As the U.S. trade deficit with China and the rest of the world continues to soar, economic tensions are rising again as Washington prepares for the long-delayed visit of President Hu Jintao in late April.

But international trade rules and a tight congressional calendar are limiting the options of American politicians and trade negotiators, who are under increasing pressure to find some way to curb the growth in China's exports.

Chinese exports to the United States exceed American shipments in the other direction by almost 6 to 1. That means that nearly across the board - from textiles to steel to pirated movies - more Western companies are fighting battle after battle with Chinese businesses.

For the United States, the trade gap with China widened in January to $17.9 billion, a 10 percent increase from the previous month, the U.S. Commerce Department said Thursday.

Over all, the United States imported $68.5 billion more in goods and services than it exported. Reflecting a stronger global economy, exports rose, with airplane sales up strongly along with soybean shipments, but imports continued to outpace their growth, driven by demand for oil, foreign cars and parts, as well as products from China like clothing and cellphones.

In Washington, the Bush administration, under attack by lawmakers on a range of issues, including the Dubai port operations deal, is talking tougher about confronting Beijing over its trade practices. The Treasury is reviewing whether to label the country a currency manipulator, which could lead to a series of moves aimed at China's export industries.

Serving as a political backdrop to the administration's effort to manage its relationship with Beijing are the growing number of lawmakers lining up to retaliate against China's trade and currency practices. And the approach of congressional elections in November has further focused attention on trade with China, especially in states like Ohio and North Carolina with large manufacturing sectors.

"Members of Congress, on a bipartisan basis, are expressing serious concerns that China's national currency is undervalued and causing harm to the U.S. economy and sending American jobs overseas," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader.

Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, are pushing legislation in the Senate that would impose a tariff of 27.5 percent on all imports from China unless Beijing allows its currency to rise substantially, making Chinese exports less competitive. While President George W. Bush is likely to veto any such legislation that emerged from Congress, Schumer said he was convinced "there would be enough votes to override a presidential veto."

Farm state lawmakers have long been the most reliable supporters of China in Congress, viewing it as a large potential market for American-grown food. But even Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, has said he is drafting legislation to deal with China's rising exports. He has disclosed few details so far, however.

Except for disputes over China's controls on the Internet, many of the conflicts bear similarities to past trade frictions, particularly ones that pitted the United States and Western Europe against Japan's rising industrial power in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But there are some important differences.

The creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994 has restricted Western options in dealing with China. The "voluntary" export restraints that Japan relied on to limit its shipments of cars and machine tools at the insistence of the United States and the European Union are now banned by the WTO, as are many other unilateral measures. "There's a different trade regime in place now," said Timothy Stratford, the assistant U.S. trade representative for China. But, he added, "China now is a major trading partner, and we expect them to play a role in the trading system commensurate with their economic heft." In cases where China may not live up to its WTO obligations, other countries will not be afraid to challenge it, Stratford said. While such challenges can take many months and even years, "we shouldn't be afraid to sue them," he said, "and they shouldn't be afraid to sue us."

So far, the United States has filed just one WTO case against China.

The United States and the European Union were able to cap Chinese textile and apparel exports last year under special provisions that China accepted as a condition for its admittance to the WTO in 2001.

But limits on many other products are now harder to impose except through so-called dumping cases, involving accusations that goods are sold below cost or below their price in other markets.

Rampant Chinese copying of American movies, computer software and other intellectual property continues to depress the value of American exports to China and is certain to remain a bilateral issue this year.

But preliminary results from a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Guangdong, one of China's largest exporting provinces, show both why doing business in China is still attractive for many American companies and why the trade deficit is so large.

Three-quarters of the companies surveyed said they were already making profits in China, and most of the rest expected to be profitable in the next two years. Their top goal was to produce goods and services in the region for sale within China, and their second-ranking goal was to benefit from lower labor costs.

Well below the radar was any interest in bringing in American goods and services to China, either to sell directly to the Chinese or to use as components in Chinese factories, a finding that Harley Seyedin, the chamber's president, attributed to a lack of national attention in the United States on improving the competitiveness of exports.

In the end, economists say, the bilateral deficit with China needs to be put in a global context. Even a sharp appreciation in the yuan against the dollar would only shift some goods from one market to another. That is because the overall trade imbalance is driven largely by the fact that Americans need to borrow so much from abroad because they save so little. (Source: The New York Times)