[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 102 (Wednesday, September 6, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8044-S8045]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 TO AUTHORIZE EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT TO THE PEOPLE'S 
            REPUBLIC OF CHINA--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, am I recognized for 30 minutes by previous 
consent in postcloture debate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has up to 1 hour.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, some long while ago I was at a meeting in 
North Dakota, and I was talking about senior citizen issues and health 
care, and a range of things, and I used a statistic. I told the senior 
citizens who were at the meeting that there are two men for every woman 
over the age of 80 in the United States. And an older fellow rose from 
his chair and leaned forward on his cane and said to me: Young man, 
that is one of the most useless statistics I have ever heard.
  I thought about that for a while. There are a lot of useless 
statistics used in all kinds of different venues. In this discussion 
about trade, there will certainly be plenty of statistics used. Perhaps 
plenty of them will be useless. But I do want to talk about some trade 
statistics today because we are now debating the motion to proceed to 
the bill that would make normal trade relations with China permanent.
  I think there are a lot of wonderful things going on in this country. 
All of us should count our blessings that we live in a country that is 
doing so well. The economy is growing, growing rapidly; we have 
unprecedented economic growth and opportunity. It is a great time. 
Unemployment is down, way down. Inflation is down, way down. Crime is 
down. Home ownership is up.
  You could look at all of the data. Productivity is up, up, way up. 
All of the data shows that this country is doing very well. All of us 
need to be thankful for that.
  But there are some storm clouds on the horizon in one area, and that 
is in the area of international trade. And we should not ignore them.
  This is not about Republicans and Democrats. It is about a public 
policy area this country must address. If we don't address it in a 
thoughtful way, we will not continue this kind of economic opportunity 
and growth.
  Here is a chart that describes what is happening in trade. This is 
the merchandise trade deficit for this country; that is, the trade in 
goods. I have not included the trade in services, only the trade in 
merchandise goods. This is essentially manufacturing. We eliminated the 
red ink in the budget. The budget deficits are gone. But the trade 
deficits are going up, way up. This year especially. In June, the 
monthly merchandise trade deficit increased to $36.8 billion. The 
deficit for the first half of this year was $216 billion. That means 
that at the end of this year we will probably have a $430 billion 
merchandise trade deficit. We are buying from abroad $1.2 billion a day 
in goods more than we are selling abroad, and that can't continue 
forever.
  With whom are these deficits? Well, for the first half of the year 
2000, the merchandise deficit that we have with Mexico is nearly $12 
billion; with Canada, $22.6 billion and increasing dramatically. With 
the European Union, it is a dramatic increase from $16 billion for the 
first half of last year to $26 billion this year. With China, it has 
increased from $29 billion to $36 billion.
  These are not yearly figures. These are 6-month figures, January 
through June. So this is equal to a $72 billion annual trade deficit 
with the country of China. With Japan, this is almost unforgivable, 
year after year, forever, we have had these huge budget deficits with 
Japan. Now they are totaling nearly $80 billion a year.
  What is happening is wrong. I am not a classic ``protectionist,'' as 
the press would describe some of those involved in this debate. I 
believe we need to expand international trade. I believe we ought to be 
open for competition and be required to compete. But I also believe the 
trade ought to be fair; the rules of trade ought to be fair. 
Globalization attends to it some requirement that we have global rules, 
not only global markets.
  What is happening here, with Japan and China and, yes, others, is 
they are selling into our marketplace at a record pace in a whole range 
of areas, yet we are not able to access opportunities in their 
marketplace. I wonder how many Americans know what the tariff would be 
on a pound of U.S. beef that is shipped to Japan today? Do you want to 
ship a T-bone steak that comes from a ranch in North Dakota to Tokyo? 
What do you think the tariff would be on a T-bone steak going to Tokyo? 
I will tell you what it is. It is over 40 percent, a tariff of over 40 
percent on American beef going into Japan. That is after we have 
negotiated an agreement with Japan. That shows the failure of our 
negotiations. A country that has an $80 billion trade surplus with us 
is allowed to have a greater than 40-percent tariff on American beef 
going to them. Obviously, there is something fundamentally wrong with 
the way we negotiate trade agreements.
  We recently negotiated a trade agreement with China, a big, old 
country with 1.2 billion people. One can't help but stand on the Great 
Wall of China and look at those mountains, at the country, and express 
wonder at who they are and where they have been, their rich history, 
and what they will be tomorrow. What an interesting country. But we 
have a $72 billion merchandise trade deficit with China. We just 
negotiated an agreement that is a bad agreement. Let's take automobiles 
as one example: China has 1.2 billion potential drivers, as soon as 
they all reach driving age, and we want to sell American cars to some 
of them. So here is what we said when we negotiated the agreement: This 
is what we will do. You have a $72 billion trade surplus with us, or we 
have a big deficit with you. So we will negotiate a bilateral agreement 
with you where we will have a 2.5-percent tariff on any 
Chinese automobiles you want to send to us, and we will have a 25-
percent tariff on any automobiles we send into China. In other words, 
after the negotiation is done, we will agree that we

[[Page S8045]]

will accept a tariff imposed by China that is 10 times higher on U.S. 
automobiles than will be imposed by the United States on vehicles from 
China.

  Ask somebody, how on Earth can that happen? Was somebody drinking 
heavily while they negotiated? How can one possibly agree to something 
that is that unfair? I could go on and on. It will serve no purpose, 
except to say that these numbers ought to demonstrate that while things 
are doing well in this country and while we are blessed with a 
wonderful economy, these storm clouds with respect to the trade 
imbalance need to be attended to. We need better trade agreements, and 
we need more attention to trade agreements that require elements of 
fair trade between our country and Japan, between us and the Chinese, 
between us and Europe, and between us and Canada.
  Last month, The Wall Street Journal had a piece ``Will the Trade Gap 
Lower the Boom?'' It notes that our trade gap is now about 4.2 percent 
of our overall economy, and it goes on to say that:

       A percentage that high would scare the green eyeshades 
     right off the analysts in many industrialized nations.

  We don't hear a whisper about it--not here, not around the country, 
very seldom in the press. This is a very unusual story. It also says:

       But there is a disaster scenario that . . . gets more 
     likely with each breath that fills the trade deficit balloon. 
     . . . On average, the current account gap hits its limit at 
     4.2 percent of GDP, exactly where the U.S. finds itself 
     today. . . . Confidence in our economy could collapse before 
     the rest of the world is firmly back on its feet.

  The point is there is something wrong here, and Congress cannot 
ignore it. That is why Senator Stevens, Senator Byrd, and I created in 
legislation a trade deficit review commission. It has finished its 
meetings and is now developing recommendations to policymakers both in 
the administration and Congress, on how to deal with this issue.
  I have supported normal trade relations with China in the past. But, 
the issue for me isn't shall we make it permanent or not. Shall we have 
NTR with China? Of course, we should. The issue is: Are we going to do 
something about these deficits? Does anybody think having a $72 billion 
deficit with China is normal? Is that a normal trade relationship? Of 
course, it is not. It is abnormal. It is a perversion. How about Japan? 
Is this a normal trade relationship, having an $80 billion deficit with 
the country of Japan? That is not normal. It is abnormal. We, as a 
country, need to understand and say to China and Japan and others, the 
European Union, that we are all for expanded trade. We have been the 
leader in expanding trade. But we are also going to be the leader in 
standing up for our economic interests and demanding that the rules of 
trade be fair rules.
  The first 25 years after the Second World War we could compete with 
anybody around the world with one hand tied behind our back. It was no 
problem at all. That was when our trade policy was just flat out 
foreign policy. The second 25 years, we have seen tougher economic 
competitors. Countries have developed with strong economies. They have 
become shrewd economic competitors. Every one of these countries have a 
managed trade economy in which they say: We will not allow what the 
United States allows. We will not ever allow the kind of run up of a 
trade deficit that the United States will allow.
  We do it because we don't pay attention to it. We have this 
philosophy that somehow it will all right itself at some point in the 
future. It will not right itself without action by the Congress and the 
administration to say we are the leaders in free, expanded and fair 
trade, and we insist the rules of trade be fair.
  I come to the floor during this discussion about China PNTR to say 
that there are other elements, in many ways bigger issues, to this 
trade debate that we must be attentive to and we must do so soon.
  While there is a lot of good news--and we will hear a great deal of 
it during the campaigns by Republicans and Democrats, claiming credit 
for this, that, and the other thing--but I hope we will all claim 
credit for the responsibility to begin solving these problems. During 
good times, it seems to me, is the opportunity to look down the road 
and see where the storm clouds develop and figure out how to respond to 
them. We must, it seems to me, decide that it is a significant issue 
and it is in the interest of all citizens in this country that Congress 
begin to tackle this issue in a way that reduces these trade deficits, 
continues to expand our trade opportunities, but puts us on a better 
footing with our trading partners.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak 
as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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