[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 141 (Monday, October 18, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12781-S12782]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 FAIR TRADE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1999

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I join my colleagues, Senators 
Durbin, Hatch, Santorum, Byrd and Hollings in introducing the Fair 
Trade Law Enforcement Act of 1999. Unfortunately, because of the long 
and important debate on campaign finance reform last Friday, I was 
unable to make a statement with the rest of my colleagues when the bill 
was introduced. However, I stand today to praise this legislation which 
will take significant steps to update and enhance critical U.S. trade 
laws. It has been far too long, well over a decade in fact, since the 
last general reform of our trade laws, and current circumstances--
including global recessions, economic turmoil and our surging trade 
deficit--necessitate the prompt action of Congress.
  The trade laws in question, particularly the safeguard, 
countervailing duty and anti-dumping laws, are vital to the 
manufacturing sector of our economy. They are often the first and last 
line of defense for U.S. industries injured by unfairly or illegally 
traded imports. Companies, workers, families and communities rely 
heavily on these laws to prevent the ill-effects of unfair trading by 
our trading partners. Unfortunately, recent events like the steel 
import crisis have demonstrated how painfully inadequate our current 
trade laws are in responding to rapid import surges. The flooding of 
U.S. markets with unfairly or illegally traded goods causes severe and 
often irreparable harm to our workers and domestic injury, and it is 
high time we revisit our trade laws in an effort to make our laws more 
responsive to the changing landscape of the global economy and 
international trade.
  The reforms we are proposing today fall into three categories. The 
first are improvements to our safeguard laws. Current U.S. safeguard 
standards are often more strict than the corresponding standards in the 
WTO Safeguards Agreement. This means U.S. manufacturers are playing at 
a disadvantage to their foreign trading partners. Whereas a foreign 
trading partner must prove only that an import surge, like the steel 
import crisis we have seen since July of 1997, is a cause of injury, 
domestic producers are hindered by U.S. trade laws which require our 
domestic industry to prove that the imports are a substantial cause of 
injury. This inequity hampers the ability of our domestic industry to 
receive relief from unfairly traded imports, and creates an unequal 
playing field on which our foreign trading partners have an advantage. 
It also contributes to making the U.S. the dumping ground for illegal 
and unfairly traded imports. Our trading partners know the U.S. 
standard is high, and they exploit that fact. This bill simply brings 
U.S. safeguard laws with respect to causation standards and injury 
factors into line with WTO laws, and puts our domestic industries on 
equal footing with the rest of the world.
  Second, this legislation amends our anti-dumping and countervailing 
duty laws. It establishes a presumption of threat and of critical 
circumstances when imports surge and prices fall to an extraordinary 
degree. A critical circumstances determination, which is provided for 
under WTO standards, allows the ITC and the Department of Commerce to 
apply relief to imports entering before the preliminary determination 
in a trade case when investigating authorities find a history of 
injurious dumping or such a dramatic surge in imports that, absent 
retroactive relief, the effect of an anti-dumping measure would be 
severely undermined. One of the proposals in this legislation simply 
provides for the Department of Commerce and the ITC to apply these 
rebuttable presumptions when drastic import surges are coupled with 
sharp domestic price declines. Again, these presumptions are 
rebuttable, meaning all of our trading partners have the right to 
appeal the determination of threat or critical circumstances. All this 
provision suggests is that we give our domestic industry the benefit of 
the doubt regarding the injury they are suffering when huge spikes in 
imports are accompanied by a rapid decline in domestic prices. We saw 
first hand last year how effective the presumption of threat and 
critical circumstances can be. When the Commerce Department determined 
critical circumstances existed on numerous steel trade cases, the 
decline in imports for the following months was immediately visible. 
The specter of a retroactive tariff or duty is a powerful deterrent to 
continuing unfair and illegal trading practices.
  This bill makes still other improvements in our anti-dumping and 
countervailing duty laws. Our legislation will make it tougher for our 
trading partners to circumvent an anti-dumping or countervailing duty 
order. No longer will foreign nations be able to skirt around our laws 
by making slight alterations to the products they are exporting to the 
U.S. We clarify that these AD/CVD orders include products that have 
been changed in only minor respects. The captive production 
clarification is an important provision to ensure fainrness as well.
  Also, the Fair Trade Law Enforcement Act of 1999 prevents AD/CVD 
cases from being terminated by suspension agreements against the wishes 
of the injured U.S. industry. As we saw during the steel crisis, the 
Administration reached suspension agreements on trade cases that the 
domestic industry was confident of winning. Those cases would have 
provided significant relief for the injured U.S. steel industry by 
imposing tariffs and or duties which would have ``priced out'' many of 
our guilty trading partners from the U.S. steel market. Instead, 
foreign nations which were facing the prospect of having zero or very 
restricted access to the U.S. market were guaranteed a significant 
share of our market as a result of negotiated suspension agreements. 
The reforms in this bill will require the consent of a majority of the 
injured industry, both companies and workers, in order for the 
suspension agreement to be finalized. This particular piece of the bill 
has already been reported out of the Finance Committee, and it is 
critical to ensuring that any domestic industry injured by unfair or 
illegal imports is afforded proportional relief.
  Finally, this bill also creates a steel import monitoring program 
designed to act as an early notification system when imports begin 
flooding the U.S. market. When the steel import surge began in July of 
1997 it was many months, even close to a year, before anyone in the 
Administration would even admit that the spike in imports was occurring 
and that it was potentially harmful to the domestic industry. During 
that time businesses went bankrupt and thousands of employees were laid 
off. The amendment we propose in this bill will make it much easier to 
track imports and will provide much quicker notification of potentially 
harmful import surges. Quite simply, the sooner we learn of unfair 
import surges, the sooner the Administration, Congress and the industry 
itself can take the necessary steps to provide the industry, companies 
and workers with the relief they deserve.

  This bill being introduced today provides much need adjustments to 
our trade laws. Too many of the provisions

[[Page S12782]]

currently designed to provide relief to our domestic manufacturing 
sector have been antiquated by recent changes in the global economy and 
the structure of international trade. It is time we reaffirm our 
commitment to our manufacturing base by updating and enhancing the very 
laws designed to protect U.S. manufacturers from unfair and illegal 
imports from abroad.
  I should note to my colleagues that I remain an ardent supporter of 
open and fair trade. Exports have become an engine of growth for the 
U.S. economy. The numbers speak for themselves. Last year, Americans 
exported over $688 billion worth of goods and services. In saying this, 
I proudly can point to my own state's experience, and how it proves in 
a powerful way that we must pursue the opportunities of the global 
economy. In the past decade, West Virginia has gone about, deliberately 
and energetically, changing its perception of the outside world in a 
way that has had tremendous economic payoff. In just the past five 
years, our exports have increased by 40%. We have large and small 
companies alike exporting to China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. These 
companies exported over $2.2 billion worth of goods just last year. In 
percentage of products made which are exported abroad, West Virginia 
ranks 4th among all 50 states. Perhaps the most stunning number to me 
is that every billion dollars in exports supports about 17,000 U.S. 
jobs--that means that more than 35,000 jobs in West Virginia are 
directly linked to exporting.
  I know that trade is critical to my state's continued economic 
development. West Virginia's case proves that even small economies can 
use expanded trade opportunities as a mechanism for further growth and 
prosperity. However, our increasingly globalized and ever expanding 
economy requires our finding new ways to adapt to change. Americans 
thrive in that environment and will therefore excel in this New 
Economy. But transitions are almost always hard. I think how a country 
deals with the dislocations of change says a lot about its priorities 
and about its ultimate success as we move into a new world and a new 
century.
  I fully recognize that much in this bill will provoke debate. I 
welcome it. The Finance Committee can and must begin to consider how 
best to update our trade laws. I am confident that as trade becomes 
unquestionably one of the most powerful economic determiners in our 
economy, we will do so.
  My efforts to deal with the real world consequences for West Virginia 
steel families, communities and manufacturers when they were hit with 
an unprecedented deluge of steel imports in late 1997 and 1998 resulted 
in my proposal of a steel quota bill that was considered on the Senate 
floor and rejected largely on the grounds that we weren't playing by 
the world's rules. I'm here to let my colleagues know that as the world 
changes, we must change with it--we must support the expanded 
opportunities for trade by guarding against the acquiescence to 
circumstances where our workers end up hurt with no recourse but to 
promote isolationism.

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