[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 2, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H278-H279]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                NO NEW INITIATIVES YIELDS EMPTY PROMISES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of Nebraska). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Traficant) is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot of comments about this 
steel dumping issue, and it continues to amaze me how we debate this 
issue on a lot of sophisticated, philosophical grounds when it is 
basically a very simple issue. A number of foreign countries are 
invading our marketplace with illegal criminal trade practices.
  The White House, it was rumored, was going to come out with a 
response and that response, they said, would include no new 
initiatives. Well, that rumor is true. The White House response 
includes absolutely no new initiatives.
  So let us go over just briefly the old initiatives that we will, as 
diplomats and bureaucrats, sit down with the Japanese, the Russians, 
the Brazilians, the South Koreans, and we will ask them to please stop 
violating our laws. We are going to ask them to make another promise, 
another promise. And I can remember Richard Nixon and every President 
up to and including President Clinton who threatened Japan

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with sanctions, just Japan alone, if they did not open up their 
markets. Now, every President in our recent history threatened Japan, 
and evidently, every time Japan responded with a promise, they broke 
it. They broke it.
  Now, what is this policy? It is like putting a kid in a candy store 
and telling him, you cannot touch, you cannot smell and certainly you 
cannot eat anything here, but we want you to run free in this candy 
store and take a look at all of the goodies here, folks.
  I have submitted a bill I think is right to the point. They say it 
has no shot, but I know the Trade Representative is negotiating with it 
right now. And what they are saying is, and I can almost give my 
colleagues the words: Do we want such a dramatic action? Shape up, or 
the House may even ban illegal dumping. And it is not an outright ban, 
it is a 90-day ban, and it is the only thing that will stop this 
hemorrhaging. If the wound is open and one is hemorrhaging, one must 
stop the hemorrhaging. That is the bottom line.
  This administration and no administration in the last 25 years will 
support import quotas. So what will it be? Voluntary restraint 
agreements? Side-bar agreements? Unbelievable to me.
  One other aspect of this thing that really bothers me, and it should 
bother my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), 
whose voice is needed on this issue, and that is the White House wants 
to give some tax relief to American steel companies. Now, I think that 
is great, and I would like to see some relief for our industry. But 
quite frankly, I have to oppose this, because that tax relief will be 
coming from American taxpayers, many of them laid off and fired 
steelworkers, downsized, whose taxes are going to go to help American 
industry that is being ripped off by foreign ingrates. Beam me up here. 
Is there any balsam left? We give foreign aid to Brazil and Russia. We 
give open markets to South Korea and Japan, and they kick us right in 
the crotch, and that is the bottom line.
  I am hoping this House schedules for debate a 90-day temporary ban, 
and quite frankly, Scarlet, I do not give a damn what the final 
agreement is that is worked out after that ban. Because I guarantee my 
colleagues this: As soon as the shock waves come from that ban, they 
will all be sitting at the table and they will be machinating those 
pencils and within 7 days this problem will be worked out. I am 
absolutely convinced of that.
  Mr. Speaker, before I close, it is not only the steel industry. 
Farmers are getting as low as 7 cents a pound live weight for hogs in 
America. We are exporting 40,000 and importing a half a million hogs. 
Agriculture, steel, huge trade imbalances. A paper tiger stock market. 
No one is listening, no one is looking, and we are going to ask for 
more promises. I say it is time to stop the promises and promulgate 
some plan.

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