[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 140 (Friday, September 30, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                  GATT

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, with respect to the agreement, this is 
not really my agreement.
  I had talked early on. Let us go back to April. We were marking up 
the budget in conference. At that particular time in the budget 
conference there was a dispute between the House and Senate that ensues 
this minute with respect to GATT, as to whether or not it is revenue 
neutral. The House has a 5-year rule and we have a 10-year rule. Within 
5 years, yes, we could find, let us say, $12 billion. But within the 10 
years, nobody could find the additional $31 billion, because the CBO 
had found $43 billion was necessary to make it revenue neutral.
  On that particular score, I did get a call from the President of the 
United States, who asked that I waive that budget provision. I told him 
I thought it would be a bad mistake to do so. I did not want to do it. 
And we finally agreed not to waive it.
  But at the time of the conversation, I said, ``Mr. President, you 
beat me on NAFTA.''
  And I say to the Senator, I am not going to get into the NAFTA 
debate. I would be delighted to do it.
  I said, ``That was a bad mistake. Immigration is up and trade is 
down, jobs are down in the United States. And we can prove it 
categorically. Industries are leaving.''
  But I said, ``You beat me with that white tent you put out on the 
back lawn with all those Republicans that gathered there under the 
tent. So, Mr. President, on GATT, you better get out your little tent 
again and put them all under there and get those Republican votes, 
because I am absolutely opposed to this so-called free trade 
nonsense.''
  What happens is, in exercising our right--and it is a deliberate 
right under the Constitution, article 1, section 8, that the Congress, 
not the President, the Congress of the United States shall regulate 
foreign commerce. We have a constitutional responsibility.
  We yielded substantial rights of that particular responsibility with 
this so-called fast track. And what happens is, we said, ``All right, 
Mr. President, there is difficulty getting a lot of nations together 
and a lot of amendments. We understand it. But at least let us have, 
with the committees involved, 45 days in committee and then 15 days on 
the floor, or 60 days, 60 days with fast track in the Senate.''
  Now they come and instead of fast track they want instant track. They 
say, ``You are holding up the works.'' Well, let us see who is holding 
up the works.
  When we exercise our right--and the President knew--everyone there 
connected, Ambassador Kantor knew my particular position--that we 
wanted to air it out, we wanted to debate in the open. We never had 
open debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate because by the time fast 
track comes to the floor--it is worse than fast track, in that the jury 
has been fixed.
  I had lunch yesterday with Leon Panetta, the Chief of Staff. At that 
lunch, he said he already had 300 votes over on the House side. I said, 
``You ought to be O.J.'s lawyer. You know how to really fix the jury 
ahead of the debate.''
  We had not even begun to debate. In fact, we did not get the 
implementation document until yesterday morning. We have had it in our 
committee for less than 48 hours, and they are wondering, ``Why are you 
dragging your feet?''
  I knew that, under GATT, since you have to the end of June of next 
year to ratify that agreement here in the Congress, that since none of 
the major trading powers in Europe or Japan had ratified it, that 
certainly it would be that they would not cause a lame duck session in 
the context of bringing everybody back in an emergency situation for 
GATT when they did not do it for health care, they did not do it for 
campaign finance reform, they did not do it for the information super 
highway, they did not do it for the maritime bill, they did not do it 
for the technology bill.
  We have all these measures, highly important, more debated, more 
worked on by all the committees and ready to go and ready to be agreed 
upon.
  But with the shenanigans going on and not being able to get these 
things up, if they were not going to bring the Congress back in a lame 
duck session for any of those, certainly they would not for one that 
they could easily agree on at the first of the year.
  So exercising the rights under fast track, I knew we would have 4 
months before we came back in January to fully air and debate it, and 
that is all I could ask for to try to educate the folks in the mistake 
they are making.
  But they took this different turn, and now they are requiring us to 
come back.
  So if anybody is to call for a lame duck, it is the President 
himself. I cannot call anybody back. And we are playing by his rules 
and he knew it and Ambassador Kantor knew it.
  And I thought, really, I had all the rules in line, but the majority 
leader has educated me. And that is, they have the full intent, if we 
did not agree, that the leader would come in, the Chaplain would give a 
prayer, and the leader would move to adjourn. And the next day, the 
Chaplain would come in, the majority leader, exercising his right to 
first be recognized, would move to adjourn. And on and on for 45 days. 
And he has that right.
  And I said, ``Now, wait a minute. I am trying to persuade, not 
alienate everybody. So I am not going to be that nasty.'' There is no 
idea to be nasty or anything else about this thing. ``But you put in me 
a position where I guess I have to agree. I have run out of rights. I 
have run out of rules.''
  I have run out of rules. So therein is the reason for this. I am 
fully intent on killing this measure, GATT. The President says he needs 
it now because he has to lead, and nothing, nothing, nothing could be 
further from the truth.
  There is no chance of him leading. He is not a leader in 
international trade. I do not know how we get that through his head, 
that head, this head, or anybody else's head around here. They are not 
leaders. The United States is not the superpower, Japan is.
  We have two fundamentally different trade systems and economies. We 
follow, of course, Adam Smith, David Ricardo; the doctrine of 
comparative advantage, free markets and free trade. They follow the 
Friedrich List--the Germans, the Japanese--of the wealth of the nation 
being measured not by what you can buy but by what you can produce. And 
they look at us in total dismay when we talk in terms of morality; that 
you are cheating on the trade things, that you are unfair. ``Be fair. 
Be fair.''
  Come on, get off of that childish nonsense about being fair--trade is 
trade. You learn in Contracts I in law school, ``a sound article for a 
sound price.''
  The context of our current trade policy is the cold war: The cold 
war, where we had to subordinate the economic interests of your country 
and mine for national security, to keep everybody within the alliance 
against communism and against the Soviets--and yes, they give me 
history--President Reagan initiated this GATT round. You are right. You 
are as right as rain. President Reagan started this GATT with the same 
old cold war philosophy and pressures at the time here, 8 years ago.
  So here it is. President Reagan, President Bush, and now President 
Clinton, want to continue cold war trade policies--when what we need to 
do is refurbish our manufacturing sector and strengthen the economy of 
the United States. The foreign policy they talk of is like a three-
legged stool: You have the one leg of your values as a country, you 
have the second leg as your military power, and your third leg is your 
economic power.
  Under the first leg is the values of the country--no one questions 
it. The United States gives lives to feed the hungry in Somalia and now 
is trying to build democracy down in Haiti.
  The second leg is that of the military power--unquestioned.
  But the third leg, the economic leg, is fractured. We are in deep 
trouble. You can only go back to the same promises they made in 1979 
under the last round, the Tokyo round. I was on a program last night 
and I heard the same sing-song, ``x thousands of jobs are going to be 
built up, we are going to have a beautiful economy.'' It was the same 
old malarkey we heard under Reagan economics that George Bush called 
voodoo.
  Now we have international voodoo, or trade voodoo. We heard that in 
1979. We have it given to us in 1994, and there is no education in the 
second kick of a mule. Mr. President, since that 1979 agreement we have 
had an outflow due to our trade deficit--historically never having 
occurred in one nation in the history of this world--of $1.4 trillion. 
We have had 3.2 million jobs lost. We have had an inflow of 
manufactured goods. So now our manufacturing sector has dropped from 26 
percent of our work force to 16 percent of our work force. What jobs we 
have are part-time jobs that they are all bragging about creating. And 
those Americans with regular jobs are taking home less pay in real 
terms than what they were taking home 20 years ago, and less than even 
a few years ago.
  So do not give me all of these wonderful things. Here I am losing 
out. I heard the gentleman last night representing the Alliance for 
GATT Now, the blue-chip corporations. And, heavens above, they do not 
have any standing in this court of trade disputes.
  Here it is, ``The Work of Nations,'' by none other than Robert B. 
Reich, the Secretary of Labor. And Bob Reich says in his book--just one 
line I will read and we have plenty of lines to read on this one. 
Listen to this: ``America's 500 largest industrial companies failed to 
create a single net new job between 1975 and 1990.'' They had not 
created any jobs in 15 years. The gentleman I was speaking to is one of 
the largest exporters from Taiwan--yes, they create jobs in Taiwan and 
other countries of the world around.
  And what have they done in the last few years? The lingo in the news 
now is ``downsizing.'' Downsizing--they are firing 60,000 from IBM; 
71,000 from General Motors. Aircraft? Mr. President, 28,000 from 
Boeing--gone. I am going to have that Washington crowd over there join 
this textile Senator.
  They say, ``Oh, Hollings, he's just a textile fellow crying because 
he has low-skilled workers and he is just shilling for them.''
  I am not just shilling for the textile industry. I am shilling for 
the aircraft and the automobile and the high-tech industries, because 
when we had the NAFTA debate it came out. You have to understand. They 
build things very, very productively in these other countries. Down in 
Mexico--not Detroit, not Europe, but the most productive Ford factory 
is down in Mexico. Look at the rankings by J.D. Powers.
  I know they get skilled because I get them skilled. Why do you think 
they are coming with BMW to South Carolina instead of Detroit? We never 
have manufactured a car. But I have to go listen to Michael Porter from 
Harvard talk about the same old ``comparative advantage.''
  See, they are off on the example of the British. The British 
reassured themselves 25, 30 years ago--``Don't worry. Instead of a 
Nation of brawn you are going to be a Nation of brains.'' And, 
``Instead of producing products you are going to create services. 
Service economy, service economy, service economy--instead of creating 
wealth you are going to handle it and be a financial center.''
  Now England is a museum to visit. It is pleasant. You can look at the 
countryside. There are two levels of society, the impoverished and the 
very wealthy with these large estates. If they want to know where a 
historic Disneyland can be located, it is going to be located right 
here in Washington. We are going the way of England, ``to hell in a 
hand basket'' economically.
  We have to wake up. How do you get their attention and how do you 
wake them up? How do you get that media crowd? ``Whose bread I eat 
whose song I sing.''
  When we debated this one time before I went to the Washington Post, 
about 5 years ago. They made $1 billion, and about 80 percent of it, 
$800 million, was from retail advertising. How does that crowd come in?
  Oh, we will get into it because we are going to show the imported 
article does not reduce the price. It increases the profit. You see, 
the nationals went over and became multinationals, the banks became 
multinational banks. They are financing the consultants, the think 
tanks, the Washington lobbyists, the Trilateral Commission--all put on 
the full court press: Free trade, free trade--dump, dump, dump, dump, 
dump--their products. Over half of our imports are American-produced 
products overseas and brought back in. We are playing the game against 
ourselves and do not even understand it. So the retailers making a 
bigger profit and are the ones who pay and fix the vote. You are not 
getting it cheap.
  Then you talk about consumerism, consumerism, consumerism--that crowd 
that is firing everybody is interested in consumers?
  Yes, they are making more money, but I can tell my colleagues now, 
you can produce anything anywhere. We are not in charge. And what is 
the real danger?
  You have, as I speak, Ambassador Kantor, the Special Trade 
Representative, right in conflict, let us call it, with the Japanese 
trying to get a bilateral trade agreement. Now, question one: Why, if 
these 117 nations are all going to be dealing by the same rules and 
singing out of the same hymnal, why, if GATT gets everybody playing by 
the same rules, is he so intent on getting an agreement with the 
Japanese? And how does he try to enforce that agreement with the 
Japanese, like we did with semiconductors? We said we are going to use 
super 301, and that is how we got these voluntary restraint agreements 
and that is how we rebuilt our semiconductor industry, and that is the 
tool he is using.
  Mr. President, that goes out with GATT. Let us get right to it. Here 
it is, ``The Report on United States Barriers to Trade and 
Investment.'' And if you look on page 12, you will find section 301 
contradicts GATT. You can go through the book. Not just with the 
Europeans. Here is a booklet entitled ``94 Report: Unfair Trade 
Policies by Major Trading Partners of Japan,'' finding 301 GATT 
illegal. And we can go to the few remaining tools we have on the books 
to go against dumping which go out the window with GATT.
  I can go at length into how we will have one man, one vote in Geneva, 
how Castro can cancel out our vote. The fact of the matter is, of the 
emerging nations, three-fourths of the 117 countries, three-fourths of 
them have voted against us a majority of the time in the U.N.
  Take Mexico. President Salinas is the man they want to be leading the 
WTO. Mexico has voted against us around 75 percent of the time in the 
United Nations Look at the record last year. Go back to the record and 
find out where we are and sober up, and quit going home and saying, 
``Oh, I'm for jobs.'' We have an affirmative action policy with GATT in 
these trade policies of exporting our jobs and importing the 
unemployment of the world, and we cannot afford it anymore. We cannot 
afford it anymore.
  We said, thinking we were in charge, that GATT in December was going 
to get us financial services. They did not get financial services. All 
they got was an agreement to talk for 2 more years. They tried to get 
labor and environmental rights in April when Ambassador Kantor went to 
Marakesh. He could not get it then. So then they brought in the 
Commander in Chief, President Clinton, and in Naples in June, they 
presented a plan to the G-7 group in Naples and they said, ``Let's go 
out and have a drink. We'll see you later, President Clinton. 
Goodbye.'' And here is the man who says he is in charge, that he has 
the lead.
  Environmental, labor rights--that is exactly what Ambassador Kantor 
tried to get in Marakesh. The rest of the world rebuffed us. So you do 
not have those things covered. It is not just my million of textile 
jobs; it is high-tech jobs, it is environmental concerns, it is labor 
rights. All of those things go out on this full-court press where they 
do not want debate, they do not want coverage, they do not want an 
understanding whatsoever. And then they want to say, ``Oh, he is being 
technical and causing us to come back.''
  No, we can come back. There is plenty of time between January and 
June of 1995 when the new GATT is supposed to take effect. You can 
bring it up at any time, we can debate it, and we can have a vote. Look 
at the ads. Look at all of those things on TV. Their sponsors do not--
when are you going to wake up--create jobs. We are losing them right 
and left. They do not increase the economy.
  And what has really happened on the other side of the ledger with our 
spend and spend and spend and spend--that is another thing. You talk 
about bipartisanship. We had bipartisanship for Reaganomics, and now 
neither side cares about paying the bill. I have advocated a value-
added tax--a tax. I had to run on that just the year before last. But I 
want to pay the bills. Read Tom Friedman in the New York Times about a 
giant restraint in trade policy. Actually, Kantor is not our trade 
negotiator. The Secretary of Treasury, on account of fluctuations----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Senator has exceeded his 
time in morning business.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I then have to close, Mr. President. I appreciate it 
very much. But I will just end with that. If you want to get trade 
policy, unfortunately, you have to go to the Secretary of the Treasury. 
The simple reason is that we had a 10 percent cut, for example, in 
tariffs, but they had a 9-percent devaluation of the peso in Mexico and 
that immediately canceled out the so-called tariff cuts.
  I want to get into the tariff cuts later. GATT does not change any 
entry into markets like they are talking about. That is why Mr. Kantor 
is trying to get in Japan now. He is not going to get in there.
  Until we start enforcing our dumping laws, sober up and begin to act 
for the economic interests of this land, we are going down the tubes in 
this country.
  I thank the distinguished Senator for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.

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