[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 31 (Monday, March 18, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1985-S1987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRADE PROMOTION AUTHORITY

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak on a subject that I hope 
will be on the Senate's agenda after we come back from Easter recess, 
which I think starts at the end of this week. That issue is Trade 
Promotion Authority for the President.
  It is time for the Senate to pass Trade Promotion Authority, not only 
for President Bush, because he has asked for it, but because every 
President ought to have this authority. The President needs this 
authority to help in the reduction of non-tariff trade barriers as well 
as tariffs and to negotiate international trade agreements.
  It has been over a decade since our Nation has had Trade Promotion 
Authority for the President. Since that time, we have fallen further 
behind. This map shows how far behind we are. It shows that the rest of 
the world is no longer going to stand around and wait for the United 
States to show leadership on trade.
  Here you can see all these countries in red. That sea of red 
represents 111 countries that are a party to more than 130 free trade 
agreements that do not include the United States of America. The United 
States was not at the negotiating table for these 130 free trade 
agreements. How many free trade agreements do we have with other 
countries? Three!
  Until just last year, with the passage of the Jordan Free Trade 
Agreement, it had been over 6 years since the United States enacted a 
free trade agreement with another country. Our failure to act, in fact, 
does make a difference.

[[Page S1986]]

  While we stay on the sidelines, the rest of the world moves ahead, 
concluding an average of twenty new free trade agreements every year. 
The European Union alone has signed preferential agreements with 27 
countries and is right now working on 15 more. That means other 
countries are writing the rules of trade, and the United States is not 
at the table. The rules these other countries write are not designed to 
benefit U.S. companies and U.S. workers. When other countries write the 
rules of trade, we lose.
  In the absence of Trade Promotion Authority, we have allowed our 
foreign competitors to make deals that have placed U.S. interests at a 
disadvantage. If we do not pass Trade Promotion Authority soon, then we 
are going to continue to fall further and further behind. We will sit 
on the sidelines and our competitors will continue to make deals that 
exclude us--it's a game plan for failure.
  Without Trade Promotion Authority, American negotiating power to 
bring down trade barriers is severely limited. Foreign competitors will 
continue to weave a web of preferential trade and investment 
opportunities for themselves, and we will fall further behind. American 
companies, workers, and farmers are paying a high price for our 
inaction. Compared to their foreign counterparts, U.S. exporters often 
face higher tariffs, higher costs, and greater administrative delays, 
and even less favorable investment opportunities and protection.
  While other countries negotiate free trade agreements, ensuring that 
their products sail across borders tax free, American workers face high 
tariffs that erode their competitive edge.
  I will just give one example: Caterpillar, a corporation 
headquartered in the State of Illinois. Caterpillar's motor graders, 
made in the United States for export to Chile, face nearly $15,000 in 
tariffs whereas Caterpillar, making those same motor graders in Brazil 
for export to Chile, only face a tariff of $3,700. That ought to get 
anybody's attention about the importance of negotiating down these 
barriers.
  Further, when Caterpillar's competitors produce the same product in 
Canada, it can be exported to Chile free of tariffs because of the 
Canada-Chile free trade agreement.
  We cannot continue to put U.S. workers at a disadvantage in the 
international marketplace. Isolationism is a failed policy that damages 
U.S. interests on many levels. This year the Senate has the ability to 
reject this failed policy by bringing up and passing Trade Promotion 
Authority. This is not the time for us to take a pass on policies that 
could enhance our global competitiveness and increase our economic 
stature worldwide.
  Presidential leadership is very obvious in the war on terrorism. We 
have a strong diplomatic component to that. We have a strong military 
component to that. But we also need a strong economic component to the 
President's leadership, and that can come in part through this 
President having Trade Promotion Authority.
  The Senate Finance Committee reported Trade Promotion Authority out 
of our committee last year in its usual way of doing business, by a 
strong bipartisan vote of 18 to 3. I am confident when this bill comes 
to the floor it will receive bipartisan support from the entire Senate.
  So it is time to get this bill, Trade Promotion Authority, on the 
Senate floor and get it passed. Renewing Trade Promotion Authority will 
help level the global playing field and create countless opportunities 
for our workers, our farmers, and our businesses.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time is remaining on 
Senator Grassley's request?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There remain 45 seconds.
  Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent he be allowed an additional 10 
minutes so I may address some questions to him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. I thank my colleagues for allowing that.
  Mr. President, I say to Senator Grassley from Iowa that I appreciate 
his remarks today, and I appreciate the work he has done in this area. 
I know he feels very strongly about the need for free trade and having 
open markets, but also that it be fair trade.
  I know it is very important to a State such as Iowa, which not only 
is very much involved in the manufacturing area but particularly in 
agriculture because we could export a lot more of our agricultural 
products. So I thank him for the position he takes as a Senator from 
the great State of Iowa but also as a leader on the Finance Committee, 
both as former chairman and now as ranking member.
  I emphasize, once again, the point he made that this Trade Promotion 
Authority was reported out of the Finance Committee by a vote of 18 to 
3, which was a very wide, bipartisan vote.
  I should note both the majority leader and minority leader voted for 
that package. Yet this bill has been languishing. The House passed this 
legislation on December 6 of last year. I think the Senate should have 
acted last year. It did not. I think it is imperative that we act 
within the near future.
  I inquire of Senator Grassley, has he been given any indication as to 
when this might come to the Senate for full Senate action? Does he know 
what commitments have been made?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. We were told sometime this spring. Spring is fleeting. 
That is why I hope we can get a date definite that it will be brought 
up and it can be passed.
  It will be particularly fruitful and beneficial to the President to 
have Trade Promotion Authority now as he goes to the international 
conference at Monterey this week. It would be nice if he had it as he 
is going to visit Peru; as he is going to visit El Salvador. Wherever 
the President is going to go, this issue always comes up.
  As I talked to Bob Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative who does 
our negotiations, the fact that the President does not have this 
authority weakens our position at the international conferences we 
attend, particularly now as we are beginning negotiations in Geneva, on 
what is called the Doha Round--it was agreed to last November, a brand 
new round of negotiations that hopefully will be finalized for about 3 
years--for the President to be credible and his people to be credible 
at the negotiating table, we must have Trade Promotion Authority.
  Mr. LOTT. My impression is that after we complete the energy 
legislation, and presumably the campaign finance reform issue--I guess 
that could be even after the Easter recess--the next order of business 
would be the budget resolution. Then Senator Daschle indicated we would 
go to trade at that point. I am not sure exactly what that means I 
presume sometime in late April or May.
  But I do agree we need to act on this legislation. It is very 
unfortunate we did not move the Andean Trade Promotion Authority, which 
has also been reported by the House and been reported out by the 
Finance Committee but has not been cleared by the Senate. The President 
will be going to Peru this very week. The ambassadors and foreign 
ministers and Presidents of those countries, the Andean countries, had 
requested this legislation be passed, and indicated to me it had gone 
beyond being an issue of trade; it had gotten to be a very serious 
political problem in those countries. I am wondering about what exactly 
is the U.S. commitment to opportunity, trade options, and prosperity in 
those regions.

  Of the countries which Senator Grassley has listed, more and more 
countries are trading with these countries in Central and South 
America. We are really not in there the way we should be.
  Recently, I had occasion to be in Spain, and I was surprised to find 
how much involvement Spain has in Central and South America, including, 
I believe, Spain owning the second largest bank in Central America.
  That is just one example of what has happened there. These countries 
have an ever-growing number of free trade agreements. Yet the United 
States has only three trade agreements.
  Is that correct?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. We negotiated three trade agreements. Of these 
countries, 111 have negotiated 130 trade agreements.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am also very much worried. It appears that 
the way this will be brought to the floor, once again, is setting it up 
in such a

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way that the Senate may not be able to act. On bill after bill, we have 
seen that recently. That happened with the stimulus bill. It happened 
with agriculture. We are not sure what the outcome is going to be on 
the energy bill.
  When you bring a bill to the floor, and the substance of that bill is 
such that we have to write it on the floor of the Senate, that is a 
problem. But in the case of trade, I also see that we are being told it 
has to be coupled with trade adjustment assistance.
  While there is a bipartisan feeling that there needs to be some 
assistance available in dealing with dislocated workers, at least on 
the interim basis, it includes, for instance, health care provisions 
that are going to be extremely controversial.
  To say that bill has to come to the floor providing COBRA health 
insurance provisions for trade adjustment assistance in order to get 
trade promotion authority is to set ourselves up in such a way that it 
will be very hard--and maybe even impossible --to get this very 
important legislation through.
  Does Senator Grassley care to comment on that?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. It is a very divisive issue. As Senator Lott brought up 
about tax benefits for COBRA insurance, there was divisiveness during 
the debate on economic stimulus, and it kept economic stimulus from 
passing.
  It seems to me that a bill that was voted out of committee by 18 to 3 
should not be handled in any other spirit than the spirit of that vote 
within the Finance Committee, which is typical of the way the Senate 
ought to work, and also a follow-on of how our committee has always 
worked to produce good bills which have come out of the committee most 
of the time with bipartisan support.
  In so many other areas other than just this one, I compliment my 
Democrat counterpart, Senator Baucus, and his staff for trying to work 
through some of the disagreements that might come up on the floor of 
the Senate.
  I think there is a terrible pressure for more to be done, and that it 
is going to be divisive. I hope we can get past that. For instance, in 
the case of health insurance and incentives for the unemployed to have 
health insurance, that is a very worthy issue. But that ought to come 
up in the context of dealing with the issue, as the President has 
presented it, of tax credits for all of the uninsured so they will be 
able to buy health insurance. We should not take that issue up with 
the very narrow part of the unemployed because of the relationship to 
trade. That should come up as an issue for all of the uninsured, and we 
should deal with that as a separate issue.

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank Senator Grassley for his comments. I 
take this occasion to emphasize that particular point, and serve notice 
that this could be an area of major concern and a serious problem in 
producing a result on trade promotion authority. It would be a tragic 
example if we do not succeed in this area. Once again, that would mean 
the Senate has failed to do its work, especially after such good 
bipartisan work has been done in committee.
  I encourage Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus to continue in the 
spirit in which they reported this bill from committee to the full 
Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.

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