[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 226 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 226

Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding Japanese participation in 
                     the World Trade Organization.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            November 9, 1999

   Mr. Baucus (for himself and Mr. Grassley) submitted the following 
       resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Finance

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding Japanese participation in 
                     the World Trade Organization.

Whereas Japan is the world's second largest economy with exports and imports 
        together equal to one-fifth of its gross domestic product;
Whereas Japan is the second largest trading partner of the United States and 
        sends almost one-third of its exports to the United States;
Whereas prosperity and growth in Japan, one of the primary beneficiaries of the 
        liberal international trading system, is dependent on the maintenance of 
        open markets throughout the world;
Whereas prosperity in the Asian region and globally requires open markets in 
        Japan;
Whereas Japan has a profound interest in ensuring that the World Trade 
        Organization continues to thrive and develop, and that world markets are 
        open on the basis of a rules-based system that is widely supported by 
        governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and average 
        citizens throughout the world;
Whereas Japan's dependence on open markets requires Japan to take a leadership 
        role, rather than a defensive posture, in the next round of multilateral 
        trade negotiations;
Whereas support for free trade in the United States and in many other countries 
        has become increasingly fragile;
Whereas the world's major trading nations, including Japan, have a special 
        responsibility to take the measures necessary to strengthen a consensus 
        for free trade;
Whereas Japan's importation of manufactured goods, as a share of its gross 
        domestic product, is considerably lower than that of other 
        industrialized nations and is one of the lowest of all nations reporting 
        data to the World Bank;
Whereas Japan has one of the lowest levels of intra-industry trade in the 
        industrialized world according to the Organization for Economic 
        Cooperation and Development;
Whereas even in the case of rice where some progress was made at the Uruguay 
        Round, the Government of Japan agreed to a tariff-rate quota, yet set 
        the over quota tariff rate at a level that is currently equivalent to 
        approximately a 500 percent ad valorem duty, thus drastically reducing 
        the possible market impact of the concession;
Whereas Japan is protecting its trade-distorting policies in the areas of 
        agriculture, forestry, and fishing and is trying to shift the focus of 
        the next round of multilateral trade negotiations away from concessions 
        and liberalization of its trade-distorting policies in these areas;
Whereas there is a concern that in the previous rounds of multilateral trade 
        negotiations, the Government of Japan has been able to minimize the 
        commitments it made;
Whereas there is a concern that the Government of Japan may be able to minimize 
        the actual implementation of commitments through formal government 
        measures and informal government guidance to counter the effects of 
        those commitments on liberalization;
Whereas reducing Japanese tariffs and eliminating traditional nontariff barriers 
        appears to have less of an effect than expected on improving market 
        access in Japan in many sectors because of the complex and opaque 
        network of systemic barriers that continue to exist in much of Japan's 
        economic system;
Whereas despite the fact that Japan is a full participant in the WTO Agreement 
        on Government Procurement and appears to be making concessions equal in 
        value to the concessions made by other parties, Japan has not opened the 
        government procurement market to the degree expected by the United 
        States and other trading partners;
Whereas because of the impediments in the Japanese government procurement market 
        that were not addressed by the GATT and the WTO, the United States has 
        had to negotiate bilateral government procurement agreements covering 
        computers, telecommunications equipment, medical products, satellites, 
        and supercomputers;
Whereas the Government of Japan has called for reopening the WTO Agreement on 
        the Implementation of Article VI of the GATT 1994 (the Antidumping 
        Agreement), and supports similar efforts by other nations, which would 
        result in reducing the effectiveness of United States trade law and the 
        ability of the United States to take action against the injurious and 
        unfair trade practice of dumping;
Whereas the advanced tariff liberalization process would be further along but 
        for the opposition of Japan at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 
        forum; and
Whereas a focus on Japanese practices and commitments at the next round of 
        multilateral trade negotiations is more important than ever because the 
        trade laws of the United States, such as section 301 of the Trade Act of 
        1974, section 1377 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, 
        and title VII of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, have 
        been significantly weakened as a result of agreements concluded during 
        the Uruguay Round: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the appropriate 
officials in the executive branch--
            (1) should include, in the United States negotiating 
        objectives for the next round of multilateral negotiations, 
        specific expectations as to how the negotiations will result in 
        changes in the Japanese market;
            (2) should pay special attention to commitments required of 
        the Government of Japan in the next round of negotiations and 
        ensure that commercially meaningful Japanese concessions 
        equivalent to concessions made by other major trading nations 
        will lead to market change in Japan;
            (3) should cooperate closely with other major trading 
        nations to ensure that the next round of negotiations results 
        in genuine change in Japan's markets.
            (4) should consult closely with Congress throughout the 
        next round of negotiations about the specific impact of the 
        negotiations on Japan's markets, and should provide periodic 
        reports, with full input from the private sector, about 
        progress being made in addressing Japanese barriers within the 
        negotiations;
            (5) should devote the resources needed to analyze market 
        barriers in Japan and to analyze how these market barriers can 
        be addressed in the next round of negotiations; and
            (6) should work closely with United States manufacturers, 
        service providers, and nongovernmental organizations to develop 
        the priority areas for focusing United States efforts with 
        respect to Japan in the next round of negotiations and to 
        determine the progress being made in meeting those priorities.
                                 <all>