[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 139 (Thursday, September 29, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 29, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               THE URUGUAY ROUND IMPLEMENTING LEGISLATION

  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise to call the Senate's attention to 
an event of great significance to our country and to my home State of 
New Jersey. The President has submitted legislation to ratify and 
implement the Uruguay round GATT Agreement. With the formal submission 
of this legislation, we are one step closer to laying the foundation 
for American prosperity into the 21st century.
  Not since the early days of this century has the world economy been 
as open or the potential for world economic development been as great 
as it is today. Paradoxically, rarely has America's anxiety about its 
own future been as great.
  This is a normal reaction for a population which has largely defined 
the globe on its own terms since 1945. As our Nation struggles with the 
powerful, inexorable transformations of our day--the end of the cold 
war, the explosion of world markets, the information revolution, 
growing national debt--we naturally are anxious about what these 
fundamental forces mean to us.
  But it is imperative that we respond by assessing control over our 
destiny, rather than passively allowing these global forces to dictate 
our future. Indeed, our identity as a nation is tied to our ability to 
manage change for our benefit. Adaptability as the engine of progress 
is central to the American experience.
  The evolution from an agrarian to an industrial to a postindustrial 
American economy, the emergence of the progressive movement followed by 
the New Deal, and the growing role of women in and the increasing 
racial and ethnic diversity of America's ability to make social trends 
work in our favor. The rapidly changing nature of the contemporary 
world economy presents us with a new challenge. Today, in the Congress, 
that challenge is exemplified by our pending consideration of the 
Uruguay round.
  The Uruguay round agreement provides us a framework for creating 
wealth from these developments rather than suffer the consequences of 
trying to ignore them. It will satisfy an American impulse that has 
guided us throughout our history--to embrace fair competition, 
confident in the belief that we will prosper whenever our national 
capabilities are matched against those of any other country in the 
world.
  This is why I have supported free trade and the GATT. This is why I 
have supported the Uruguay round from before its inception. In 1984, I 
was approached by Arthur Dunkel, then Director General of the GATT, 
about serving on a seven-person study group to map the conceptual 
framework for a new GATT round, which became the Uruguay round.
  At the time, the industrial democracies were just emerging from a 
severe recession. Growth was weak, unemployment high, and the increase 
in nontariff trade barriers was threatening to nip the recovery in the 
bud. The time was ripe for a new GATT round to fight back against 
protectionism and give a boost to the world economy.
  As the only American and the only politician in the group, I felt a 
special responsibility to get this project done right. Other members 
were a Swedish industrialist, a French lawyer, a Brazilian financier, 
and Indonesian Cabinet Minister, an Indian economist, and a Swiss 
banker. Our interactions were frank and flowed from our different 
perceptions of the world economy as well as our common commitment to 
treat change as an opportunity and not a threat.
  In the end, we issued a report with 15 recommendations. The most 
important were: increasing the transparency of trade policies, in other 
words, not hiding what we do, but doing it out in the open so all the 
world can see; bringing trade in textiles, services, and agricultural 
products into the overall GATT Agreement; reducing and controlling 
nontariff barriers, those things that each country would do so that 
they could not quite be seen and they could not be put as a tariff but, 
nonetheless they would impede world trade; tightening rules on 
subsidies, and improving GATT's dispute settlement system.
  So Mr. President, for me, then, the Senate's vote will be the 
culmination of a decade-long process. Many of the areas that we urged 
action on in that report have been included in the final Uruguay round 
agreement.
  This process has been rough, even precarious. Talks broke down more 
than once. Deadlines passed. Fast-track authority expired. The world 
economy transformed itself in ways we could not imagine in 1984, 
leaving negotiators scrambling to catch up with this rapid change.
  But, in the end, the process ground to a conclusion. The tenacious 
efforts of four United States Trade Representatives, their staffs, and 
numerous others, sustained the Uruguay round over 7 years of difficult 
negotiations. Building on the work of his predecessors, especially the 
outstanding Carla Hills, Mickey Kantor finally brought the round to a 
successful conclusion last December. We have an agreement or, rather, a 
series of agreements, that substantially meets the goals that we set 
out in 1985 in that report. We will soon have before us the legislation 
to implement the agreements. This stage of the GATT process is almost 
at an end.
  Any trade agreement must be understood, is an accumulation of 
individual interests. Some interests do better than others in the 
negotiations and legislative process. Those who believe they have done 
well, do not complain. Those who believe they have done less well 
complain, sometimes even oppose an agreement.
  But what was true in 1984 is true today. The fundamental value of 
this agreement is that it strengthens the international trading system 
so that all interests, including the general interest, come out ahead. 
It preserves America's role at the heart of the international trading 
system, ensuring that Americans receive their share of the benefits of 
expanded trade.
  The health of the international trading system is central to global 
economic health. We need only look at the history of the 20th century 
for proof. In 1930, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which 
helped plunge the world, not merely into recession, but into full 
depression. It exacerbated the trend that was already underway. 
Depression, in turn, paved the way to world war.
  By contrast, in 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade came 
into effect, and the world prospered on the back of expanding global 
trade. Or, rather, that part of the world prospered which integrated 
itself into the global trading system.
  The health of the international trading system is vital to America's 
economic health. Let me cite just a few facts that demonstrate the 
importance of exports to our prosperity.
  In my State of New Jersey alone, we have increased exports 90 percent 
since 1987 to 1993. We have over 12 to 14 billion dollars' worth of 
merchandise exported, over 200,000 jobs tied directly to exports.
  In 1947, when the GATT took effect, U.S. exports were around 8 
percent of an American GNP of just over $234 billion. Remember, this 
was when America stood as a colossus around the world.
  In 1993, even though we now face strong competition from Europe, 
Asia, and even Latin America, America still exported over $660 billion 
worth of goods and services, accounting for 10.4 percent of an American 
GDP of almost $6.5 trillion and directly supporting 10 million American 
jobs. In nominal terms, American exports in 1993 were almost three 
times America's GNP in 1947.
  Anyone who doubts the importance of trade and integration into the 
international trading system should compare economic performance in the 
United States and Argentina in this century.
  The turn of the century was the last time that the world economy was 
as open and the flow of capital as free, it was in the midst of 
fundamental transformation. At that time, Argentina and the United 
States had much in common--large, underpopulated territory; continuing 
inflow of European immigrants and capital; vast agricultural and 
mineral riches, and rapid industrialization. Between 1900 and 1930, 
Argentina even had an average annual per capita rate of growth 50 
percent higher than the United States.
  However, following the Great Depression, the United States and 
Argentina embarked on opposite courses. The United States joined GATT 
and reopened to international trade. Argentina withdrew from the world 
and opted for economic autarky behind high tariff walls. And its 
politics became a bloody process of dividing up among elites smaller 
and smaller pieces of the economic pie.
  It is no coincidence that America entered this decade as the largest, 
most productive country in the world, while Argentina began the 1990's 
a developing country struggling to rejoin the world economy. According 
to a study by Domingo Cavallo, and a number of others, if Argentina had 
maintained an open trading regime, its GNP in 1984 would have been 63 
percent higher, investment would have doubled, and exports would have 
almost tripled.
  I would note that Domingo Cavallo, one of the authors of this study, 
took its lessons to heart. As Economic Minister in Argentina, today he 
has orchestrated the reforms that have brought back Argentina economic 
stability and put that great country on the road to prosperity.
  There is one more piece of the equation, Mr. President, which goes 
beyond trade and prosperity to bear on the stability of the 
international system as a whole. It has been our national experience 
that the world is safer for our interests when major nations have a 
stake in the functioning of the system. The world is safer for our 
interests when countries have an institutional structure within which 
to work out their differences. In today's world, the GATT--soon to be 
part of the World Trade Organization--is the most widely accepted and 
used example of an integrating and mediating organization. The habits 
of cooperation, adherence to rules, and responsibility fostered by 
negotiation and dispute resolution spill over into other aspects of 
dealings between nations.
  Some have argued that this agreement is too long, too complex, and we 
should not be taking it up in the remaining days of this session. Mr. 
President, I could not disagree more. If we postpone this agreement 
until next year, we will damage the world economy, we will damage the 
American economy, and we will damage the American wage earner.
  If the United States Congress were to delay this legislation until 
next year, we would call into question whether the Uruguay round would 
ever be implemented. The markets have already discounted this $744 
billion global tax cut. Were it now to be withdrawn, the markets would 
react, and the result could be extremely adverse to Main Street as well 
as Wall Street.
  If the United States were to call the Uruguay round into question, 
forces of protectionism around the world would be strengthened, the 
momentum for trade liberation would be stalled, and the United States 
would abdicate a leadership role in the international economy.
  Closer to home, and our constituents, delaying 6 months would mean 
delaying the benefits of trade liberalization.
  Every year for the next 10 years, there will be 25,000 fewer jobs 
than if we act this year. Treasury projects that the average American 
family will lose $110 per year in income over the next decade if we 
simply delay this agreement 6 months--a delay of a real tax cut for 
Americans.
  All of this assumes that after the delay, of course, we would still 
be able to pass this legislation--next February or March or April. This 
agreement is good today, and it will be good next February, they say. 
But delay will encourage GATT's opponents and give them more time to 
make their protectionist arguments. Who calculates the impact, 
especially on new Members of Congress, those who are out there now 
campaigning against GATT? When they get here, they will be against 
GATT. The prospects of passage will be less, not more.
  Mr. President, in 1914 the world order was shattered by a bullet in 
Sarajevo. The crashing political order ultimately took the open world 
trading system with it, in part because the United States shied away 
from leadership. In 1914 and after, we were unable to cope with the 
transformations shaping our world. The result was depression, world 
war, and cold war.
  In 1989, the world order was shattered again, as the Berlin Wall 
tumbled down. Once again, we face fundamental transformations that are 
reshaping our world. As a result, we have another chance to build a 
more stable, democratic, and prosperous world. Such a world can only 
rest on a sound international trading system that allows the market to 
regulate international competition. Such a world will only come to pass 
if America steps confidently forward to seize the challenge. Our vote 
on the Uruguay round will be a test of that confidence. We must vote 
this year, and we must vote ``aye.''
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon [Mr. 
Hatfield], is recognized for 15 minutes.

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