[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 74 (Wednesday, June 14, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5066-S5067]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               SANCTIONS IN FOOD AND MEDICINE--Continued

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I might continue, let me again speak of 
my admiration for the two managers. This isn't a case, however, of 
being either encouraged nor discouraged with respect to amendments. It 
is about the rules of the Senate. And I know the rules. I have the 
right to offer the amendment, and I will do that, but I will do that 
with consideration to the two managers, understanding that they have a 
job to do to try to get this bill out. So I will do it in a manner that 
says, let's have a reasonable time agreement.
  But this is about national security. The reason we have imposed 
sanctions on other countries is because we have national security 
interests about the behavior of these countries. And if, in the 
interest of national security, we have said this country shall continue 
to impose sanctions on the shipments of food and medicine, then I say 
this country is wrong, and we must change the law.
  We had been close to changing the law last year but failed, because 
there are only a few people--a handful of people; determined people--in 
the Congress who insist that they want to continue using food and 
medicine as a weapon.
  The absurdity of it, of course, is that Saddam Hussein has never 
missed a meal. Does anybody think Saddam Hussein has ever missed 
breakfast because we are not able to send much food to Iraq? Does 
anybody think that Fidel Castro has missed dinner because we have 
imposed sanctions on the shipment of food to Cuba? If either of them 
take medication, do you think they miss their daily dose of medication 
because we have sanctions? Of course they have not missed either dinner 
or medication. Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro do just fine, thank you.
  It is hungry people, sick people, and poor people who live in their 
countries who are injured by this. It is not the best of America to say 
we want to include sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine to 
other parts of the world because we are concerned about the behavior of 
their leaders. That is not the best of what America has to offer.
  There are a couple of reasons I have to describe this issue in such 
repetitive terms. One is, I represent a farm State. Our family farmers 
say all the time: You tell us to go operate in the open market, to 
produce our grain and then go sell it in the open market. We have these 
folks who created this farm program called Freedom to Farm, but some of 
them have forgotten there also ought to be a freedom to sell. What 
about the ability to sell that grain to these countries?
  There are $7.7 billion in agricultural sales--nearly 11 percent of 
all the wheat purchases in the world--by the countries with which we 
have sanctions. So we say to farmers: You have the freedom to farm, but 
you do not have the freedom to sell. You cannot move your wheat to 
Cuba. We will let Cuba buy its wheat from other countries--from Europe, 
from Canada, from Argentina. They all sell, but the United States will 
not.
  Farmers have the legitimate right to ask the question: Why? Why would 
you do this to family farmers? Why would you penalize family farmers by 
making so much of the world's wheat market and so much of the world's 
grain market off limits to family farmers?
  This chart shows a list of farm groups that support lifting the 
sanctions on food and medicine. It is a list that includes virtually 
all of them. I do not know of any farm group that thinks this policy is 
smart, thoughtful, or reasonable. Every farm organization in the 
country representing family farmers believes we ought to discontinue 
using food as a weapon.
  What about medicine? Dr. Patricia Dawson, a breast surgeon from 
Seattle, WA, Providence Hospital, says:

       The embargo appears to have a disproportionate impact on 
     women and children by limiting access to new medications and 
     technology.
  In every one of these countries with which we have sanctions, I bet 
you will find a disproportionate impact on women and children. If 
anyone has the time, go talk to Congressman Tony Hall who went to North 
Korea and came back and made the report about hunger and malnutrition 
in North Korea. See what is going on in that country. Then ask 
yourself: Does it make any sense at all for this country to withhold 
food shipments to North Korea, or anywhere for that matter? The answer 
is a resounding no, of course not.
  As I indicated when I started, there are two reasons for me to 
believe so strongly about this. One, this country has developed a 
policy that is wrong at its core. It is wrong for America. It is wrong 
for our family farmers. It is morally wrong, in my judgment, for a 
country that is the breadbasket of the world and produces such a 
prodigious amount of food to be telling other countries that, by the 
way, we will use our food in a punitive way if you do not behave. Mr. 
or Mrs. Leader of Another Country, we will decide that food is off 
limits to those who want to purchase commodities for your country.
  What on Earth could provoke a country such as ours to believe that is 
a smart, sensible, or reasonable policy? It is not reasonable. It is 
not moral.
  From a more selfish standpoint, I would say it is not fair to our 
family farmers. This morning someplace in my home State of North Dakota 
there is a family farmer who is driving a load of grain to a country 
elevator someplace. When that farmer gets to the country elevator, that 
farmer is going to be told that the food he produced--starting in the 
spring, gassing up the tractor, plowing a straight furrow, planting 
some seeds, and hoping and praying that seed is going to grow; and when 
it grows, finally being able to come out with a combine and harvesting 
the crop, and putting it in the bin, and then putting it in the truck, 
and then the elevator--that farmer is going to be told at the elevator 
that the food he produced from the work he did has no value; that food 
is food that does not have much value for the world at all.
  So the price is collapsed. And the farmer scratches his or her head 
and says: I don't understand that. We have more than half a billion 
people going to bed with an ache in their belly because they didn't 
have enough to eat yesterday. Every single minute, up to eight 
children, die--every single minute--because of the winds of hunger 
around the world. Yet our farmers are told somehow their food does not 
have value, and those poor people who live in these countries--Cuba, 
Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Iraq--are told American food, by 
the way, is off limits to you because we do not like the way your 
leaders behave.
  So you poor folks in those unfortunate countries, you can't do much 
to kick Saddam Hussein out of Iraq, but we can prevent you from having 
access to American food. You can't even buy it.

[[Page S5067]]

  That is just wrongheaded public policy. I intend to change it. As I 
indicated, Senator Gorton from Washington cosponsored the amendment I 
offered on the Agriculture appropriations bill. Senator Ashcroft 
offered a nearly identical amendment on the floor of the Senate last 
year. The Senate will be dealing with this.
  Finally, as I conclude, I say to those Senate leaders who believe 
they are going to be able to strip it out of the legislation this year, 
strip it out of the appropriations bill where I added it to the 
Agriculture appropriations bill, I am not going to let you do that. You 
might have the capability of stripping it out of that bill. I have the 
capability and the right on the floor of the Senate to add it to this 
bill.
  Some say they don't want to do it because it does not pertain just to 
defense. It pertains to national security. I have a right under the 
rules to add it. I have to get a vote on it, but I have every right to 
offer it as an amendment. I intend to offer it. I will accept a short 
time agreement, but I intend that this Congress, with a wide majority 
of Senators and Representatives, will support this. I intend that this 
Congress will not be hijacked by a handful of legislative leaders who 
are trying to protect a dinosaur of a policy that represents the worst 
of America--the use of food and medicine as a weapon in economic 
sanctions.

  So if we have not gotten a decade past that mentality then something 
is fundamentally wrong with this country. This country should stand up 
for its family farmers, first, to say that you have the freedom to 
sell; and, second, it ought to stand up as a world leader to say that 
we will not use food as a weapon. Poor people around the world, people 
who live in countries that need our food, have the right to buy it, 
have the right to expect it, and have the right to have access to it 
under a range of programs. This country should no longer penalize those 
poor people and those hungry people.
  I came to the floor as I saw there was a morning business opportunity 
just to say to the two managers--I like them, they are good friends; 
and they will grit their teeth and wring their hands and mop their 
brows--but I intend to offer this amendment. I have a right to do so.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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