The US yesterday stepped up the pressure in the continuing spy plane dispute by saying it could result in a trade backlash against China.
As the US plane crew of 24 spent their ninth day in detention on Hainan island, President Bush said every day that went by increased the potential for relations with China to be damaged.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, went one step further and said the dispute risked damaging trade relations.
Noting that "diplomacy takes time", Mr Bush said the US was continuing to negotiate with the Chinese to free the crew members, who had a fourth meeting on Hainan Island with US diplomats.
"We're working behind the scenes, we've got every diplomatic channel open," he said. "We're in discussions with the Chinese. It is now time for our troops to come home so that our relationship does not become damaged."
Mr Powell reiterated the US position that there was no question of Washington apologising for the collision between the US EP-3 surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter.
Chinese exporters - who earned China $84 billion trade surplus with the US last year - expressed their concern if the dispute dragged on.
A spokesman for the Jiangsu Garments Import and Export Co, one of China's top 50 exporters, said that while they had not seen any impact yet, "if this situation continues there could be a definite impact".
The US Congress will have to approve the continuation of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), which allows China to export at the same low tariffs as other countries, by June 3rd.
The PNTR status was given last year but it was contingent on China becoming a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). As China has not yet become a WTO member, Mr Bush will have to certify PNTR status for China by June 3rd. Congress could call a vote to overturn it within 30 days.
Mr Powell said yesterday that congressional delegations were cancelling visits to China and US business leaders were calling him about their worries.
The US ambassador to China, Mr Joseph Prueher, told reporters outside the embassy in Beijing yesterday that dialogue continued with the Chinese. "We hope we're moving a little closer to a solution," he said, as he left the embassy for another round of meetings. Security around the embassy remained right.
Meanwhile, US diplomats had a "very successful" 40minute fourth meeting with the crew of the crippled American plane on Hainan Island.
"We are glad to report they are in excellent health, their spirits are extremely high and we had a good conversation for about 40 minutes as a group," the US Defence Attache, Brig Gen Neal Sealock, told reporters.
While there was no official comment from the Chinese side of the hint from the US of trade implications if the dispute continued, there was no sign of Beijing backing off its insistence on a US apology.
The official Xinhua news agency restated that was still the Chinese objective.
Meanwhile, Mr Bush prepared a response to the letter he received from the wife of the missing Chinese pilot.
A White House aide said the letter was being telegraphed to the US embassy in Beijing, which would deliver it to the Chinese Foreign Ministry to be passed on to Ms Ruan Guoqin, the wife of pilot Wang Wei.
In her letter, which she wrote from hospital, she said: "I am an ordinary Chinese woman writing you this letter in tears on my sickbed . . . I learned that you and your government are very much concerned about the 24 officers and men on your spy plane . . . but I cannot figure out why you sent them to spy along China's coast from such a great distance, and why they rammed my husband's plane."