[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.''
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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
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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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