[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 149 (Thursday, October 28, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13343-S13345]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   AFRICAN GROWTH AND OPPORTUNITY ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
proceed to the consideration of H.R. 434, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative assistant read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 434) to authorize a new trade and investment 
     policy for sub-Sahara Africa.

  Pending:

       Lott (for Roth/Moynihan) amendment No. 2325, in the nature 
     of a substitute.
       Lott amendment No. 2332 (to amendment No. 2325), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Lott amendment No. 2333 (to amendment No. 2332), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Lott motion to commit with instructions (to amendment No. 
     2333), of a perfecting nature.
       Lott amendment No. 2334 (to the instructions of the motion 
     to commit), of a perfecting nature.
       Lott (for Ashcroft) amendment No. 2340 (to amendment No. 
     2334), to establish a Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the 
     Office of the United States Trade Representative.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the trade bill which is 
before us, and to register some disappointment with the path the leader 
has chosen to pursue because at this point the leader has indicated 
that he is not going to permit amendments to this trade bill. He has 
brought the bill to the floor, but he has what we call around here 
``filled the tree.''

[[Page S13344]]

  I am certain people who are listening to this out across the country 
must wonder what this language we use around here means. Very simply, 
it means the Republican leader has constructed this bill and amendments 
to the bill that preclude other Senators from offering amendments to 
this legislation. I regret that. I think it is a mistake.
  One of the reasons we are bogged down around here is because the 
leader keeps doing this and keeps bringing up bills and keeps filling 
the tree. He keeps filing cloture and doesn't let the Senate legislate. 
I understand from time to time that may be necessary to move business 
in the Senate. But I think it has now happened so frequently that it is 
actually stopping business in the Senate. I believe that is a mistake.
  Hopefully, this will change and we will be given an opportunity to 
offer amendments. I have several amendments that I believe should be 
considered by the body on this legislation. They are directly relevant 
to trade. In fact, I can't think of amendments any more relevant than 
the amendments I would like to offer.
  The first amendment I would like considered is one to give direction 
to our trade negotiators as they go into the WTO Round in Seattle next 
month. We are just weeks away from our negotiators going into talks 
with all of the other countries that are involved in these discussions. 
We have not taken the opportunity to give direction to our trade 
negotiators on the policies they ought to pursue in these talks.
  I believe it is very important that we set out what the goals should 
be. What should we ask our negotiators to have as their negotiating 
priorities?
  I also would like to offer an amendment that would give trade 
adjustment assistance to farmers because right now they are left out. 
If they are adversely affected by a trade agreement that we reach, 
tough luck. They are left out. They are not helped. They ought to be 
included. Certainly, there ought to be restrictions as to how it would 
apply. But trade adjustment assistance ought to be provided for 
farmers. That is an amendment that I would like to offer to this bill. 
Right now I am precluded from doing so because, as I indicated, the 
Republican leader is denying other Senators the opportunity to present 
amendments.
  I am willing to live by the will of this body. I am willing to offer 
an amendment and have votes taken. If I win, I win. If I lose, I lose. 
But I would at least like to have the opportunity to see where the will 
of the Senate lies on these questions. What are the negotiating 
instructions we give to our delegation to the WTO talks? Should farmers 
be included in trade adjustment assistance just as every other worker 
in this country is eligible? I believe the answer to those questions is 
a firm yes.
  Let me first indicate that the reason I believe it is so critically 
important that we give instructions to our negotiators with respect to 
agriculture and what they do in terms of pursuing an agricultural 
policy in the WTO talks is because we are getting skunked in these 
discussions. We have been getting skunked and skunked repeatedly in 
these international trade talks.

  Not so long ago I was visiting with the chief negotiator for the 
Europeans who told me: Senator, we believe we are in a trade war with 
the United States on agriculture. We believe at some point there will 
be a cease-fire in this conflict and we want to occupy the high ground. 
The high ground is world market share. Our European friends have 
engaged in a strategy and a plan to dominate world market share in 
agriculture. They have succeeded brilliantly. They have gone from being 
the largest importing region in the world to being one of the largest 
exporting regions in 20 years. They have done it the old-fashioned way: 
They have done it by buying these markets. They have spent, and spent 
profusely, in order to win this world agricultural trade battle.
  Over the last 3 years, they have averaged $44 billion a year in 
support for producers versus our $6 billion. They have been outspending 
America 7 to 1 in terms of support for producers over the last 3 years. 
That is part of their strategy. That is part of their plan. They want 
to go out and buy these markets. The way they have done it is very 
interesting. They have developed a structure of agricultural support 
that pays their producers more within European boundaries to produce 
the same crops we produce, and then they take the surplus production 
that results and sell it for fire sale prices on the international 
market, driving prices down for them, driving down prices for us, 
driving down prices for everyone. That is also part of their strategy 
as they increase their market share--again, with the notion they are 
going to be in a position when a cease-fire is declared in this trade 
conflict to extract concessions. Oh, how well that strategy and plan 
has been working.
  Their level of support is much higher than ours--3 times as high in 
some measures, 7 times as high under total support measurement, 60 
times as high looking at world agricultural trade subsidy--and we are 
being outgunned. How do we win a fight when we are being outgunned on 
world agricultural export subsidy by 60 to 1? That is what the latest 
figures reveal. Europe accounts for almost 84 percent of all world 
agricultural trade subsidy; 84 percent. The United States, 1.4 percent. 
They are providing 60 times as much to go out and buy these markets as 
we are doing. Not surprisingly, they are winning.
  Their trade negotiator said: Senator, we have a higher level of 
support than you do. In the last trade talks, instead of closing the 
gap, they were able to get equal percentage reductions from these 
unequal levels of support. Again, that is part of their strategy and 
plan. They don't want to see this gap closed. They don't want to see 
the United States go up and theirs go down. They don't want to see any 
movement in this relationship where they are now dominant. Instead, 
they want to secure equal percentage reductions from these unequal 
levels.
  If they are able to do that, they will push us closer and closer to 
the brink of losing tens of thousands of farm families all across this 
country. That is why I believe it is critically important we offer 
negotiating objectives for agriculture to our delegation that will 
begin with the WTO Round in November.
  If I were able to offer the amendment, I would offer the following 
negotiating objectives. The amendment I have crafted, and it is 
cosponsored by Senator Grassley of Iowa, lays out seven principal 
negotiating objectives for agriculture:
  No. 1, we should insist on the immediate elimination of all export 
subsidy programs worldwide. Export subsidies only depress world market 
prices. I think this is something we could agree on in the Senate. It 
is not in our interests to have world agricultural export subsidies. It 
is certainly not in our interests when the Europeans are outspending 
the United States in this regard 60 to 1.
  No. 2, we should insist that the European Union and others adopt 
domestic farm policies that force their producers to face world prices 
at the margin so they do not produce more than is needed for their 
domestic markets. Every economist I have spoken to has told me that is 
something that makes sense to them, that every country ought to face 
world market prices at the margin. It is one thing for countries to 
adopt domestic food security policies to ensure they can feed 
themselves; it is entirely another matter to subsidize excess 
production and then dump this surplus on the world market, depressing 
prices for everyone else.

  No. 3, we should insist that the State trading enterprises, such as 
the Canadian Wheat Board, are disciplined so their actions are 
transparent and they do not provide de facto export subsidies.
  No. 4, we should insist on the use of sound science when it comes to 
sanitary and phytosanitary restrictions. Too often these are used as 
hidden protectionist trade barriers. On genetically modified 
organisms--which is a very hot issue in Europe--we should insist that 
foreign markets be open to our products, but we should also recognize 
we can't force consumers to buy what they don't want. We have to give 
consumers the ability to make an informed choice on whether they want 
to buy these products without letting inflammatory labels be used as 
hidden trade barriers.
  No. 5, we should insist that our trading partners immediately reduce 
their tariffs on our agricultural exports to

[[Page S13345]]

levels that are no higher than ours and then further reduce these 
barriers.
  No. 6, we should seek cooperative agricultural policies to avoid 
price-depressing surpluses or food shortages.
  No. 7, we should strengthen dispute settlement and enforce existing 
commitments. We honor our commitments. All too often, other countries 
that are party to these agreements fail to follow what they have 
pledged to do.
  I think these are seven commonsense negotiating objectives we ought 
to lay out for our delegation to the WTO talks. I hope at some point we 
are able to offer that amendment.
  I have indicated I want to offer an amendment allowing our farmers to 
qualify for trade adjustment assistance. The amendment I want to 
offer--and again, this is cosponsored by Senator Grassley--makes 
farmers eligible for trade adjustment assistance similar to what is 
provided to other workers in other industries who suffer as a result of 
unfair imports. When imports cause layoffs in manufacturing industries, 
workers are eligible for trade adjustment assistance. But when imports 
cause the same kind of problem to farmers, they are not eligible 
because the test is job loss.
  Of course, farmers don't work for a paycheck, they get their living 
by selling the commodities they produce. When they are faced with a 
circumstance in which they are unfairly impacted by trade imports, they 
lose their income but not their job. So when it comes to trade 
adjustment assistance, they are out of luck. They don't qualify for 
trade adjustment assistance. Farmers lose their income, and there is 
nothing to help them. In fact, this may be something we do to them 
ourselves. We may negotiate away certain sectors of our industry as we 
did in the so-called Canadian Free Trade Agreement. Yet we come back 
and do absolutely nothing for the sector of our economy that was traded 
away--in this case, farmers.
  We have a case in my State where certain loopholes were negotiated in 
the Canadian Free Trade Agreement that allow Canadians to flood our 
market with Canadian durum. We can't send a bushel north, and yet there 
is nothing to help our farmers who were basically sold out in that 
negotiation. There is not one thing to be done to help them. We have 
lost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and nothing is being done 
to provide assistance to those farmers. The least we could do is 
provide trade adjustments as we do for every other industry.

  That is why I believe we must act on an amendment such as the one 
Senator Grassley and I have crafted. Trade adjustment assistance for 
farmers can not only provide badly needed cash assistance to a 
devastated agricultural economy; it can reignite support for trade 
among many family farmers.
  The Conrad-Grassley amendment would assist farmers who lost income 
because of unfair imports. Farmers would get a payment to compensate 
them for some, but not all, of the income they lose if increased 
imports affect commodity prices. The maximum any farmer would receive 
in any one year is $10,000, and the maximum cost of this amendment 
would be $100 million a year.
  Under our amendment, the Secretary of Agriculture would decide 
whether the price of a commodity has dropped more than 20 percent and 
whether imports contributed importantly to this price drop. The 
``imports contributed importantly'' standard is the same standard the 
Department of Labor uses to determine whether workers are eligible for 
trade adjustment assistance when they lose their jobs.
  In order to be eligible for benefits under this program, farmers 
would have to demonstrate their net farm income has declined from the 
previous years. This was a criticism leveled at the amendment in the 
Finance Committee, and we have added this provision to try to respond 
to that criticism.
  Farmers would also need to meet with the USDA's Extension Service to 
plan how to adjust to the import competition. This adjustment could 
take the form of improving the efficiency of the operation or switching 
to different crops.
  Training and employment benefits available to workers under trade 
adjustment assistance would also be available to farmers as an option. 
In most years, the program would have a very modest cost because very 
few commodities, if any, would be eligible. But in a year comparable to 
last year, when hog prices collapsed and wheat prices tumbled, the 
program would offer modest support to compensate farmers for the 
harmful effect of imports.
  These are two amendments that I believe are totally relevant to the 
bill before us. One of these amendments I offered in the Finance 
Committee to this very bill. Now this legislation is on the floor and 
we are precluded from offering an amendment here. Again, I hope the 
leader will relent. I hope he will open it up so those of us who have 
serious amendments, amendments that deserve consideration, can at least 
get an up-or-down vote.
  The second amendment I discussed, dealing with WTO negotiating 
objectives, I also think is directly relevant. Frankly, we are not 
going to have another chance to give instructions to our delegation 
before they go to the WTO Round. Before they commence these trade 
talks, we ought to have an opportunity to give negotiating guidelines 
to our negotiators. That is part of our responsibility, part of our 
role. If we do not have a chance here, we are not going to have a 
chance.
  Finally, I have a third amendment on agricultural sanctions that I 
would hope could be considered.
  I very much hope before this is done we will have a chance to offer 
amendments, amendments that are serious, that are relevant to trade, so 
our colleagues may pass judgment on them, so we may consider and vote 
on them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

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