[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 57 (Wednesday, May 10, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3787-S3792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2000--CONFERENCE REPORT


                           Motion to Proceed

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion to 
proceed to the conference report to accompany H.R. 434.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A motion to proceed to the consideration of the conference 
     report to accompany H.R. 434 to authorize a new trade and 
     investment policy for sub-Saharan Africa.

  The Senate proceeded to consider the motion.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there a sufficient second?

[[Page S3788]]

  There is a sufficient second.
  Under the previous order, the question is on agreeing to the motion 
to proceed to the conference report to accompany H.R. 434.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Roth), 
the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from South Carolina 
(Mr. Thurmond), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) are 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. L. Chafee). Are there any other Senators 
in the Chamber who desire to vote?
  The result was announced, yeas 90, nays 6, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 96 Leg.]

                                YEAS--90

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee, L.
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Reid
     Robb
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--6

     Bunning
     Byrd
     Dorgan
     Hollings
     Reed
     Smith (NH)

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Hagel
     Helms
     Roth
     Thurmond
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                             CLOTURE MOTION

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, pursuant to the consent agreement, I now 
send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the Conference 
     Report to accompany H.R. 434, The African Growth and 
     Opportunity Act:
         Trent Lott, Jon Kyl, Pat Roberts, Craig Thomas, Bill 
           Frist, Paul Coverdell, James Inhofe, Orrin Hatch, Don 
           Nickles, Larry Craig, Slade Gorton, Mitch McConnell, 
           Peter Fitzgerald, Chuck Grassley, Phil Gramm, and Mike 
           Crapo.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, the 
cloture vote will occur on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Debate on this 
important trade legislation is expected to consume the remainder of the 
day.


                           Order of Business

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I believe there are several Members who 
wish to speak as in morning business, and Senator Grassley and I will 
be more than happy to accommodate them at this point.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we have agreed to give Senator Collins 5 
minutes and Senator Feingold 5 minutes at this point. I ask unanimous 
consent that they be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Iowa and my 
colleague from New York for their graciousness.
  I ask unanimous consent that we be permitted to proceed for not to 
exceed 15 minutes, and that would be divided such that I would have 7 
minutes and the Senator from Wisconsin would be permitted to proceed 
for not to exceed 8 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  (The remarks of Ms. Collins and Mr. Feingold pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 2528 are located in today's Record under 
``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I was going to speak for about 15 
minutes, but if my colleague had expected to speak as one of the 
managers, I don't want to precede him.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to speak for a few minutes 
opening up debate on the African trade bill. Senator Moynihan will want 
to make opening comments. After we have completed our remarks, I will 
not object.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to 
follow Senator Grassley and Senator Moynihan for a period of up to 15 
minutes on the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as a person who supports the African 
trade bill, I rise in support of this conference committee report on 
the Trade and Development Act of 2000. This legislation contains the 
conference agreement on the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the 
Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, and even some miscellaneous 
trade measures that were passed as part of the Senate's consideration 
of this legislation in November last year.
  Passage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act conference 
agreement by the Senate will send to the President the first 
significant trade legislation to pass both Houses of Congress since 
1988, other than legislation implementing trade agreements under very 
special fast-track procedures.
  If I could characterize this conference agreement with one word, it 
would be the word ``opportunity.'' That word is in the title of the 
African portion of this bill.
  First, this conference agreement provides people in sub-Saharan 
Africa with the opportunity and promise for a better life. In many 
cases, these countries are not able to sustain their own people. They 
lack even the simplest, most basic infrastructure. This prevents the 
people of Africa from meeting necessary agriculture, education, 
transportation, and health care needs.
  By giving these countries new tools to develop a textile and apparel 
industry, they will have new opportunities to participate in the global 
trade flows and the increased prosperity that have largely bypassed the 
majority of Africa's people.
  I stress this bill provides opportunity. Once again, this bill is 
about opportunity. It is not about a guarantee, and it is not about a 
panacea, but an opportunity that has, up until now, been missing for 
the people of sub-Saharan Africa.

  This legislation will give these countries the opportunity to build 
the essential capital that struggling economies need to increase their 
investment in their own people to help themselves. What we will create 
with this bill is opportunity for these struggling economies, and do it 
in a way that will not in any way jeopardize U.S. employment.
  Some 30 sub-Saharan countries of Africa have begun dynamic economic 
reform programs that help make it much easier to pass this bill because 
we know they are taking the first steps to help themselves. They are 
liberalizing exchange rates; they are privatizing state-owned 
enterprises; they are reducing harmful barriers to trade and 
investment; they are also ending costly trade-distorting subsidies.
  All of these things, for those who believe enhanced freedom of 
international trade is the right direction in which to go, always need 
a little bit of help from the indigenous economies of the respective 
countries. We believe the 30 countries of sub-Saharan Africa are doing 
all the right things. This legislation will create greater 
opportunities for new partnerships with these African nations based on 
economic directions they have already begun to take.
  The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act is designed to compliment the 
economic reform policies that African nations have already decided to 
pursue by offering increased access to U.S. markets for non-import-
sensitive goods and textiles while creating enhanced opportunities to 
deepen our bilateral trade relations.
  Speaking of opportunity, we will open up for American goods and 
services a market for 700 million potential new consumers, more than in 
Japan

[[Page S3789]]

and all the ASEAN nations combined, if we approve this conference 
agreement.
  Both the United States and African nations recognize this legislation 
for the win-win opportunity it is. The United States benefits and 
Africa benefits from this legislation. The African Growth and 
Opportunity Act has been endorsed by every African ambassador in 
Washington. We don't see unanimous agreement on many things in these 
cities these days. However, we do here. All of the 48 nations of sub-
Saharan Africa are united in support of this legislation.
  The conference agreement is also a win-win opportunity for the 
countries of the Caribbean Basin region and for the United States. This 
conference report grants duty-free, quota-free benefits to apparel made 
in the Caribbean Basin Initiative countries from U.S. yarn and U.S. 
fabric. The Caribbean Basin nations will now have an opportunity to 
compete with Mexico and other developing countries in Asia in a way 
that will permit them to more fully participate in the global economy.
  Additionally, the conference report provides benefits for apparel 
made with regional fabric under clearly specified conditions to be fair 
to the United States. This will encourage additional U.S. export of 
cotton and yarn and U.S. investment in the region while also helping to 
create desperately needed jobs for the Caribbean workers. In fact, I 
cannot think of a time when this legislation was needed more. We have 
to act now to help rebuild the shattered Caribbean economies and the 
ruined lives of those whose nations were devastated by Hurricanes 
Georges and Mitch. This all happened in 1998, but the recovery is not 
what it should be.
  It is hard for us to imagine the destruction these storms inflicted. 
We were not there. We saw them on television, but, as so many things 
seen on television, they soon get out of mind. The devastation is still 
there, although there has been some cleaning up, some enhancement of 
the economy. But this will help, not by giving them our money, as we 
have done under the humanitarian programs we have, but helping them to 
help themselves through enhanced trade opportunities.
  In the worst-hit Caribbean countries, virtually all sectors of the 
economy were affected. Houses by the hundreds were washed away. Roads 
and bridges disappeared under tons of water. Hotels were wrecked. Beach 
erosion demolished tourism. Both the administration and the Congress 
deserve credit for joint efforts to enact an assistance package of 
close to $1 billion to aid in the reconstruction of the most basic 
elements of infrastructure--roads, bridges, and sewer systems--for what 
they did 2 years ago. But even this investment falls far short of what 
is needed to rehabilitate the economies of these countries.
  The Caribbean nations hit by these disasters have seen the basic 
pillars of their economies--agriculture and tourism--almost completely 
ruined. I have spoken to many of the ambassadors from the Caribbean 
nations about this. I just had a meeting this morning with the 
President of Costa Rica, thanking us for our work on this particular 
bill, telling us about how their economies are starting to turn around. 
In my view, based on these discussions, comprehensive reconstruction 
will not be possible without an effective trade and investment 
component. The ambassadors tell me--and the regional leaders and the 
U.S. officials all agree--it will take years for the hardest hit 
countries to recover. These countries are more than just our friends; 
they are our neighbors. They are right there in our backyard. We must 
put in place a program to help them rebuild and to sustain growth 
during the long road back to economic prosperity. We can do this 
without threatening jobs in our own country.
  The Caribbean Basin is one of the few regions of the world where the 
United States consistently--I want to emphasize consistently--maintains 
a trade surplus. In fact, close to 70 cents of every dollar spent in 
the region is returned in the form of increased exports from the United 
States. In 1999, the U.S. exports to Caribbean Basin countries exceeded 
$19 billion, making this group the sixth largest export market of U.S. 
goods in that year, 1999.

  We will see other long-term benefits to the United States if we 
approve this conference agreement and help our Caribbean neighbors to 
help themselves. We will contribute to the U.S. national security, in 
addition to our economy, by helping democratic countries in our own 
backyard maintain political and economic stability.
  In closing, I want to say a word, then, in addition to all the big 
components of this bill, a word about the significance of our work. 
This is very general, but this work is an example of U.S. leadership in 
trade policy. But that U.S. leadership in trade policy has suffered 
serious setbacks in the last few years. One obvious setback has been 
the repeated failure of the Congress to renew the President's fast-
track trade negotiating authority. Another setback has been the failure 
of the negotiations on the multilateral agreement on investment in the 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And the most 
serious blow to U.S. leadership in global trade policy was the failure 
last December of the Seattle ministerial conference meeting of the 
World Trade Organization.
  The entire world is watching, wondering whether the lack of 
leadership on the part of the United States for the last 7 or 8 years, 
or maybe the last 5 or 6 years, is a pattern we are going to continue 
to follow because it is such a different pattern from what the United 
States has done as a world leader in breaking down barriers to 
international trade since 1947.
  I suppose you could go back to the 1930s, when we learned the lesson 
of the Smoot-Hawley legislation that brought about the world 
depression, and the world depression brought about World War II. We 
very quickly learned that high tariffs are not good for the world 
economy. It was not good for the American economy because we suffered 
as much or more than they did elsewhere in the world in that Great 
Depression as a result of Smoot-Hawley. Under Cordell Hull's leadership 
as Secretary of State, working for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 
we started reciprocal trade agreements at that particular time. They 
were the forerunner of gradually reducing some of these very high 
barriers to trade we had at that time around the world, mostly high 
tariffs--bringing them down on a reciprocal basis. But all of that 
eventually resulted in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 
process that we led the world in establishing in 1949.
  There have been eight rounds of GATT. Those eight rounds have been 
very successful in breaking down barriers to trade, so successful that 
President Clinton can tell the American people with all honesty, on a 
factual basis, that one-third of the jobs created during his Presidency 
are a result of international trade.
  So if anybody thinks we are here promoting an African trade bill and 
Caribbean Basin Initiative bill to somehow benefit the economies of 
Africa and the Caribbean nations without any concern about the workers 
of America, the working men and women of America, the taxpaying people 
of our country, and are they going to have enough jobs, we have 
history, since 1947, to demonstrate the value of international trade to 
the economy of the United States and the economic benefit of the United 
States.
  Too often, in international trade, we look to the economic issues 
only. But I believe commerce does more to promote international peace 
and humanitarian progress than anything we as political leaders or 
diplomats can do--as important as political leadership is in the world, 
and as important as diplomats are. But there are just not enough 
political leaders or diplomats in the world--if you take all the 
countries combined--to guarantee any peace. But as you break down 
barriers among the diverse people of our world--that is, one on one, 
whether it is business or nonbusiness relationships--that has more to 
do with the promotion of international peace, prosperity, democratic 
principles, and free market principles than anything.
  So I see this legislation as part of a small process of promoting 
those issues as well as our concern about Africa, among others.
  So the entire world I think is watching what we do today because it 
is some show of America wanting to retain that leadership in the 
reduction of trade barriers and enhancing peace and

[[Page S3790]]

prosperity of which we have been a part since 1947.
  It is vitally important to not only approve this conference agreement 
but to do it in a resounding way. If we do that, we can send a message 
to the rest of the world that American leadership in trade policy is 
alive and well. For many in the international community, that 
leadership, as I said before, is in serious doubt.
  It is especially important to approve this conference agreement after 
the profoundly disappointing failure of the Seattle WTO negotiations. 
We are only now beginning to pick up the pieces with the start of new 
agriculture and service trade negotiations in Geneva.
  I have been watching these negotiations very closely. They are both 
difficult and delicate. We are trying to rebuild confidence, both in 
the World Trade Organization and in U.S. leadership. After Seattle, 
this is necessary and vitally important. It is not an exaggeration to 
say that failure to approve this conference agreement, or even a tepid 
approval, would send a shockwave through these negotiations. It would 
undermine our negotiators, jeopardize any progress we might make in 
Geneva, and do great harm to our long-term international trade 
interests.
  By the same token, a strong Senate endorsement of this conference 
report would say to the entire world that the Senate is engaged, 
committed, and we want to reestablish the historic leadership role that 
has characterized U.S. trade policy for the last 50 years.
  Finally, I salute the hard work of the majority leader, Senator Lott, 
as well as that of my distinguished colleagues, Senator Roth and 
Senator Moynihan. Without their vision, their efforts, and their 
perseverance, we would not be here today.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in a resounding show of support for 
American leadership in world trade negotiations by supporting the Trade 
and Development Act of 2000.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). The Senator from New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise in complete accord with the 
resounding statement of the Senator from Iowa. I know he would agree 
with me when I say we are both here speaking in the intellectual grasp 
of our chairman, Senator Roth, who will return to the Senate next week 
after necessary surgery and who is so much responsible for our being 
here today.
  The Senator from Iowa said the world is watching. The world is 
watching and has been watching with dismay for 6 years as we seem to 
have backed away from that tradition which Cordell Hull took up at the 
depths of the recession, which I will get to, and we have carried on, 
on a bipartisan basis, right into the nineties and then we seem to have 
stopped.
  This is the first trade bill to come to the Senate floor in 6 years. 
More, we have defeated measures. We have denied the President the trade 
negotiating authority for trade agreements. It took the administration 
too long to ask for it. It responded to the same domestic pressures we 
saw in Seattle and we saw in front of the World Bank, baffling in some 
instances, but powerful.
  Now we return to our tradition. The Senator from Iowa spoke of 
sending a resounding message. Can there be a more resounding message 
than our vote this morning of 90-6 to proceed to the consideration of 
this measure, following, perhaps, an equally, more astounding and 
equally resounding measure, a vote in the House of 309-110 to send us 
this conference report?
  Senators will recall that the House had sent over to us the African 
Growth and Opportunity Act. This was a measure to give some measure of 
trade stimulation to sub-Saharan African countries in the area of 
apparel exports. The distinguished chairman, our revered Senator Roth, 
saw to it, in a near to unanimous Finance Committee, that the Caribbean 
Basin Initiative, an initiative begun by President Reagan, that this, 
too, was included in the bill--it is a combined measure--with a number 
of other provisions of interest to the Senators.
  The importance of the CBI, as we say for purposes of simplification, 
in this regard is very simple. Having created the North American free 
trade area, we created an incentive to develop trade ties with Mexico--
in essence, Mexican production would enter the United States on a 
completely free basis, whereas its neighbors in Central America and 
nearby Caribbean islands were suddenly disadvantaged. We will call it 
an unanticipated consequence. It had to be dealt with. We do not 
completely deal with it here, but we acknowledge that it is an urgent 
matter, and we begin it.
  Nearly all the Senate provisions--the bill passed the Senate 76-19--
were retained, thanks to extraordinary exertions by our respective 
staffs who we will thank fulsomely in time.
  We must particularly acknowledge that this 5 months of negotiation, 
and often going into 5 in the morning, would never have come to any 
conclusion absent the active participation of our majority leader who 
convened the meetings in his own office and listened to a lot of 
incomprehensible discord over tariffs.
  I speak as a veteran, if I may, and ask the indulgence of the younger 
and more vital persons. I was one of the three persons who negotiated 
the Long-Term Cotton Textile Agreement of 1962 for President Kennedy, 
that having become a condition of passing the Trade Expansion Act of 
1962 by the textile industry and the garment industry, which we 
successfully did, but it was not an easy effort with the French at the 
height of Gaullist recidivism. That 5-year Cotton Textile Agreement, 
which we negotiated nearly 40 years ago, is now in its eighth 
reincarnation and will continue well into the now new century. Still, 
we got it. And we got as well the series of trade rounds in the GATT 
about which Senator Grassley has spoken. Finally, the Uruguay Round 
Agreements Act, which authorized our participation in the World Trade 
Organization, was enacted in 1994.
  I make the point that in establishing the WTO, we were only getting 
back to where we were in the immediate aftermath of World War II when, 
at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, the British-American-Chinese-French 
negotiators thought of how to establish a world which would not have 
the profound instability of the 1930s, and they envisioned three 
institutions: One, the International Bank for Reconstruction and 
Development, which we call the World Bank, headquartered here; the 
International Monetary Fund, to deal with monetary fluctuations, which 
we established here; and an international trade organization, which was 
to be headquartered in Havana--I acknowledge that that died in the 
Senate Finance Committee.

  So we established, on an ad hoc basis, the General Agreement on 
Tariffs and Trade. Eric Wyndham White, a British Treasury official, 
with three or four assistants, managed these negotiations in Geneva 
which would take place periodically. In time, we got back to the World 
Trade Organization.
  This moved so well. But suddenly we find ourselves anxious about 
proceeding in a policy direction that has been so profoundly successful 
for two-thirds of a century--66 years, since Congress enacted the 
Reciprocal Trade Agreements program.
  We recognize the extraordinary results of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. It 
is a point not often noted that there has not been a tariff bill on the 
Senate floor since 1930. We tried that and it did not work. I think it 
is fair to say that the dynamics of horse-trading--I will do this for 
your product; you do this for mine--are not suited to a world in which 
trade is so important today.
  Indeed, also the 19th century tariff legislation was hugely 
acrimonious and at times divisive. I think the division between North 
and South had something to do with the tariffs imposed in the early 
part of the 19th century.
  As the Senator from Iowa has said, if you would make a short list of 
five events that led to the Second World War, and the horror associated 
with that war, the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 would be one of them.
  Tariffs were increased to unprecedented levels in the United States--
by 60 percent. Incidentally, they are still the legal, official 
tariffs. It is only through trade agreements that we have negotiated 
reciprocal reductions.
  As predicted, imports dropped by two-thirds, in value terms. And all 
the simple-minded persons who said, if we do not let any foreign 
products come in, then our producers will prosper, what they did not 
know is that exports

[[Page S3791]]

would drop by two-thirds, and the depression settled in.
  The stock market crash of 1929 would have worked itself out. It was a 
matter of a crisis on paper. Factories did not close. Factories began 
to close when there was no market for their products, much of which had 
been going overseas.
  The result was ruinous overseas. The British abandoned free trade, 
which had made them the principal economic power of the 19th century. 
They had to fight it a very long time, and much later than we think, 
when they abolished the so-called corn laws, which kept the price of 
wheat high enough to maintain the economic viability of the large land 
area of the state and not let that Iowa wheat get into Liverpool. The 
minute they did, they became an industrial power, and their farms did 
not disappear either.
  As a matter of fact, Britain is self-sufficient in agriculture today. 
But it was free trade that gave them the advantage in the world. And 
they kept it right up until the Smoot-Hawley tariff, after which they 
adopted commonwealth preferences.
  The Japanese began the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. And, 
sir, in 1933, with unemployment at 33 percent, Adolph Hitler was 
elected Chancellor of Germany. That is what you get when you do things 
like this.
  The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934--Cordell Hull's 
innovation of President Roosevelt's initiative--got us back on track. 
For more than half a century, from one administration to another, 
without exception, there we have stayed. It had looked like we were 
going to stray. But here we are, moving again in the context--I 
daresay, the shadow--of the decision on China coming within the next 2 
or 3 weeks.

  With the African trade bill--the African Growth and Opportunity Act--
for the first time, the United States is, with this legislation, 
putting in place a trade policy with respect to sub-Saharan Africa, a 
policy that is long overdue.
  The economic challenges facing that region may be even greater than 
they were at the height of the cold war. There has been a decline of 
institutions on a massive scale.
  Consider the differing paths of South Korea and Ghana. In 1958, the 
year after Ghana achieved independence, its per capita gross national 
product was $203; South Korea's was lower. South Korean per capita GNP 
at that time was $171.
  Forty years later, in 1998, South Korea's per capita income has 
soared to $10,550--even after the financial crisis of Asia a few years 
back--while Ghana's has stood at a modest, an impoverished, $390.
  According to the most recent World Bank data, the average per capita 
GNP for sub-Saharan Africa was $513 in 1998, or $316 if South Africa is 
excluded. These countries simply do not pose competitive threats to us. 
They are, if anything, a source of concern for economic aid, 
peacekeeping forces, and the like.
  The legislation we have before us, which we will pass overwhelmingly 
after we hear some arguments that are all too familiar, is intended to 
assist sub-Saharan Africa to develop one of the basic building block 
industries of economic development, which is textile and apparel 
production.
  It offers duty-free, quota-free treatment to certain categories of 
apparel--principally those that are made with American fabric that is 
itself made, indeed, with American yarn.
  There is some allowance for so-called regional fabric; that is, 
fabric made in sub-Saharan Africa. But the benefits are subject to a 
very tight cap, beginning at 1.5 percent of total U.S. imports and 
growing over the life of the bill to only 3.5 percent of total imports.
  For a transition period of 4 years, the less developed of the sub-
Saharan African countries may use third country fabric as they ramp up 
their own production capacity.
  But we should put this in some perspective. In 1999, domestic 
production of apparel and certain fabricated textile products such as 
home furnishings--but not fabrics and yarns--in the United States 
topped $81 billion.
  That same year, U.S. imports of apparel from sub-Saharan Africa were 
valued at $584 million--that is to say, 0.7 percent of domestic 
production and just 1.1 percent of total apparel imports.
  Should imports from sub-Saharan Africa grow to 3.5 percent of the 
total U.S. imports--the maximum quantity allowed for regional fabric 
under the bill--they will barely register in a market this size.
  The African trade legislation in this package will not reverse years 
of neglect and decline, but it may provide a decent start.
  Just a final word on the enhanced Caribbean Basin Initiative, the 
Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act. As I mentioned, it was begun in 
1983 under President Reagan, and which the Senate Finance Committee 
added to this bill, and the House accepted it. The House was very open 
in this matter. I remarked earlier how the North American free trade 
area has eroded the market positions of Central America and the 
Caribbean islands.
  Senator Roth and I met last fall, in September of 1999, with the 
Presidents and Vice Presidents and Foreign Ministers of a number of the 
Caribbean and Central American states--the Dominican Republic, 
Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, and Costa Rica. They made a simple 
request. They said: Look, we are here before you as democratically 
elected or appointed members of stable democratic governments. We are 
not here asking for aid. But the unanticipated effects of NAFTA have 
put us at a great disadvantage. All we want to do is trade with you. 
And that is what our provisions would allow. This is trade both ways, 
and again, in American textiles.
  The provisions in the bill will help our producers structure their 
production in this hemisphere so that they will be in a position to 
compete with Asian producers when--as I mentioned earlier, after more 
than 40 years--textile and apparel quotas will be eliminated by January 
of 2005, as agreed in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Textiles and 
Clothing.
  If we don't have a trade infrastructure going with Central America 
and the Caribbean, we will all be overwhelmed by Asian production; and 
we can do it simply by passing this legislation--or we think we can do 
it, and we have not been wrong in our understanding of these matters.
  I have a brief note about the problem of fine wool fabrics. After 
months of negotiation, and with great good faith on the part of all 
interested Senators and industry representatives, we have finally 
reached agreement on a measure that will begin to address this 
problem--again, the unanticipated consequence of free trade with Canada 
and the fact that we have exorbitant tariffs still in place.
  Senators Durbin, Schumer, Gramm, Hagel, Mikulski, Specter, Nickles, 
Fitzgerald, Santorum, and Thompson joined me in sponsoring a very 
modest measure, and we are very happy with the outcome of the effort to 
provide some relief for our suitmakers.
  The conference agreement begins to address this problem. It will also 
begin a data collection process that will give us a better database on 
this industry in the near future. It is not a perfect solution, and it 
does not permanently fix the problem, but it is a start. So I strongly 
support the conference agreement. I signed the papers. We had a long 5-
month negotiation. These are exhausting efforts. They tend to exhaust 
our staffs more than we because we go home at midnight and they stay 
until daybreak. But we have done it.
  Just to repeat what my friend from Iowa has said, this is important--
if modest--legislation. A good debate, a strong vote on this conference 
report will surely set a positive tone for permanent normal trade 
relations with China. That debate will engage us in the very near 
future. We have a wonderful beginning. This morning, we voted 90-6 to 
take up this conference agreement, and I hope that reverberates into 
the other Chamber. I can speak for the Finance Committee. The China 
permanent normal trade relations--just normal trade relations--will 
pass the Senate Finance Committee and will pass the Senate floor, but 
we need to send a signal to the other Chamber that we are ready. We 
hope they are willing. Sixty-six years of American trade policy is in 
the balance. So let's begin this debate and conclude it on the same 
resounding support that we commenced this morning.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

[[Page S3792]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senator from California follow me. She has a very lengthy statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may take 
5 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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