[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 148 (Wednesday, October 29, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11331-S11333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          UNFINISHED BUSINESS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know that there is some business that 
the majority leader will take up in a few moments. When he desires the 
floor I certainly will yield to him. But I wanted to take this moment 
to describe a couple of the things that I think we still need to do, 
unfinished items, before the Senate leaves following this first session 
of this Congress. Among those is the issue of campaign finance reform, 
which we have been debating back and forth here for some long while. 
There is not any reason, in my judgment, that we cannot take up and at 
least have a vote on the substance of campaign finance reform.
  Second, it seems to me that we cannot leave town without having done 
something on a highway reauthorization bill. I know there are some who 
say we brought a highway bill to the floor of the Senate and we had 
plenty of opportunity and now we had to pull it, but I want to make the 
point the bill that was brought to the floor of the Senate was brought 
here under procedures designed to block legislation, not pass 
legislation. And we have a responsibility, whether it is a 6-month bill 
or a 6-year bill, we have a responsibility to address the issue of 
highway construction and the highway reauthorization bill. So my hope 
is that through negotiation the leaders of the Democrats and the 
Republicans here in the Senate can deal with both of these issues in a 
thoughtful way.
  But I did want to make the point that we also are probably going to 
deal with the issue called fast-track trade authority in the coming 
week or so. To the extent we do that, I want Members of the Senate to 
understand this will not be an easy issue. There are a number of us 
here in the Senate who feel very strongly about the issue of trade. It 
is not a circumstance where we believe that our country should put 
walls around the country and prevent imports from coming in, or that we 
should ignore the fact that we now live in a global economy or that we 
should decide, somehow, that trade is not part of our economic well-
being, it is unimportant--that is not the case at all. Trade is very 
important. It is a critically important component of this country's 
ability to grow and to prosper. But the right kind of trade is 
important, not the wrong kind of trade.
  The wrong kind of international trade in this country is trade that 
results in ever-increasing, choking trade deficits, because those 
deficits, now totaling nearly $2 trillion, trade deficits which in this 
last year were the largest merchandise trade deficits in the history of 
this country--in fact, that was true for the last 3 years and will be 
true at the end of this coming year--the largest merchandise trade 
deficits in this country. To the extent that is the kind of trade we 
are involved in, trade that is not reciprocal, trade that is not two-
way trade that is fair, trade that substantially increases our deficits 
and takes American jobs and moves them abroad and overseas--that is not 
trade that is beneficial to our country. Many of us feel it is time for 
us to have a debate on the floor of the Senate about what is fair and 
what is unfair trade.
  I have said many times that it is very difficult to have a discussion 
about trade. A discussion about international trade quickly moves into 
a thoughtless ranting by those who say there is only one credible view 
on trade and that is the view of free trade. You are either for free 
trade or you are

[[Page S11332]]

somebody who doesn't quite understand. You are an xenophobic 
isolationist who wants to build walls around America--you are either 
that or you are a free trader. I happen to believe expanded trade, in 
the form of fair trade, makes sense for this country, so I am someone 
who believes that we benefit from reciprocal trade with other 
countries, that trade with other countries can be mutually beneficial. 
But I also believe it hurts our country when we have trade 
circumstances that exist when we trade with another country and they 
ship all their goods to our marketplace and then we discover what we 
produce, our workers and our businesses, can't get our goods into their 
marketplace. That is not fair, yet that goes on all across the world.
  I notice today the President of China has arrived in our country. Our 
country welcomes him. We hope we will have a mutually productive 
relationship with China. I am concerned about a number of things that I 
see happening in China--yes, human rights. I was in China about a year 
ago today, when a young man was sentenced to prison, I believe for 11 
years, for criticizing his government. So I think there are serious 
human rights questions in China. But also, in addition to the human 
rights issues in China, the Chinese leader comes to our country at a 
time when they have, with us, a trade imbalance of nearly $40 to $50 
billion. Last year it was $40 billion and it is now heading to $50 
billion.
  So we have a Chinese Government and a Chinese economy that ships 
massive quantities of Chinese goods to our country. But when it comes 
time to buy from our country, things which China needs--wheat, 
airplanes and more--they say, ``Well, we want to ship Chinese goods to 
your country, but we want to look elsewhere for products; we want to go 
price shopping for a week with Canada and with Venezuela.''
  So while we used to be the major wheat supplier to China, we were 
displaced as the major wheat supplier even as they were running up huge 
trade surpluses with us or us being in the position of having huge 
trade deficits with them.
  Airplanes. China has obviously the largest population on Earth, and 
they need a lot of airplanes. They don't manufacture large airplanes. 
They need to buy airplanes. So, since they ship so many of their 
products to our country for consumption, you expect they would come to 
us and buy our airplanes.
  They come to our country and say, ``We need airplanes, but we'll buy 
your airplanes if you manufacture the airplanes in China.'' That's not 
the way trade works. That's not a mutually beneficial relationship, and 
that's the thing that I think we ought to be talking to the Chinese 
leader about.
  Yes, we ought to talk about a whole range of other issues--human 
rights, the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology and the transfer 
of missile technology to renegade and rogue nations. Yes, we ought to 
talk to them about that. But we also ought to talk to them about this 
huge growing trade deficit.
  I hope very much that when President Clinton visits with President 
Jiang Zemin, he will describe to him a trade relationship mutually 
beneficial, and it is not one where one side has a huge imbalance, in 
this case China, and in which case the United States has a huge and 
growing deficit, which means, in the final analysis, that jobs that 
existed for Americans are now moving overseas. That is what is at the 
root of this trade imbalance. Jobs that used to be U.S. jobs, jobs held 
by U.S. citizens, jobs to help maintain U.S. families are now jobs that 
are gone.
  The same is true with Japan. I happen to be talking about China just 
because the Chinese leader is in town today. But Japan, we have a 
growing trade deficit with Japan. As far as the eye can see, it has 
been $50 billion, $60 billion a year. This year, it is expected to be 
up 20 or 25 percent, probably reaching a $60 billion, $65 billion trade 
deficit with Japan once again this year.
  Are there people walking around here saying this is an urgent 
problem, this is trouble? No, they don't. They say, ``Gee, this is just 
free trade. So what if we have a huge trade deficit.'' In fact, one 
person wrote an article in the Washington Post recently and said those 
folks who talk about the trade deficit being troublesome for our 
country don't understand it. He said, ``Think of it this way: If 
someone offered to sell you $10,000 worth of pears for $5,000 worth of 
apples, you would jump at it.''
  That is a simple and irrelevant example, one I suppose meant to 
inform those of us from other parts of the country who don't quite get 
it. Perhaps there is a way to study economics or perhaps there is a 
school that teaches economics that will tell those people who think 
that way and write that way that trade deficits represent an export of 
part of your wealth. Trade deficits will and must be repaid with a 
lower standard of living in this country's future. Trade deficits are 
trouble for this country's economy.
  People say to me, ``Well, if that's true, if trade deficits are 
troublesome, why do we have an economy that seems so strong?'' You can 
have an appearance of strength. You can live next to a neighbor that 
has a brand new Cadillac in the driveway, a brand new home and all the 
newest toys without understanding, of course, that it is all debt 
financed and that person is about 2 weeks away from serious financial 
trouble.
  So our trade deficit matters, and we must do something about it.
  The point I make about fast track, which is the trade authority the 
President is going to seek, is this: We have massive trade problems, 
yes, with Japan, with China, yes, with Canada, with Mexico. And before 
we run off and negotiate new trade agreements in secret, behind closed 
doors, let's fix some of the trade problems that now exist.
  Senator Helms yesterday reminded me of an old quote that Will Rogers 
made that I had read many years ago. He said, ``The United States has 
never lost a war and never won a treaty.'' That is certainly true with 
trade.
  Recently, we were asked to provide fast-track trade authority so that 
a trade agreement called NAFTA could be reached with Canada and Mexico. 
So the Congress dutifully complied. The Congress passed what is called 
fast-track authority which says, you go ahead, you negotiate a new 
trade agreement with a foreign country, you can do it in secret, you 
can do it without coming back and advising us what you are doing; bring 
it back, and you come to the Senate and House and it must be considered 
with no amendments because no amendments will be allowed. That is what 
fast track is.

  Fast track through the Senate says that nobody will be allowed to 
offer an amendment; no amendments at all.
  So NAFTA was negotiated. They ran off and negotiated NAFTA, brought 
it back, and ran it through the Congress. I didn't vote for it, but the 
Congress passed it. When NAFTA was negotiated, we had an $11 billion 
trade deficit with Canada. Then they negotiated NAFTA, which includes 
Canada, and the trade deficit doubled.
  When NAFTA was negotiated with Mexico, we had a $2 billion trade 
surplus with Mexico. They negotiate NAFTA and the $2 billion trade 
surplus evaporated to a $15 billion trade deficit.
  That is progress? Where I come from it is not called progress. Yet, 
we are told now, again, we need to have fast-track trade authority.
  I come from a State that borders Canada. I just want to tell you that 
today thousands of trucks come across the border from Canada hauling 
Canadian durum and Canadian wheat, sold into this country by a state 
trade enterprise, by a monopoly called the Canadian Wheat Board. It is 
a monopoly that would not be allowed to sell grain in this country. It 
would be illegal. It sells its grain at secret prices. Yet, it ships 
through our backyard enormous quantities of Canadian grain, 
undercutting our farmers' interests, undercutting our income in our 
State by $220 million a year, according to a study at North Dakota 
State University, and the fact is, we can't get it stopped.
  It is patently unfair trade, and we can't get it stopped because all 
these trade agreements that they have concocted over the years have 
pulled out the teeth of enforcement of trade treaties in a meaningful 
way, and so now we can't chew and we are complaining there are no 
teeth.
  I understand what has happened here. What has happened here is we 
have concocted bad trade strategy, bad trade agreements and bad 
enforcement of the

[[Page S11333]]

agreements that did exist. It is time for us to decide we must insist 
our country stand up for its own economic interest. Yes, its economic 
interest is in part served by expanding world trade. We are a leader. 
We ought to lead in world trade. We ought not close our borders. I 
don't sound like Smoot. I don't look like Hawley. So those thoughtless 
people who say, ``Well, if you don't chant `free trade' like a robot on 
a street corner, we will call you Smoot-Hawley''--that is the most 
thoughtless stuff I ever heard, but it goes on all the time.
  I am not someone who believes we should shut off the flow of imports 
and exports, but I do believe we ought to stand up to the interests of 
the Chinese, Japanese and, yes, the Mexicans and Canadians, and other 
trading partners and tell them it is time for reciprocal and fair trade 
treatment. If we let your goods into our marketplace--and we should and 
will--then you have a responsibility to open your markets to American 
goods.
  If we say to our people, ``You can't pollute our streams and air when 
you produce,'' then foreign producers who want to ship to our country 
ought not be able to pollute their rivers and streams on Earth through 
that same production. If we say that it is not fair to hire 14-year-old 
kids and work them 14 hours a day and pay them 14 cents an hour, then 
we ought to say to them that we don't want your goods if you are 
employing 14-year-old kids and working them 14 hours a day. We don't 
want producers to pole vault over all those debates we had all these 
years about worker safety, about child labor, about minimum wage, about 
air pollution and water pollution. We don't want that to be represented 
as fair trade because it is not if producers find the lowest cost 
production in the world, locate their plants there and produce their 
products in those circumstances avoiding all of the problems that exist 
for them in having to comply with what we know now are commonsense 
proposals: child labor proposals, minimum wage, environmental proposals 
and others. That is what this is all about.
  My only concern is this: I want us to have a fast track trade debate 
in which we are able to offer amendments, able to have a lengthy and 
thoughtful discussion about our trade policies and able to have an 
opportunity back and forth in this Chamber to describe what kind of 
trade policies will best advance this country's economic interests.
  If and when the legislation comes to the floor of the Senate, and we 
will begin with a motion to proceed at some point, when that happens, 
some of us will be on the floor of the Senate insisting that we have a 
full, a fair and a thoughtful debate about this country's trade policy. 
At least those of us, including myself, who believe very strongly that 
a trade policy that produces the largest trade deficit in the history 
of this country is not moving this country in the right direction, we 
will be here demanding that kind of aggressive debate.
  What does our trade strategy now produce and what kind of trade 
strategy would represent better economic interest for this country? Not 
protectionism, but an interest of expanding the American economy and 
expanding American opportunities as we move ahead.

  So let me conclude--I know my colleague has things that he wants to 
say on education issues--and let me once again indicate that I hope 
very much that prior to getting to fast track, which I expect will 
probably happen the end of this week or the first part of next week, 
that we can also address the issue of campaign finance reform with a 
real vote, and we can also extend the highway reauthorization bill.
  Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Vermont for his patience 
and thank him for the wonderful work he does on education.
  Mr. JEFFORDS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I thank my good friend from North Dakota for his 
remarks.
  The subject I will talk about I know the Presiding Officer does not 
need to hear. He is well aware of what I am talking about and I know 
agrees with me that we have to take action.

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