[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 94 (Monday, July 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S6876]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              UNITED STATES TRADE RELATIONSHIP WITH CANADA

  Mr. DORGAN. Let me begin by talking just for a moment about trade.
  I generally come to the floor to talk about NAFTA, which is our trade 
relationship with our neighbor to the north, Canada, and our neighbor 
to the south, Mexico. Let me limit that this morning to our trade with 
Canada.
  I say on a broader scale that our NAFTA trade agreement in my 
judgment has been a failure. We now have a $40 billion combined deficit 
with our two neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Prior to the enactment of 
NAFTA, the trade agreement with our two neighbors, we had a much more 
positive balance of trade. But since the enactment of NAFTA, we now see 
a nearly $40 billion combined trade deficit, which I think is a very 
serious problem. It is a growing problem, and one that we must deal 
with.
  But let me just deal with one part of the trade problem with Canada 
today. There is an avalanche of Canadian grain that is moving across 
our border, flooding into our marketplace, and that is depressing grain 
prices here in this country and taking money out of the pockets of 
American farmers.
  This might be a fairly boring subject to some, but not if you are a 
farmer. If you are a farmer out there struggling, and you see the 
prices drop for wheat, Durum, barley, and other things you are 
producing, and then see Canada flood our markets with Canadian grain, 
you get pretty angry about it, and justifiably so.
  We had an agreement with Canada, something called tariff rate quotas, 
for a year which established levels of Canadian shipments of wheat, 
Durum, and other wheat coming into this country. That tariff rate quota 
expired, but the administration indicated they would unilaterally 
enforce that quota. Well, at this point Canada has shipped a quantity 
of grain into this country that is already above the tariff rate quota 
for this marketing year. And it is shipping Durum wheat into this 
country at a level that will exceed the tariff rate quota as well. It 
has not yet done so, but will exceed the tariff rate quota.
  Canada seems not to care very much about what this country thinks 
about these trade arrangements. We had a consultation with Canada about 
a week or two ago in Montreal, I believe, and the Canadians responded 
in a way that was wholly unsatisfactory to these issues. In essence, 
the Canadians seemed to be saying, I am told, that they intend to do 
nothing about it and they intend to continue to ship their grain into 
this country.
  I am asking the President to do a couple things. One, inasmuch as the 
Canadians are not exercising a good neighbor policy on this trade, we 
should take some action.
  Just to back up for a moment, when the United States-Canada Free 
Trade Agreement was enacted by Congress, the Trade Ambassador, then 
Trade Ambassador Clayton Yeutter, said to Congress that the evidence of 
good faith in this trade relationship is that there will not be an 
increase in grain coming across our border following the enactment of 
this trade agreement. Well, that was not worth the paper it was written 
on. But that is the assurance he gave in writing to Congress. Of 
course, we have been flooded with Canadian grain ever since.

  Here is what we ought to do. First, the United States ought to target 
Canadian foreign markets overseas. We ought to use our export 
enhancement funds in Venezuela, South Africa, West Africa, Tunisia, for 
example, to replace Canada as a major wheat supplier to those markets. 
If Canada is going to cause injury to our domestic marketplace for 
wheat, then it is time for us to go after their foreign markets and 
have them pay a price for their behavior under this trade agreement.
  Second, I think the administration ought to take immediate action to 
unilaterally stop Canadian wheat shipments from coming into this 
country. They said they would unilaterally enforce the tariff rate 
quota. Canada has already exceeded that tariff rate quota on spring 
wheat and other wheat, and will exceed it on Durum. The administration 
should shut the border to additional wheat shipments coming into this 
country.
  Third, the Canadian Wheat Ambassador is coming to this country, I 
believe, this week. I intend to seek a meeting with the Canadian Trade 
Minister, and ask some of my colleagues to participate in that. I am 
also going to seek a meeting with the Trade Ambassador and deliver to 
him personally my concern about what is happening with Canadian grain.
  The fact is, grain prices are collapsing in this country. Family 
farmers are struggling to make a living, and at the same time they are 
seeing their prices collapse and their income go down. The Canadian 
grain is flooding across our border. It does not make any sense at all.
  I will share one additional point with my colleagues. I went to our 
border with Canada. I of course come from North Dakota, and we share a 
long border with Canada. I went to the border in a little, orange, 12-
year-old truck with some Durum wheat in the back. We went to the border 
to take that Durum wheat into Canada. And all the way to the border we 
saw 18-wheel trucks coming from Canada to the United States hauling 
Canadian grain--all the way to the border, truck after truck after 
truck after truck, coming into the United States hauling Canadian 
grain.
  We got to the border in this little, orange, 12-year-old truck with a 
little Durum in the back. And guess what. You could not take one 
grocery sack full of American Durum wheat into Canada, not one. Not 
only couldn't you get this little, orange truck with Durum into Canada, 
you could not take a grocery bag full of wheat into Canada. That trade 
relationship is unfair, and it ought to be changed.

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