[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H2239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  (Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the House. His remarks will apper hereafter 
in the Extensions of Remarks.)

                 FAIR TRADE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1999

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Speaker, the headlines are very grim today. We are 
facing in America a record trade deficit, one that threatens to cut the 
economic growth rate of this country. This is in the context of an 
international economic malaise in which unfair trade practices and 
naked mercantilism have proliferated on the part of our trading 
partners.
  What America needs, Mr. Speaker, is not only a stronger trade policy 
but stronger legal protections put in place to guarantee a level 
playing field in this challenging international environment.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce, on behalf of myself and six 
bipartisan cosponsors, the Fair Trade Law Enhancement Act of 1999. This 
bill takes a broad approach to trade law reform and includes important 
necessary changes to the antidumping and countervailing duty laws. 
These reforms are essential if we are going to keep the trade laws 
effective and relevant to current conditions in a newly turbulent 
global economy.
  America's trade laws have long been critically important to U.S. jobs 
in both the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. These laws form the 
last line of defense for U.S. industries, which must operate on market-
based principles even though their foreign competitors frequently do 
not, against injury caused by unfairly traded imports.
  The basic covenant at the heart of U.S. trade policy holds that while 
America maintains an open market to fairly traded goods of any origin, 
our trade laws will ensure that our industries and workers will not be 
subject to injury from unfairly traded imports.

                              {time}  1430

  Unfortunately, American industry and our working men and women have 
suffered because we have failed to update these laws even as the world 
economy continues to change. The trade laws must now be strengthened to 
prevent unfairly traded imports from undermining our manufacturing and 
agricultural base.
  The last general reform of the U.S. trade laws, unconnected to any 
particular trade agreement, occurred more than a decade ago. In that 
time, the problems to which these laws must respond have changed 
considerably, as underscored by the recent Asian and Russian economic 
disasters and the steel trade crisis that has ensued. It has become 
painfully clear, for example, that the current trade laws are not 
capable of responding to the kinds of sudden import surges, causing 
dramatic and rapid injury, which now seem to be part of the 
international economic scene.
  The reforms in my bill are fully consistent with WTO rules and fall 
into three categories: One, amendments to the safeguard law; two, 
amendments to the antidumping and countervailing duty laws; and, three, 
provisions establishing a steel import notification program.
  The safeguard amendments update the remedy in section 201 of the 
Trade Act of 1974 to make it more effective for U.S. industries trying 
to deal with damage in import surges. In particular, the amendments 
conform some of section 201's unnecessarily stringent standards to the 
more appropriate standards in the WTO safeguards agreement.
  The antidumping and countervailing duty law amendments would amend 
Title VII of the Tariff Act of 1930 in light of some of the new global 
economic realities and conditions to which those laws must now respond. 
Some of these changes reverse flawed court decisions that have limited 
the laws' remedial reach in a manner never contemplated by Congress. 
Again, the primary focus of these reforms is to eliminate unnecessary 
obstacles American manufacturers and farmers face in securing relief 
under current law, and to assure through WTO-consistent means that U.S. 
firms and workers can face their foreign competitors on a level playing 
field.
  Having effective and up-to-date trade laws in place is important to 
internationally competitive U.S. farm and manufacturing industries, 
especially the steel industry, where international trade has been more 
heavily distorted by subsidies, closed markets cartelization and 
dumping than any other economic sector.
  For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in 
supporting the Fair Trade Law Enforcement Act of 1999. These 
fundamental reforms will help keep a credible and effective deterrent 
against unfair trade in place into the next millennium, and they 
deserve enthusiastic support from friends of America's manufacturers 
and farmers and workers all over.

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