[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 75 (Friday, May 24, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5637-S5641]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I think our Democratic leader is on his 
way. I will certainly yield to him at the time he comes for any remarks 
he would like to make. But I would like to just take some time in his 
absence to comment on one of the comments made by the majority leader, 
Senator Dole, regarding welfare and welfare reform.
  I think there is a growing consensus on behalf of both sides of the 
aisle that a welfare reform bill is achievable. It is achievable in 
this Congress this year. I think we are getting very, very close. The 
President of the United States has said some favorable things about the 
welfare plan that has been proposed by the Republican Governor of 
Wisconsin, Senator Thompson. I think the President made it very clear 
on the previous bill, the so-called Dole-Gingrich welfare reform bill 
that the President vetoed, that he vetoed it for a very specific 
reason. He vetoed it because it did not provide for adequate health 
care for children and he vetoed it because it did not provide for 
additional child care funding for children of welfare parents.
  The President's stated position on welfare reform is that it should 
be tough on work but also should be good for children. I think that is 
the right approach. I do not think there is anyone in America who wants 
to be tough on welfare who wants to be tough and unfair to innocent 
children who did not ask to be born into this world.
  Yes; be tough on the parents. Yes; put time limits on welfare. Yes; 
cut able-bodied parents off of welfare if they refuse to work. But let 
us make sure that this Nation, as great as it is, takes care of 
innocent children who did not ask to be born.
  So I think the President made it very clear he would support his 
understanding of what was in the Wisconsin plan if it, in fact, took 
care of children by providing Medicaid or health care for those 
children and also additional child care funding. That is why he vetoed 
the previous welfare bill that had been sent to him, because it simply 
did not provide for those two major ingredients.
  If the Wisconsin plan meets those standards, I think it is one that 
can be signed. I think the comments of the President yesterday while he 
was in Wisconsin really said exactly that, that he would support a 
welfare reform even if it's a Republican plan, or a Democratic plan; it 
doesn't make any difference who has authored it. But he also said, 
``So, what I say, if this is Senator Dole's plan''--meaning a plan that 
provided for health care for children and for child care funding for 
children, that, if that is in the plan, ``I think what he ought to do 
is pass his plan through this Congress before he leaves the Senate and 
I will sign it.'' That was a statement that I agree with, that, if a 
plan is presented that provides medical care for innocent children and 
if it is a plan that provides for child care funding so the parents can 
go to work, then it is a plan that, indeed, the President would want to 
sign.
  So I think we are close. I commend the latest plan that I saw coming 
from our Republican colleagues for the closeness that it allows the two 
bodies to get together on an agreement. What I point out is that my 
review of what they are trying to do with their plan is, I think, very 
positive, in the sense that it does some things in the direction of 
providing more for child care, a very positive thing; it has tough new 
work rules in the Republican proposal, and that is good; it has a 
larger contingency fund for States in an economic downturn, and that is 
good. So there are a number of really good things in the new Republican 
plan that moves it closer to what we as Democrats have been trying to 
get accomplished.
  But there are, I think, some deficiencies. I think these deficiencies 
are not such that they cannot be corrected, but the deficiencies, I 
think, are significant. For instance, they provide no vouchers for 
children after the parents have been cut off of welfare assistance.
  What do you do, I would say to our colleagues, when you tell a parent 
you are not going to get any more assistance after 2 or 3 years--what 
are you going to say to a 2-year-old child, a baby, an infant, or a 
child that has no way to support itself and gets sick? Are we not going 
to have any help for innocent children? I think that is wrong.
  Be as tough as we possibly can on parents and make them go to work 
and say, ``If you don't go to work, you are going to lose your 
benefits,'' and say, ``There is a certain time limit that you have to 
get to work if you are capable of doing it.'' But, unfortunately, there 
are going to be some who do not meet those standards and unfortunately 
they are going to be some children who are going to be innocent victims 
unless we find a way to take care of them. I suggest if we do not take 
care of them in the short term we are going to be spending a great deal 
more money in the long-term taking care of medical problems.
  So I suggest that we ought to bring up the welfare bill as soon as we 
can. Do not tie it down with other things that are still in dispute, 
like Medicare or Medicaid or other controversial issues. Let us face 
it. If we can get an agreement on welfare, let us do it and let us quit 
arguing about who will get the credit. There is enough credit for 
everybody. Everybody will win if we come to an agreement that makes 
sense. But everybody loses if we continue to fight it from a political 
standpoint and not address it from a humanitarian standpoint. Let us be 
tough on reform, but help children.
  I am encouraged we are getting closer on welfare reform. I will again 
say the new proposal from the Republican side is a very positive step. 
This allows us to sit and negotiate over just a couple of items and be 
able to say, ``Yes, we can produce a bipartisan welfare plan which will 
be good for the country.''
  I hope we can do it very quickly. I think it can be a product this 
President will sign very quickly. So what if you have a signing 
ceremony and Senator Bob Dole comes down and President Bill Clinton 
comes down and signs the same piece of legislation. Is that not good 
for this country? Is that not why we are supposed to be here? I think 
the answer is yes.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum, 
since no one is apparently waiting to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I see no colleagues on the floor today. We 
do not have record votes. I expect there are very few Senators here. I 
know we are in a period for morning business with a 5-minute 
limitation. I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to speak for 20 
minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. If the minority leader or others come and need to take 
some time, I will be happy to accommodate them.

[[Page S5638]]



              UNITED STATES TRADE RELATIONSHIP WITH JAPAN

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor of the 
Senate today and talk a bit about trade. The Senate last evening passed 
a budget, and there was a lot of discussion about deficits. Actually, 
we had three budgets considered by the Senate, none of which balances 
the budget in the year 2002, despite the fact it was alleged that all 
of them did. That is because the only way any of them--whether it was 
the President's, the centrist's, or the GOP budget--portrayed a balance 
in 2002 was by using the Social Security trust funds.
  We do have a fiscal policy deficit, and there is reason to talk about 
that. But that deficit has been coming down and coming down rather 
substantially for a number of reasons. There is another deficit in the 
twin deficits we face in this country that no one talks about. 
Virtually no one talks about the trade deficit. I do not quite 
understand why no one talks much about this, but it is every bit as 
serious a problem for this country as the fiscal policy deficit. It 
relates to jobs and opportunity that are lost in this country. It 
relates to jobs moving from our country to other countries.
  So I want to spend a little time talking about the trade deficit. 
Previously I did talk about it more generally. Today I want to talk 
about one portion of it. That is the portion of the trade deficit that 
relates to our trade with Japan. In future presentations I will talk 
about trade with China, Mexico and Canada and other aspects of the 
trade deficit as well. I want to talk today about the trade deficits we 
have had generally in our country and specifically about the largest 
deficit that we have, which is with the country of Japan.
  This chart shows the merchandise trade deficit in our country, and it 
shows in 1995 it set a record of $175 billion. All of this is red ink. 
This is what the chart shows, massive quantities of trade deficits year 
after year. They are not accidental. They are the result of a trade 
strategy that is not working and a trade strategy that bleeds economic 
opportunity away from our country.
  As I begin, I want to say the Clinton administration has been better 
than the previous two administrations in dealing with this issue, but 
it does not solve the problem. They are more aggressive with China and 
they have been more aggressive with Japan, but the fact is our trade 
strategy has not been working, under Republican or under Democratic 
administrations.
  Here is what our trade deficit looks like. Our merchandise trade 
deficit hit $175 billion last year. The fact is, we need to take a look 
at our trade relationships. We need to develop long-term trade policies 
that make sense for our entire economy--business, labor, agriculture 
and industry. We need to bring new and, in my judgment, innovative 
approaches to this problem to try to figure out how do we eliminate 
these trade deficits.
  The fact is, our Nation's trade deficit cannot be solved by a one-
size-fits-all solution in the global economy. If we are going to solve 
this problem, we have to understand what causes these trade deficits. 
We need to understand the bilateral relationships we have with the 
other countries that make up these deficits.
  I want to talk specifically about the largest trade deficit we have 
in the context of these trade deficits. It is our trade relationship 
with Japan.
  Japan is our second-largest trading partner, but we have the single 
largest merchandise trade deficit with them. This issue is not just 
about theory. It is about baseball bats. It is about apples. It is 
about rock-and-roll music. It is about automobiles. It is about VCR's. 
It is about computer chips and about fair trade between us and Japan.
  As the world's two economic powerhouses, the United States and Japan 
trade with each other. We have a joint responsibility to bring about 
some kind of economic balance between us. Trade and growth ought to be 
two-way streets. They are mutual, and they are reciprocal. Our trade 
relationship with Japan has not been mutually advantageous.
  No Nation can benefit from a trade strategy in which you have 
recurring consecutive deficits year after year. Our trade balance looks 
like this: 37 percent of the merchandise trade deficit in our country 
comes from our relationship with Japan, nearly a $60 billion trade 
deficit.
  The bottom line is that we must change that circumstance. Our country 
cannot continue to have a trade relationship with Japan that has these 
kinds of deficits. The only other country that approaches that is our 
deficit with China. We have a fairly large deficit with Canada and 
Mexico combined: over $30 billion. This cannot continue.
  The next chart shows the yearly trade deficits with the country of 
Japan. If you take a look at this sea of red ink in our trade 
relationship with Japan, you can only conclude that our trade 
relationship with Japan has not been mutually beneficial. 1995 was the 
31st consecutive year of trade deficits that we have had with the 
country of Japan. In fact, the last time we had a trade surplus with 
Japan was 1964.
  This chart shows that last year was the third highest trade deficit 
we had with the country of Japan. This will not go away by wishful 
thinking. Oh, some months there is a story in the paper that says it 
has improved; some months there is a story saying it gets a little 
worse.
  This chart shows exactly what our trade relationship with Japan is. 
It is a one-way relationship that substantially benefits them and hurts 
us by draining jobs and opportunity and economic growth in our country.
  Our country cannot continue to have this kind of a structural trade 
deficit with Japan year after year after year. In the past 5 years 
alone, we have racked up a quarter of a trillion dollar trade deficit 
with one country.
  You can make a case on the fiscal policy of the budget that is money 
we owe to ourselves. Really, that is only partially true. But, you 
cannot make that kind of case on the trade deficit. Any trade deficits 
we have in the aggregate are going to be paid for by a lower standard 
of living in America.
  The next chart shows the trade flow between us and the country of 
Japan. This past year our imports from Japan include automobiles, 
vehicles, machinery, electrical equipment, VCR's, television sets, 
manufactured articles. $123 billion has been sent to America from Japan 
in the past year. That is right: $123 billion.
  What are we sending back? We are sending grains, cereals, meats, 
food, wood, mineral fuels, coal, some oil, and some aircraft. There was 
$64 billion of goods shipped from America to Japan. So we purchase $123 
billion from Japan, and they purchase $64 billion from us.
  The important part of this relationship is that most of what we are 
purchasing from Japan represents manufactured goods, high-technology 
goods, the kinds of things that relate to jobs. Much of what they 
consume from us is not the product of manufacturing.
  We appreciate very much the fact that they buy our grains, and I want 
them to buy a lot more. They have an obligation to buy a lot more. I 
appreciate that they buy our steak, our beef, our pork. They ought to 
buy more T-bone steaks and send it to Tokyo. The fact is, there is more 
demand for beef in Japan than can be served by the quantity of beef 
they now allow in.

  But the fact is, we need some more balance in both the overall trade 
flow and also the kinds of goods that are moving between our countries. 
We need to also be sending to Japan the product of our manufacturing 
goods.
  The next chart shows the market share that the United States has of 
selected industries in Japan. It is pretty interesting. It shows our 
market share in the world as a United States producer and then our 
market share in Japan. None of this is accidental.
  Paper and paper board: We have a 14 percent world share; we have 2 
percent of the Japanese market.
  Aerospace: We are better than most, we have a 69 percent world share; 
44 percent in the Japanese market.
  Automobiles and vehicles: We have a 16 percent share of the world 
market; a 1 percent share of the Japanese market. Is that an accident? 
While we are driving Hondas and Nissans and Toyotas, is it an accident 
that we only have 1 percent of the Japanese market? No. I am going to 
talk about why that is the case. It is a deliberate restriction on 
American products going into Japan.
  Machine tools: 6 percent of the world market; 1 percent of the 
Japanese market.

[[Page S5639]]

  Pharmaceuticals: 27 percent of the world market; 7 percent of the 
Japanese market.
  Office machines: 29 percent of the world market; 10 percent of the 
Japanese market.
  The point from this chart is that the Japanese systematically keep 
from their marketplace the kinds of things that we are shipping around 
the rest of the world because they want to restrict what they buy from 
us. Yet, they want to continue to expand the amount they sell to us. 
What does it mean? It means that we have a very large trade deficit 
with the country of Japan.
  The next chart reviews a little about the trade agreements that we 
have had. Some say, well, we have all these trade agreements. We have 
GATT, we have bilateral agreements, we have all kinds of agreements 
that are going to be opening up segments of the Japanese market.
  During the past 3 years the Clinton administration has been very 
aggressive. They have negotiated 21 separate agreements with Japan. 
Included in these are two of the general framework agreements, and a 
variety of industry-based agreements with Japan. They contain 
everything from intellectual property to medical technology, from autos 
to auto parts and air cargo.
  The purpose of these agreements is to try to make consistent and 
measurable gains in getting American products into the Japanese 
marketplace. I think President Clinton has been aggressive on this. I 
appreciate that. Former Ambassador Mickey Kantor has been the most 
aggressive of all of our trade ambassadors.
  But at the same time, we ought to understand that this progress is 
painfully slow and terribly inadequate. We are not solving the problem. 
This was especially evident to me, at least, in a statement made by 
Japan's Vice Minister of International Trade and Industry about a month 
before President Clinton recently went to Japan. Yoshihiro Sakamoto 
told the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo:

       It is no longer relevant to negotiate and have an agreement 
     on issues related to global industries in a limited bilateral 
     context between Japan and the United States. The era of 
     bilateralism is over. Any such friction from now on will have 
     to be solved in accordance with the World Trade Organization 
     . . .

  In other words, he is saying about this big surplus they have with 
us, or our big trade deficit with Japan, that the days are over when we 
are going to negotiate with them to get more of our cars into Japan or 
more of our electronics equipment into Japan. Now he says we are going 
to be dealing with the WTO under GATT.
  The fact is, the World Trade Organization simply does not even 
address or relate to the kinds of barriers that we face in getting 
American products into Japan. I can understand why Japan really wants 
to deal through the World Trade Organization rather than bilateral 
negotiations. They have decided that it is the best route for them 
because we have painted ourselves in a corner with this thing called 
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
  The WTO, the World Trade Organization, primarily deals with tariffs 
and quota barriers. The problem is that Japan has a whole range of non-
tariff barriers that keep American products out. I am going to describe 
a few of them. These barriers have nothing to do with the WTO and GATT. 
We cannot solve them through the WTO and GATT. But nonetheless, Japan 
keeps a wide range of products out. It restricts dramatically a wide 
range of American products going into Japan.
  Perhaps a couple of Japanese agricultural tariffs will best 
illustrate the circumstances that I am talking about.
  Beef. I do not know if many have been to Japan. The Presiding Officer 
has been to Japan. If you go to Japan to buy a T-bone steak in Tokyo. 
It costs you $28 to $30 a pound. Why? Because there is not enough beef 
in Japan.
  We negotiated with Japan to get more American beef into Japan. You 
would have thought when it was over you that we had won the Olympics. 
You had people doing cartwheels and praising Hosanna and doing feasts 
and fiestas. What a wonderful thing it was that we would get more 
American beef into Japan.
  We have such low expectations of the trade relationship with Japan. 
When you strip away what is actually in the agreement, you find that 
there is a 50-percent tariff on all the beef that goes into Japan. In 
other words we were successful in getting them down to a 50-percent 
tariff applied to American beef going into Japan. And, there is going 
to be a reduction, they say, of that 50-percent, down 2 percent a year.
  But, if you have 120 percent growth in the volume coming in the 
reduction does not happen. So, you still have a 50-percent tariff on 
beef going into Japan. All the folks that did cartwheels about the 
major breakthrough should take a second look. This was on the front 
pages some years ago as a major breakthrough in beef going to go into 
Japan. Guess what? We still have a 50-percent tariff on American beef 
going into Japan. Despite that the cattle organizations think it is 
great we are sending more beef to Japan and so do I.
  But, what low expectations we have if we believe it is fair for a 
trading partner like Japan to say to us, ``You want to ship us 
hamburger or T-bone steaks, guess what? You have a 50-percent tariff.'' 
That is exactly the kind of thing they have done to us over and over 
and over again. It is exactly why our trade deficit with them has 
grown.
  I will not describe the situation with pork but it is almost exactly 
the same thing. The implication was that we have solved a problem and 
we get more pork into Japan. Yet the fact is they put up a nontariff 
barrier.
  In my judgment it is a fundamentally outrageous trade policy to say 
to us, ``We want to ship you all our cars, we want to ship you our 
VCR's, ship you what we produce, but when you want to send American 
goods to Japan we want to narrow your market and restrict your 
opportunities.''
  The next chart shows some of these foreign trade barriers. I have a 
copy of the booklet put out by the U.S. Trade Representative offices 
showing trade barriers. It shows the trade barriers we face when 
American producers and workers try to send their products to Japan. 
This book says:

       Whereas previous administrations had reached bilateral and 
     multilateral agreements with Japan, long-term access to 
     Japan's markets for foreign goods and services has remained 
     elusive. While Japan has reduced its formal tariff rates to 
     imports to very low levels, invisible non-tariff barriers 
     such as nontransparency, discriminatory standards and 
     exclusionary business practices maintain a business 
     environment protective of domestic companies and restrictive 
     of the free flow of competitive goods into the Japanese 
     domestic market.

  That says we are losing American jobs and sapping America's economic 
strength. Our jobs are going overseas. Why? Because Japan is sending 
their manufactured products here and we cannot get enough of our 
manufactured products into Japan.
  The next chart shows the barriers to getting the products into Japan. 
There are many of them. The intricate trade and customs bureaucracy 
that stalls products when they get to Japan. Then there is 
overregulation and excessive inspection, restrictive standards, 
discriminatory pricing and procurement, state trading authorities, and 
something called the Keiretsu system. Most Members of the Senate 
understand that this Keiretsu structure in Japan would be illegal in 
the United States. It is a whole series of integrated business 
relationships and cross ownership that simply prevents us from getting 
into and competing in the Japanese market.
  There are plenty of examples of that. Automobiles, for example: If 
you do not have dealers or existing dealers who are licensed to sell 
your cars, you cannot get sell your cars. The nontariff barriers of 
getting goods into Japan is legendary even for companies constantly 
trying to do that.

  I mentioned apples. It took us 20 years of negotiation and study and 
review before Japan would accept apples from Washington State--20 
years. When it comes to accepting the international phytosanitary 
standards on fruits and vegetables the best the USTR can say is, 
``Progress has been slow.'' That radically understates the 
circumstance, when it takes 20 years to get an apple into Japan.
  Go to Japan today to Tokyo, and see some kids play on a high school 
playground. See if you see an aluminum baseball bat. You hear the ping 
of aluminum baseball bats in America these days. It seems a lot of the 
kids want aluminum bats rather than wood, but do you hear that sound 
hitting a softball or baseball. You will not hear it in

[[Page S5640]]

Japan because in Japan if a Japanese high school wants to buy a 
baseball bat, the bat has to have the Japanese Industrial Standard seal 
of approval.
  While there are no formal prohibitions on aluminum baseball bats, no 
one has been able to get the Japanese Industrial Standard seal of 
approval on an aluminum baseball bat. That means there are no aluminum 
baseball bats in Japanese high schools. It does not relate to tariffs 
or quotas. It relates to something called the Japanese Industrial 
Standard seal of approval.
  Now with all the international intrigue in all of the high-level 
negotiations, we run up a massive trade deficit with Japan and we are 
told, ``Well, our marketplace cannot accept enough T-bone steaks or any 
aluminum bats, or it take 20 years to get an apple through to be eaten 
by a Japanese consumer.''
  Japanese do not recognize the copyrights on sound recordings made 
outside of Japan prior to 1971. Now, the Presiding Officer, being from 
Montana, knows that the best music in our country came in the 1950's 
and 1960's. Because of the circumstances of the nonrecognition of 
copyrights on sound recordings in Japan, none of this good old rock and 
roll music is protected in the Japanese market. All of it is available 
to be used for nothing. That is another example of a circumstance of 
doing business in Japan.
  Even earthquakes do not seem to shake their resolve to prevent 
outside interests from coming in with goods and services. The Kobe 
earthquake prompted some Swiss dogs to be sent to help find people 
buried in the rubble. Those Swiss dogs were held up at the airport in 
quarantine. Special emergency equipment was delayed in customs to 
respond to the Kobe earthquake and foreign teams of emergency doctors 
came to Japan to help and could not practice because they did not have 
Japanese licenses. That is the kind of bureaucracy that we face in 
trying to get foreign goods and services into the Japanese markets.
  Next, finally, I will talk about some myths about the United States 
trade deficit with Japan. The first myth is this is something we do not 
have to talk about and that it is self-correcting. It will go away.
  It is not going away. It is getting worse. It is a deliberate managed 
trade strategy by Japan to enhance their economy at our expense. It 
means fewer jobs in our country. It means economic opportunity lost. It 
means a lower standard of living in America.
  The second myth is that the trade deficit can be solved through the 
World Trade Organization. Anybody that believes that needs to go find 
some bridges to buy this afternoon. It will not happen. The World Trade 
Organization is not going to solve this problem.
  Another myth is that bilateral trade deficits do not matter. It is 
only the aggregate that matters. That would be true for some other 
country that would have equal trade surpluses to offset against such a 
deficit. That argument has no relationship to this. We have a constant 
recurring trade deficit that is hurting this country and the largest 
deficit is with the country of Japan. It is deliberate. It is not 
getting better. It is getting worse.
  It does not matter what we trade with Japan, some say. Nonsense. 
Japan is one of our largest trading partners. As I have indicated, for 
over 30 years, every single year, we have had a trade deficit. More 
importantly, they are sending us finished products, the product of 
labor and manufacturing and good jobs, and all too often they are 
unwilling to buy from us the product of our manufacturing. They are 
interested in buying our coal and other things that are not a product 
of manufacturing and do not create as many jobs in our country.
  Another myth is that the deficit can be solved by macroeconomic 
policies. The deficit is not going to be solved by macroeconomic 
policies. Our trade deficit with Japan is a structural problem, and the 
imbalance in our economies is a result of a continuing trade deficit, 
not a cause of it.
  We have cut our Federal budget deficit substantially in recent years. 
Yet, we have still seen a massive surge in Japanese imports during 
these years.
  Some say, well, it is the currency exchange rate that caused the 
deficit. That is simply not true. As the currency exchange rate moved 
in one direction or another, our trade deficit has frequently moved 
exactly the opposite direction that you would expect. This trade 
deficit is not going to be solved by macroeconomic policies.
  Some say that the Japanese market cannot absorb more American goods. 
That, of course, is the biggest myth of all. This is another version of 
the myth that we cannot compete in the Japanese marketplace because we 
do not understand the Japanese market. The fact is that the American 
products produced here do well whenever they are available to Japanese 
customers. The problem is getting into the Japanese marketplace to make 
them available to the Japanese customers.
  Now, it is true that, on a per capita basis, the Japanese import as 
much from the United States as the United States imports from Japan. 
But that is one of those statistics that conceals rather than reveals. 
If we turn this around, we would find that, on a per capita basis, 
Japan exports four times more to the United States than we export to 
Japan. That is a statistic that just confounds an issue rather than 
clarifies an issue.
  The fact is, whenever the Japanese market has been opened up to an 
opportunity to trade more and import more from the United States, the 
United States has experienced a substantial growth in sales to Japan. 
Our problem is that opportunity has not existed very often with Japan, 
and that is the reason for our recurring trade deficit.
  The final chart talks about solving our trade deficit with Japan. 
What do we have to do to resolve this? First of all, you stop ignoring 
it. Do not have 200 days of discussion on the floor of the Senate about 
the fiscal policy deficit and then completely ignore a trade policy 
deficit that is even higher than the fiscal policy deficit. Don't 
ignore one that will inevitably be repaid some day by a lower standard 
of living in this country. This is another part of the twin deficits 
that hurt our country, and we have to deal with it.
  We have to continue and expand bilateral framework talks with Japan, 
and push them hard. We have to say to Japan: You have a responsibility 
to us. A trade relationship is a two-way relationship, and we will no 
longer countenance a relationship in which you do well at our expense. 
We will not continue, in the next 30 years, a continuing trade deficit 
with Japan.
  Second, we must monitor market access and enforce agreements, and do 
it aggressively. None of this talk and fluff. Go at this aggressively 
and insist on market access, demand market access for American workers 
and for the products of American businesses in Japan.
  We need to involve and aggressively represent U.S. business, 
agriculture, and labor interests in trade disputes. We have been 
wallflowers in our trade relationship with these folks. We sit around 
and twiddle our thumbs and act nervous and sweat all day wondering what 
we can do. It is very simple.
  What we say to countries like Japan is: We enjoy your products, 
Americans deserve to have opportunity to purchase your products, but we 
demand, as a part of that, that you open your markets to us. If you are 
saying to us, ``We want to ship our cars, VCR's, and television sets to 
America to sell, but we will not allow American products into Japan in 
any significant quantity,'' then we say, ``Sell your cars in some other 
country. Sell your cars in Kenya. See how many cars you sell in the 
Kenyan market.''
  If you want to sell in this market, you are welcome to. Then we hold 
up a mirror and say, ``Treat us as we treat you. If you want access to 
our market, you will have it on the condition that we get access to 
your market.'' Anything short of that, in my judgment, is unacceptable 
to this country.
  We also have to work with our trading partners to open Japanese 
markets. Other countries suffer the same problems. We have to work with 
them to respond.
  We need to require full reciprocity and full market access. That is 
the mirror approach, saying, if you want to be in our markets, we 
expect and demand to be in yours.
  Finally we have to make solving the trade deficit a national 
priority. I intend to offer, next week, a piece of legislation that 
would establish a commission to move quickly to develop national 
recommendations on how we aggressively involve ourselves in resolving 
this trade deficit and bringing this

[[Page S5641]]

trade deficit down. We need balanced trade, not just with Japan but 
with China, Mexico, Canada, and other countries as well.
  I am not saying, in any way, that Japan is not a valued trading 
partner of ours. I am saying that our trade relationship with Japan has 
not been mutually beneficial. It is not helping this country. It is 
hurting this country. We ought to decide, as a country, that we want to 
have a strong manufacturing base that helps create good jobs here in 
our country. We ought to decide we do not want to put a wall around us. 
We want to be willing and able to compete with anybody who wants to 
ship their goods into our country, provided they are produced with a 
living wage paid somewhere else, produced under circumstances that do 
not pollute the environment, do not exploit child labor, and so on. 
Even while we do that, we as a country ought to insist that other 
countries allow us the same access to their markets.
  It is interesting, if you go back to the Second World War and chart 
the 50 years since the Second World War, you will find that 25 years 
after the Second World War we won everything economically. And, we did 
it with one hand tied behind our back. Our trade policy was a foreign 
policy, and nobody made any bones about it. It was designed to help 
other countries. But we could beat other countries without any problem. 
We were the biggest, the strongest, the most, the best. We could 
outcompete and outsell and beat any country in the world on almost any 
level economically.
  As a result, during those 25 years, American wages continued to rise 
and workers benefited from our economic opportunities and the economic 
strength that we had. In the first 25 years, wages went up like that. 
Then in the next 25 years, in that second half of the 50 years, wages 
began to stagnate for most Americans. What happened? What happened was 
that those we used to treat with a trade policy that was really a 
foreign policy have become tough, shrewd economic customers and tough 
competitors--Japan, Germany, and others.
  What has happened was we began to bleed strength out of this country 
with these kinds of trade deficits that we have seen. These were 
recurring, consistent, yearly trade deficits that sapped this country's 
economic strength.
  Our trade policy should no longer be a foreign policy. They ought to 
be economic policies that say to other customers and other trade 
partners in other countries, who are tough competitors, that we will 
give you certain access to our marketplace because we want to have a 
free and open marketplace. It should say we want to give consumers 
access to a wide range of products from around the world. But all of 
you--Japan, China, Germany, and others--have a responsibility in 
return. This responsibility finally is going to be one that America 
insists upon. The responsibility is to allow the American worker and 
the American producer into your marketplace to compete on the same 
basis as you compete in our country. We expect it, and, more 
importantly, we demand it, and we are going to do things necessary to 
enforce it.
  I come from a State that requires that we find foreign homes for a 
lot of what we raise. I understand that. There is our grain, beef, and 
a lot of agricultural produce which move overseas. I appreciate the 
fact that we have trade relationships with countries that are willing 
to purchase these commodities. But it is not gratuity that suggests to 
me that Japan and China ought to buy more agricultural products, not 
less, from us.
  When we run up trade deficits, or when Japan and China run up a trade 
surplus with us and then go elsewhere to buy grain or shop elsewhere to 
buy airplanes, there is something fundamentally wrong with our trade 
relationships. I hope that we will decide that this kind of trade 
strategy that we have had under Republicans and Democrats for three or 
four decades is robbing our children of the kind of economic future 
they ought to have in our country. It has been shifting our Nation from 
a high-wage nation to a low-wage nation. It has been a major 
contributor to our fiscal policy deficits because it has zapped our 
economic strength and it has slowed our economic growth.
  I hope all of us will decide to do something about this. As I said, I 
want to introduce some legislation next week to form an emergency 
commission to try to deal with recommendations on how this country 
confronts this trade deficit. I am going to make presentations similar 
to this on our trade deficit with China, which is $34 billion a year 
and growing, and on our trade deficit with Mexico and Canada, which 
combined is also nearly $34 billion a year and growing.
  I hope, perhaps at the conclusion, all of us will have some more 
information and some more facts about a problem that I think is a 
serious problem for our country and one that literally begs for 
attention. It demands a solution if we as a country are going to remain 
an economic power in the world in the decades to come.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________