[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 113 (Tuesday, September 2, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8648-S8650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FAST TRACK TRADE AUTHORITY
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I noted in a news report recently
something which I have heard previously. The news reported that
President Clinton and his administration will in just a matter of days
from now, on September 10, send a legislative proposal to give
President Clinton and this administration something called fast track
trade authority.
Now, that might sound like a foreign language to a lot of folks, but
the notion of fast track trade authority is relatively simple. It is
that trade negotiators shall negotiate trade agreements between the
United States and other countries, then bring these trade agreements to
the Congress, and they shall be considered in Congress under something
called fast track procedures. That means no one here in the Congress is
allowed to or will be able to offer amendments to alter that proposed
trade agreement.
That is what fast track means. It is a special deal for a trade
agreement brought back to Congress so that all Members of Congress are
prevented from offering amendments. Members of Congress will be allowed
only to vote yes or no on the entire agreement.
The Constitution of the United States in article I, section 8 says,
``The Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign
Nations.''
Yet, in recent decades we have developed this notion of fast track
trade authority that has given both Republican and Democrat Presidents
the opportunity to bring trade agreements to the Congress under a
procedure that handcuffs Members of Congress and prevents them from
offering any amendments at any time.
I want to share why I think this is important and why I believe it is
inappropriate to grant fast track trade authority to this
administration. I should say that when I was in the House of
Representatives, I led an effort in the Chamber of the House to prevent
fast track trade authority being given to a previous administration as
well.
The Washington Post, in an article written by Ann Devroy, titled
``Battle Lines Forming Over Clinton's Bid for Fast Track Trade
Powers,'' states the Business Roundtable, among others, will work to
help President Clinton get these fast track procedures in place by
getting Congress to pass a proposal to give the President fast track
powers. ``The job won't be easy,'' it says.
It reports that the Business Roundtable has written in a letter to
its members, ``The political climate for new trade agreements is not
good. Organized labor, human rights groups, protectionists,
isolationists and environmentalists are questioning the benefits of
trade.''
Now, I guess I don't fit any of these descriptions. I am not an
isolationist. I am not a member of organized labor. I am not a member
of a human rights group. I am not a protectionist. I am not a member of
some environmental organization. I am not some xenophobe, and I am not
someone from a small town who cannot see over the horizon. I studied a
little economics. I even taught a little economics in college. I
understand something about the trade issue.
I understand that in international trade this country is not moving
forward; it is falling back. We are not winning; we are losing. We
ought not proceed to develop new trade agreements until we solve the
problems of the old trade agreements. And I want to recite a few of
those problems.
This was an interesting article written by a journalist who is a very
good journalist. But nowhere in this article in talking about trade
authority--and this is the difficulty we have in this Chamber--does it
point out that we will have the largest merchandise trade deficit in
the history of this country. Nowhere does it point that out. How can
you have a discussion of trade and fail to mention in the context of
that discussion that we now suffer the largest trade deficit in the
history of our country?
I don't understand that. This is not theory. It is not some academic
discussion. It is a discussion about whether we are going to proceed to
give this administration the ability to have fast track authority for a
new trade agreement they or trade agreements they will negotiate, and
bring them to Congress and tie our hands so that no amendments may be
offered.
Some do not mind, I suppose, that we have the largest merchandise
trade deficit in history. They say trade is trade. In fact, this
article quotes the Business Roundtable as saying, ``Those who oppose
this question the benefit of trade.''
What a lot of nonsense that is. I don't question the benefit of
trade. In fact, much of what we produce in my State, an agricultural
State, must find a foreign home. I understand the benefits of trade. I
also understand the benefits of trade that is fair and the benefits of
trade relationships with other countries that are fair trade
relationships. I also understand about being taken advantage of. I also
understand about trade policies that have been more foreign policy than
trade policy over the last half century.
For the first 25 years following the Second World War, our trade
policy was foreign policy. It had very little to do with trade. The
fact was that this country was bigger, better, stronger and could
outtrade and outproduce almost any other country in the world with one
hand tied behind its back. So we could afford to exercise a foreign
policy disguised as trade policy with dozens of our trading allies and
still prevail. And it was just fine, at least in the first 25 years
following the Second World War.
During those first 25 years, incomes in this country continued to
rise. However, in the second 25 years, we ran into some very shrewd,
tough international competitors and it has not been as easy for us to
compete unless the trade rules are fair. Unfortunately, the trade rules
have not been fair because we have continued to negotiate trade
agreements that are more foreign policy than trade policy. As a result
we have trade agreements that are fundamentally unfair to American
workers and American producers. I want to go through a few of these in
this discussion.
The first chart that I want to show is a chart about the merchandise
trade deficit in our country. Nobody seems to care much about it here
in the Congress. You don't hear people talking about it. There is
always this angst about the budget deficit, and we have worked on that
and finally have our fiscal house in some order. But there is no
discussion at all about the other deficit, the merchandise trade
deficit, which is a sea of red ink and growing every single year. In
fact, we had the largest merchandise trade deficit in American history
last year, and we are most likely going to exceed that this year. We
have had deficit after deficit after deficit. There have been 21
straight years of merchandise trade deficits.
Let me just describe what has happened following our trade
agreements. We rush off and send our best negotiators to negotiate
trade agreements. When they finish negotiating some agreement with some
country, whether it be Japan or the GATT agreement or NAFTA or some
other agreement, they have a huge celebration or giant feast
[[Page S8649]]
at which they all declare they have won.
But, what have our negotiators actually won? We had a $28 billion
merchandise trade deficit in 1981 when the trade agreement took effect
from the Tokyo round of trade talks. By 1989, this Congress passed--
without my vote, I might add--a United States-Canada Free-Trade
Agreement, at which time we now had a $115 billion merchandise trade
deficit.
In 1994, a trade agreement, negotiated under fast track with Mexico
and Canada, called NAFTA or the North American Free-Trade Agreement
came into effect. By that time, we had amassed a $166 billion
merchandise trade deficit. Then there was the Uruguay round of talks
under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT, and the trade
agreement enacted by Congress which took effect January 1, 1995. By
that time, we had a $173 billion merchandise trade deficit. That has
now grown to a $191 billion merchandise trade deficit, and is
continuing to grow again this year.
DRI and McGraw-Hill, which is a company that does econometric
projections, suggests our merchandise trade deficit will likely double
in a 10-year period. We are headed in the wrong direction, not the
right direction. So the question is, Do we continue doing this? Or does
somebody stand up and say, ``Wait a second, this doesn't make any
sense. You are asking us to give fast track trade authority to
negotiate another trade agreement when all we have seen is an ocean of
merchandise trade deficits.''
With this discussion, I am not suggesting that we ought not trade. Of
course we should trade. But we ought to say to our trading allies that
the conditions under which we trade with them must represent fair
trade. If you get your products into our marketplace, that's fine. But,
then we expect our products to get into your marketplace. If we have
standards that will not allow our producers to pollute our air and
water, then we expect you to produce under the same standards.
If we have standards that say we can't hire a 14-year-old and have
him work 14 hours a day and pay him 14 cents an hour to produce a
product that we then ship to Pittsburgh or Los Angeles and Denver, then
we expect you not to employ a 14-year-old and pay him 14 cents an hour,
producing something you ship to those same cities. Those are the
conditions under which our workers, our citizens, and our businesses
ought to expect trade to be handled under our trade agreements.
Now, when you look at this ocean of red ink which no one writes about
and no one talks about, it seems to me it is time to stop to evaluate
where we are. Daniel Webster said, on the floor of this Senate about
160 years ago, ``When the mariner has been tossed for many days in
thick weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the
first pause in the storm, the earliest glance at the Sun, to take his
latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his
true course.'' That might be a good suggestion for this Congress on the
issue of trade.
Instead, what this Congress will debate, without even talking about
this choking trade debt, will be fast track.
There is fast food, fast lane, fast living, fast talk, and fast
break. I remember when I played high school basketball the notion of a
fast break was to move quickly and rush and get ahead of the defenders
before they could get set up and make the basket. That's what a fast
break is all about. You go ahead, before anybody notices you, and score
your points.
Everything that says fast somehow connotes lack of preparation. That
certainly has been the case with fast track in trade. Anyone, I say,
anybody who believes that we have been successful in representing the
economic interests of this country in pursuing the kind of process we
pursued in recent years in trade just is not looking at the same set of
facts that exists for this presentation I am giving today.
Madam President, the instant you discuss these issues there are those
in this town who categorize you in one of two camps. You are described
as a free trader, period, end of story. This connotes, by the way, that
you support all of these negotiations and fast track and so on. You are
either a free trader, or you are some kind of xenophobic, isolationist
stooge who doesn't get it and are called a basic protectionist. Those
are the two camps. You are one or the other, and you can't be in
between because there is no thoughtfulness in between, we are told.
I stand right square in the middle of this issue, saying that this
country has a problem and we ought to deal with it. We ought not be
talking about negotiating new trade agreements as long as we have
vexing, difficult problems with old trade agreements that we refuse to
deal with. Fast track--if we are going to fast track anything, let's
fast track the efforts to solve old trade problems.
We negotiated a trade agreement with Mexico. At the time, we had a
nearly $2 billion trade surplus with Mexico. Guess what? It has not
been very long--only 3 years later--and we have ended up with nearly a
$16 billion trade deficit with Mexico. We go from a small surplus, to a
big deficit.
We negotiate a trade agreement with Mexico and we are told what is
going to come into this country from Mexico will be the product of low-
skill and low-wage work.
What is actually coming in from Mexico? Automobiles, automobile
parts, and electronics parts. Do you know we now import more cars from
Mexico into the United States than the United States exports to the
rest of the entire world? Think of that.
Has the United States-Mexico, has the NAFTA agreement worked out the
way we expected? I would like one person to come to this Senate and
say, ``Boy, this really worked out well. What we wanted was to have an
agreement with Canada and Mexico positioned such that at end of it, we
would have a combined trade deficit of nearly $40 billion.'' Is that
what we wanted? I don't think so.
At the root of all of this, whether it's with Mexico or Canada is our
past agreements and the fast track process that wouldn't allow the
agreements to be changed and corrected. As a result we have a severe
problem with Canadian grain flooding across our border in a
fundamentally unfair way.
And by the way, we can't resolve these issues now because we pulled
the teeth of our own trade laws in all these trade agreements. We have
pulled the teeth of those provisions which could have been effective in
representing us and in remedying these problems. And now that the teeth
are pulled, we wonder why we can't chew on these issues. You can't chew
because there is no effective remedy left.
Does anybody think that this represents progress? Is it progress to
have Mexico and Canada have a huge trade surplus with the United
States? Is it progress that we have this deficit with them?
China has a large and growing trade deficit, which has been growing
exponentially. In a dozen years it has grown from $10 million up to
over $40 billion. How about Japan? Every single year, we have had a
recurring trade deficit of $48 billion to over $50 billion a year.
What does all of that represent? It represents jobs. And it
represents, by and large, a diminution of our manufacturing sector. No
economy will long remain a strong economy if it doesn't retain a strong
manufacturing base.
There are those who believe it doesn't matter where you produce. Get
in your Lear jet or get in your Gulfstream and travel around the world.
Look out the window and find out where on this Earth, what patch of
ground can you find where you can build a plant and have people come in
the front door of that plant and pay them a quarter an hour, a half a
dollar an hour, or 75 cents an hour. Pay them no benefits, no pensions,
no insurance, and pollute the air and water as you produce because that
represents profit and that represents progress. Not to me it doesn't.
Not to this country it doesn't.
The consideration of fast-track trade authority by this Congress
ought, it seems to me, to persuade us finally to ask ourselves, what
truly is progress in international trade? Do we really think that a
trade picture that looks like this is progress?
Six countries have 92 percent of our record level merchandise trade
deficit. Nearly 30 percent of the trade deficit is with Japan. It is 24
percent and growing with China. Canada and Mexico together, have
another 24 percent. The
[[Page S8650]]
latest figures show that NAFTA, the crown jewel of trade agreements has
produced a record nearly $40 billion combined trade deficit. Do we
really think that those kinds of numbers represent progress?
This is not working. It is not a case of this country saying we want
to close our borders and shut off imports; it's a case of this country
saying we expect the trade rules to be fair. We expect our negotiators
who negotiate trade agreements to win from time to time. Should we
expect that every time our trade negotiators run off someplace that
they lose? I don't think so. Yet, that is what happened.
We have a beef agreement with Japan. Nobody knows much about these
things, because all this is like a foreign language. We have an
avalanche of Japanese goods coming into America. I do not object to
that. All I ask is that American goods get into Japan on a fair basis.
We couldn't get much American beef into Japan, so we had a huge
negotiation with the Japanese. It must have been 8, 10 years ago, by
now, that they announced this breakthrough. You would have thought
there was a national day of fiesta and rejoicing. It was a major
breakthrough; a big beef agreement with Japan. Guess what the agreement
was. We have such a low expectation of our trade negotiations.
The agreement with Japan was the following: When the agreement is
fully phased in, there will remain only a 50-percent tariff on American
beef going into Japan. That tariff will be reduced, except if the
quantity increases, it snaps back to 50 percent. Under any other set of
circumstances, that would be defined as failure, but it was defined in
our negotiations with Japan as a success. That is true with virtually
every single set of negotiations this country has been involved in the
last two decades.
This is not a complaint about Republicans or Democrats. It's a
complaint against both and all. I have not yet met anyone who is
willing to look me in the eye and talk about the facts about the
merchandise trade deficits in this country and have them tell me that
this is a record they want to stand on.
My hope is that in the coming couple of weeks, as we discuss the
issue of fast-track trade authority, we might finally have the debate
we really need. We don't want a thoughtless debate about ``this person
is a protectionist'' and ``this person is a free trader.'' Rather we
need a thoughtful debate about precisely what kind of trade agreements
represent this country's real interests, what kind of trade agreements
require us to compete internationally and compete effectively and
fairly, and what kind of trade agreements make certain that this
country, when it does compete in the international marketplace, is able
to do so on an even and fair basis.
Madam President, it is obvious, I suppose, that I will be
aggressively opposing the fast-track authority that this President will
request. If he, on September 10, makes a formal request, he will no
doubt have substantial support for it. I have had several people come
up to me in my State who said to me, ``Oh, by the way, Byron, I was
supposed to tell you to vote for fast track because my company sent out
a memo to all the employees saying, `We want you all to contact your
Senator to vote for fast track.' I don't know about fast track,'' they
said, ``but that is something my company wants you to vote for.''
I am not going to support fast track. I will be on the floor of the
Senate often to talk about what I think are the problems in
international trade and what I think are our priorities.
We have massive problems with Canada, for example, on grain trade.
The responsibility that we have is not to create some fast-track
procedure for new agreements, but to create a fast-track determination
to solve old trade problems from previous agreements that do not work.
Until trade negotiators demonstrate a willingness to do that, and
until this administration demonstrates a willingness to do that, I do
not think it ought to get the vote of the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House
for a peculiar and unique authority called fasttrack that, in my
judgment, undercuts the constitutional requirement of Congress, to
regulate commerce.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me just say to my colleague from
North Dakota that I appreciate his analysis. I look forward to joining
him in this debate. I think he is really one of the most eloquent
Senators, or for that matter Congressmen, in Washington on a set of
issues that are so important to working people, so important to
producers, and I thank him.
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