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How presumptuous to ask, "Should the U.S. continue China's privileged trade status?" The question conjures up visions of pompous Englishmen sitting around when there was still a British Empire, smoking fat cigars and drinking sherry at their club, haughtily discussing answers to the likes of, "Shall we allow the little yellow fellows to trade with us?"

How can the U.S., a nation with few more than 300 million people within its borders, consider China, a nation with over four times the population, with more than 1.3 billion people, anything less than an equal trading partner?

China isn't any longer a backwater country desperate for markets where they can sell cheaply made products. It's a country with more and more affluent consumers every year, consumers who are buying, in ever increasing quantities, the same products we buy here in the U.S., though I doubt they buy as much of the Made in China junk as Americans do.

Years of people in the U.S. buying Made in China products at stores like Walmart, because they were cheaper than the same Made in America products, has resulted in a sad and scary truth. Fewer and fewer of the things we buy are Made in America. Worse, many of the factories and small businesses in the U.S. where these products were made are gone, along with the people with the knowledge and skills to do make them.

Without Made in China products to sell, Walmart and similar stores would have little to sell. Many of the products used in households throughout the U.S. would be more expensive. Thousands of jobs would be lost. All of us in the U.S. would be in a world of economic hurt.

Not far off is the day when the U.S. will not be the important market for companies in China that it is today. More and more Made in China products now imported to the U.S. will be sold without having to ship them across the Pacific Ocean. The steadily growing middle and upper classes in China and nearby countries, particularly India, will demote the U.S. to just another country status. The question may then be, "Should the China continue the United States' privileged trade status?"

The importance of China to the U.S. economy is evidenced now by how the Clinton and Bush administrations have, for nearly two decades, kowtowed to demands by the leaders of China. Or, have I missed the media coverage of the action the government of China has taken to halt the currency manipulation that promotes the sale of Made in China products, or of the more humane ways workers in China are being treated because some U.S. diplomat demanded they be treated more humanely, or of how the government of China is aggressively acting to stop product piracy and taking legal action against the companies in China that have attempted to poison children in the U.S.

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer," is wisdom attributed to Sun-tzu, a Chinese general who lived 400 years before the birth of Christ.

Continuing to allow companies in China the privilege to trade with the U.S. as "privileged" trading partners keeps China closer.

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