[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 25, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S2856]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  PROTESTS AT IMF-WORLD BANK MEETINGS

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I rise today to comment on some important 
events that took place here in Washington last week while many of us 
were back home meeting with our constituents.
  For the past 25 years, we've had an annual Spring ritual in 
Washington. I'm not referring to the cherry blossoms. Every April, the 
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank hold their joint 
meeting. Bankers and finance ministers from around the world travel to 
Washington to talk about the global economy, exchange rates, poverty 
reduction, and the so-called ``international financial architecture.''
  These are tremendously important subjects. But the talks are highly 
technical, and the results are shrouded in the vague language of 
diplomatic communiques. The meetings don't produce startling 
breakthroughs. For most people they are hard to understand. So the 
annual IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington have rarely generated much 
news, and the participants liked it that way.
  This year was different. A coalition of activists vowed to descend on 
Washington to disrupt the meetings. More than 1,700 journalists 
registered to cover the event. Few of those journalists came to report 
on IMF discussions of extended funds facilities or economic 
stabilization criteria. They were hoping for the kind of news that 
protesters made at last year's WTO meetings in Seattle when they closed 
the city down.
  But those who came to Washington hoping for Seattle-style violence 
were disappointed. Both the police and the demonstrators are to be 
commended for that. Those who came here hoping to throw the meetings 
off track were also disappointed. Unlike the WTO ministerial in 
Seattle, the IMF meetings did not attract a big crowd of protestors. 
The labor unions stayed home. The big environmental groups were absent. 
So the meeting took place pretty much as scheduled, albeit with some 
inconvenience and no dramatic events. Business as usual.
  There was one underlying theme among those who did come: a feeling 
that international economic institutions undermine the interests of 
ordinary citizens. I heard that on the streets of Seattle last 
December, when protestors took aim at the world's main trade body. And 
I heard it again last week when they focused on the IMF and the World 
Bank. The demonstrators had no confidence that those institutions are 
moving in the right direction.
  This lack of confidence concerns me greatly. It exists not only here 
at home, but also in many other countries. I believe that America must 
lead an effort to restore faith in the economic institutions we have 
worked so hard to build over the past fifty years, economic 
institutions that have served our country and our people. The World 
Trade Organization. The IMF. The World Bank. And we in the Congress 
should lead that effort.
  Look at the evidence here at home. In the trade arena, I've seen a 
rapid decline in the domestic consensus in favor of open markets. One 
result is that we've been unable to renew the President's fast track 
trade negotiating authority. Morever, the lack of a domestic consensus 
has undermined our ability to lead in the WTO. It has weakened our 
bargaining power. Other members, especially the EU and Japan, take 
advantage of our weakened position and resist opening up their markets 
to the production of American workers and farmers.
  In the financial arena, last week's demonstrations showed that 
Americans are losing faith. They don't think that the IMF and the World 
Bank serve the needs of the people, especially the most vulnerable here 
and in other countries. Instead, they believe that the institutions 
serve the needs of the big and the rich. The IMF and the World Bank 
stand accused of mismanaging the Asian financial crisis through 
misguided policies which needlessly lowered the living standards of 
millions of people, throwing many of them back into poverty. They stand 
accused of mismanaging the Russian economy.
  Are these criticisms justified? It's difficult for Americans to 
judge. These institutions do not operate in the daylight of public 
scrutiny. Although they exist on taxpayer funds, they do not hold 
themselves accountable to taxpayer concerns. America is the biggest 
shareholder in both the IMF and the World Bank. And the lack of 
transparency has seriously undermined American public confidence in 
both the IMF and the World Bank.
  Over the past week I've read and heard a number of condescending 
remarks about the protestors. They've been called naive, poorly 
informed, misguided. But the concerns they express are real and are 
shared by many Americans who did not march down Pennsylvania Avenue. We 
need to take these concerns seriously, because they express a strong 
undercurrent in American thinking.
  In my talks with representatives from the business, environmental and 
labor communities, I find that strong centrist elements seek practical 
solutions. We in the Congress can supply the political leadership to 
firm up this middle ground on the issues of trade and finance, trade 
and labor, trade and the environment, and restore confidence in the 
international trade and financial system. It is an important 
undertaking. America's ability to lead the world into an era of global 
prosperity benefitting rich and poor alike requires us to firm up and 
expand the middle ground to reforge our domestic consensus.

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