congress annually scolding China before passing most favored nation status has had no measurable effect on human rights there while trade has been largely one way – from China to the United States. Under normal trade the opportunity for improved trade increases and the time saved by Congress in futile MFN debates can be better spent looking for new ways to address human rights violations.

Chinese tariffs under PNTR would drop noticeably from current levels. Pulp and paper, for instance, would fall from 14.4 percent to 5.4 percent; fish, from 20.5 percent to 11.4 percent; wood, from 12.5 percent to 4.6 percent. Even the tariff on frozen lobster would drop, from 30 percent to 15 percent. Maine’s trade with China has been growing for a decade, but it is nowhere near what it could be. Reducing tariffs won’t remove all of the problems, but it will help.

Sen. Collins made her decision in part based on information from U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, who pointed out that the textile and footwear industries, of special interest to Maine, are protected by safeguards that allow the United States “to impose restraints focused directly on China in case of an import surge based on a standard that is easier to meet than that applied to other WTO members.” That isn’t to say that no Maine workers will be worse off under PNTR. Probably some will, but the large majority, especially those in growing Maine industries, will be helped.

While the Senate is likely to strongly support PNTR, there remain questions about China’s human-rights violations. Amendments to PNTR to ensure religious freedom, improved human rights and non-proliferation of missiles all failed, perhaps because tying these important conditions to trade deals doesn’t work nearly as well as logic would suggest. Senators supporting PNTR might apply this idea to Cuba, as well.

However isolated Maine feels at times from the rest of the world, businesses here increasingly have connections all over. Sen. Collins accurately recognized in her support of PNTR that initiating normal relations with China strengthens those connections and brings China under the rules governing international trade.