Just a week after the collapse of trade talks in Seattle,the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue, said his group would step up a lobbying campaign to convince Congress to support the trade pact, which would open a wide range of Chinese markets and clear the way for Beijing to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

"If you're absent on this China vote, it's going to get very expensive politically," said the president of the nation's largest business group. "You make this vote at your own peril."

The White House has already called meetings with key lawmakers as it gears up for a bruising election-year fight over the deal, which requires Congress to grant Beijing favourable access to U.S. Markets, so-called permanent normal trade relations (NTR) status.

"It will be a hell of a fight to get from here to there,"Donohue told reporters, but added: "We're going to have to put a lot of time, energy, effort and money into this. This is going to happen."

But analysts said the collapse of WTO talks in Seattle has strengthened the hand of free trade critics, including labour groups worried that low-priced Chinese-made goods would flood the U.S. Market under the trade agreement, costing American workers their jobs.

Stephen Yokich, president of the United Auto Workers Union,has sent a letter to Clinton, vowing to "mobilize our members and the general public" against a trade accord that he said was "contrary to the interest of working families."

John Sweeney, president of the 13-million member AFL-CIO,has promised to "wage a full and vigorous campaign" against the trade deal. "We'll spend as much money as necessary," he said.

Congress must vote to grant Beijing permanent NTR status as part of the trade deal that would open China's vast market potential to U.S. Businesses. Permanent NTR would guarantee China low-tariff access to U.S. Markets.

Clinton is counting on the business community to lead the fight, even though business leaders have long been sceptical of his commitment to free trade and his push to bring labour and environmental issues into negotiations.Clinton's relations with business frayed last week when he suggested that trade sanctions might eventually be used against developing countries that ignored labour standards. The comment sparked a backlash from developing nations, precipitating the collapse of WTO negotiations in Seattle.

Clinton blamed
Some business leaders and WTO diplomats have accused Clinton of bowing to pressure from labour unions and other domestic interests to help his chosen successor, Vice President Al Gore, at the polls in 2000. In so doing, they said, Clinton undermined U.S. Leadership at the WTO.

An exasperated Donohue lashed out at Clinton for the remarks on sanctions, saying it scuttled a more narrowly tailored proposal that would set up a WTO working group on worker issues.

"That was the end of that deal ... done, gone, finished,and you couldn'T get a vote on that if hell froze over," he said.

Business leaders and key Republicans in Congress have warned Clinton against insisting on labour and environmental provisions during the congressional debate over China's trade status.

"We hope that the president has learned his lesson," said George Sigalos, spokesman for Representative Philip Crane, an Illinois Republican who chairs the House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade.

Despite the Seattle debacle, Donohue said he was confident Congress would approve the China deal and said his group would be aggressive in lobbying for it.

"This is very important to this country, very important to our National security, our National well-being and to our trading position in the world, and people that are absent on that deal may find November 2000 more cumbersome than they had hoped," he said.

On Tuesday, White House Chief of staff John Podesta and other aides met at the White House with Democratic Representative Norman Dicks of Washington and Arizona Republican Representative Jim Kolbe and other members on how best to gather support for approving permanent normal trade relations with China.