[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 50 (Monday, April 29, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3485-S3489]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       ANDEAN TRADE PREFERENCE ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, with respect to calling up the Andean 
trade pact for debate, someone could immediately question why the 
delay, trying to hold up on the actual calling of the bill? There will 
be plenty of time to submit amendments. I do not know of a more serious 
topic that will be discussed this year in the Congress, and yet 
discussion should be two ways: Those who are ready to propose and 
propound, and those who are ready to object to and explain why this is 
not in the economic interest of the United States. It is a one-way 
street, though, as it appears, in the Senate.
  The temptation is to have a live quorum so somebody can be talked to. 
This has been the typical treatment of trade in the United States now 
for the past several years. What really happens is those for the fast-
track agreement work on the members to vote their way. By one vote, the 
House passed it, with what my friend from Arizona, Senator McCain, 
would call pork--little favors here, little favors there. After the 
passage of NAFTA some 8 years ago in 1994, the New York Times ran a 
story of the 26 different favors done by President Clinton at that 
particular time to get NAFTA and fast track passed. I think it was 
Congressman Pickle, who got a cultural center down in Austin, TX; 
another Congressman got a round of golf; another Congressman a round of 
golf personally with the President of the United States; another 
Congressman got two B-17 contracts, and so on. The New York Times wrote 
of the 26 different votes that were changed.

  There was only one important vote to change this particular time in 
the House. When it comes to the Senate Finance Committee, it is an easy 
fix. Once it is fixed and ready to be presented in the Senate, they 
withhold the presentation of the particular measure until they have 60 
votes to make sure they can get cloture as they cut off debate, limit 
the amendments, and limit the time for each of the individual Senators. 
And since the Senators know the debate is limited and the vote is 
fixed, no one listens.
  I have to express my gratitude to the distinguished Senator from 
Minnesota for coming because I do not know of a more important subject 
than this. While cloture is obtained later at 6 p.m. today, we will 
again try to withhold the actual finalizing of the debate with another 
cloture vote after we present some amendments.
  The bottom line is, if one had to answer their opposition it would be 
difficult to do. They are putting out the Andean trade bill, combining 
it with the come-ons not only of fast track but trade adjustment 
assistance, and they put those amendments on and then pass it 
altogether. After they have bundled together various wants, namely 
trade adjustment assistance and the fast track which the White House 
wants; and, of course, the Andean trade bill which others interested in 
this particular hemisphere want, what happens then is they package 
together and get a bad deal for America.
  I say that advisedly for the simple reason, we are exporting jobs 
faster than we can create them. What happens is that in trying to 
create them, we are really facing organized society politically, 
economically, financially, and otherwise, in the United States against 
us. It is a very interesting thing.
  I think about my friend Robert Kennedy. I have had his desk for years 
in the Senate. Robert Kennedy came to political notoriety in a book 
called ``The Enemy Within.'' He was writing about James Hoffa and 
organized labor.
  Today I could write a book on the enemy within. Instead of labor, it 
is management. How does that occur? It occurs because 30 percent of 
production costs, 30 percent of volume, is in labor. In manufacturing, 
particularly, 20 percent of manufacturing costs can be saved by moving 
production or manufacturing offshore, to a low-wage country such as 
Mexico. If you have $500 million in sales at a manufacturing facility, 
you can make $100 million pretax profit by moving offshore. Just keep 
your executive office and your sales force in-country and move your 
production offshore and you have made yourself $100 million. Or you can 
continue to work your own people and go bankrupt.
  That is the job policy of the U.S. Government today. That is the job 
policy of the Senate. Who is supporting this? The Business Roundtable, 
the Conference Board, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National 
Association of Manufacturers, and the National Federation of 
Independent Business.
  My friend, Tom Donohue, at the Chamber of Commerce, has it 
orchestrated where the five move in. I saw it with Y2K. Chicken Little, 
the sky was going to fall if we did not hurry and pass that particular 
provision to protect Silicon Valley. Of course, the Republicans and 
Democrats were fighting hard in the Silicon Valley to get their 
financial contributions. The fight was not to protect the computers. It 
was to protect the financial wherewithal of campaigns. They could care 
less about Main Street America. They are for offshore production, 
thereby the offshore creation of jobs outside of America.
  There is more. I will never forget the debates we had with respect to 
textile bills in my time. We passed five textile bills through the 
Senate. One did not get past the House; the other four that did were 
all vetoed after the President, of course, promised to sign them. The 
President promised to sign them in my State, in the city of Greenville, 
the heart of textile industry. They forget about that.
  I bought a shirt made in China and one made in New Jersey. I bought a 
catcher's mitt. One made in Korea and one made in Grand Rapids, MI. I 
showed that the markup on the imported article was much greater.
  So the retailers are getting behind the movement of big business. Who 
follows behind? The newspapers. The retailers are seeing the newspapers 
hand out free trade, free trade, fast track, fast track. They are like 
parrots. The majority of the newspapers are for retail advertising. So 
they, in turn, join in. You ought to see how the special trade 
representatives are representing the Government in these giveaway 
programs. They have literally drained the jobs from the United States 
of America.
  I was reading a book that has become required reading in the 
Washington area, ``Theodore Rex,'' by Mr. Edmund Morris. He is 
describing the United States of America at the turn of the century, 100 
years ago: The United States could consume only a fraction of what it 
produced.

       More than half the world's cotton, corn, copper, and oil 
     flowed from the American cornucopia, and at least one third 
     of all steel, iron, silver, and gold. Current advertisements 
     in British magazines gave the impression that the typical 
     Englishman woke to the ring of an Ingersoll alarm, shaved 
     with a Gillette razor, combed his hair with Vaseline tonic, 
     buttoned his Arrow shirt, hurried downstairs for Quaker Oats, 
     California Figs, and Maxwell House Coffee, commuted in a 
     Westinghouse tram (body by Fisher), rose to his office in an 
     Otis elevator, and worked all day with his Waterman pen under 
     the efficient glare of Edison lightbulbs. ``It only 
     remains,'' one Fleet Street wag suggested, ``for us to take 
     American coal to New Castle.''

  Behind the joke lay real concern: The United States was already 
supplying

[[Page S3486]]

beer to Germany, pottery to Bohemia, and oranges to Valencia.
  Now, instead of that Ingersoll alarm, we get that from Malaysia, 
Korea, or of course an expensive one from Switzerland. With respect to 
the Gillette razor, it comes from either Mexico or China. With respect 
to the Arrow shirt, we have bought those shirts out of China. And 
instead of the coffee, it is Brazilian or Colombian coffee. When they 
have mentioned that Westinghouse tram, I took the Acela, the fast 
Amtrak train the other day to New York, and found out it was made in 
Canada. When I got to Penn Station, I was sniffed by the dog from 
Czechoslovakia. The police dogs have been so over bred in the United 
States they have lost their smell propensities. So the dogs, now, for 
security, are imported from Czechoslovakia.
  Now we have lost the watches, the cameras, the electronics. We are 
about to lose all the steel business and everything else. I could go 
down the list. We don't produce anything much to export, export, export 
as the fast track, fast track, fast track crowd will have us.
  The fact is, more than half of what we consume today is imported. The 
majority of our consumption is imported articles, including furniture. 
I had to rebuild a house, and to my surprise I had to get furniture 
from the Philippines and Vietnam.
  Yes, buy America, buy America. Well, I was a champion, still am, I 
hope, of trying to buy America, but I used to represent a bunch of 
automobile dealers. I think it was 20 some years ago, when I bought an 
American car, a Pontiac. I drove in front of my neighbor's place. He 
said:

       How much did you pay for that car, Fritz?

  I said:

       I don't know, let me look at the sticker price.

  As I looked at the sticker price--this was over 20 years ago it 
said--``Montreal, Canada.'' I had a foreign car. Why? Because 
automobile production had already moved across the border to save $800 
per health contract on each of its employees.
  But the so-called high-tech industry was supposed to save us. That 
was the motor of growth. We tried to point out in one of those debates 
during the 1990s, here, in the last 10 years, when we had this 
wonderful growth, that it wasn't the motor of growth at all because 42 
percent of Silicon Valley was on part-time, and one-third of the 
Microsoft employees had to sue Microsoft in order to get benefits. That 
was Senator Abraham, from Michigan, who was running around all over the 
Chamber for immigration, immigration, immigration.
  Why? Because you can get the Indian trade, Indian production, those 
experts coming over from India and China at $30,000 a year, maybe 
$35,000 a year; they are just as good as any you could ever find in the 
United States of America. So they were cutting their costs. That is 
why. There was not any shortage, any need to retrain or everything else 
of that kind.
  But let's complete the thought. We are in desperate circumstances. If 
I have to make one particular point, it is this: Your security as a 
nation rests, as it were, upon a three-legged stool. The first leg is 
the values we have as a nation--our stand for individual rights, 
democracy, freedom--is known and respected around the world. The second 
leg, the military, is unquestioned. But the economic leg has been 
fractured, and intentionally so.
  You see, after World War II we had the only industrial production. 
Trying to rebuild Europe and bring the Pacific rim to capitalism versus 
communism in that cold war, we sent over the Marshall Plan. We sent 
over the expertise, we sent over the technology and the equipment--and 
we won. No one regrets it. Everyone is proud of it. We defeated them--
capitalism defeated communism in the cold war.
  I testified back in the 1950s before the old Tariff Commission when 
Tom Dewey, representing the Japanese, ran me around the hearing room 
saying: Why don't you let these Third World countries make the shoes 
and the clothing and we will make the airplanes and the computers?
  Our problem is they make the shoes, the clothing, the airplanes, the 
computers, and everything else. Our manufacturers, our industrial 
giants, learned of this moving their manufacturing offshore to a lower 
wage country. As you and I sit here in the Senate, talking about the 
environment and our standard of living and safety and otherwise, before 
you can open up Nelson Manufacturing, you have to have a minimum wage, 
clean air, clean water, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, plant 
closing notice, parental leave, safe working place, safe machinery--I 
could go on and on.
  You can go down for 90 cents an hour to Mexico and have none of those 
requirements. You are guaranteed a profit. If your competition goes, 
you have to go or go bankrupt.
  So what is the problem? The problem is that they have all joined 
together, as I have described, to move the jobs out of the country, 
whereas you and I, as public servants, have the job of trying to create 
jobs.
  I can see the President now, after 9-11, saying: What can we do with 
this crisis we are in? Take a trip, go to Disney World with your 
family, live normally--whatever.
  I will tell you what we can do: Create a job. Give your neighbor a 
job. That is why I am on the floor of the Senate, trying to hold up 
this fast track so we can listen and learn just exactly what is in it.
  Article I, section 8, of the Constitution says that the Congress--not 
the President, not the Supreme Court, but the Congress of the United 
States--shall regulate trade or foreign commerce. We are abdicating our 
responsibility. It is a fix. The agreement is made downtown on K Street 
and with the White House and their minions. That is what happens. The 
interests that come to their Representatives in the House of 
Representatives and the Senate are wasting their time. The Senators and 
the House Members have nothing to do with it. It is a done deal at the 
time it is proposed, when they make these lousy agreements that 
continue to drain the United States of its economic strength.
  Other than draining us of our economic strength in that fashion, with 
a fixed vote, we ought to be on the floor of the Senate debating, if 
you please, the significance.
  Henry Ford, at the time he put on mass production, said: I want to 
make sure my employees make enough money to buy the article they are 
producing--so they could buy that car they were making. As a result, he 
started the benefits which resulted in the middle class. The labor 
movement over 100 years now has had difficulty developing and thereby 
holding on to these particular improvements to our standard of living, 
to health care, to different other benefits of that kind that we have 
now in the production contract that has created the middle class, or 
the strength of democracy itself.
  What I am fearful of is we are going the way of England. At the end 
of World War II, they told the press: Don't worry, instead of a nation 
of brawn, we will be a nation of brains. Instead of producing products, 
we will provide services. Instead of creating wealth, we will handle it 
and be a financial center.
  England has generally gone to hell in an economic handbasket. They 
have the haves and the have-nots. The middle class disappears, and 
downtown London is an amusement park.
  That is exactly the road we are on. We have to get off that highway. 
We have to be competitive. We have to understand the word ``trade'' 
means just that--something for something, not aid, and not developing 
it so that we have, as was said on the floor, something that is 
immoral.
  I heard my distinguished colleague from Florida say it was immoral 
for us to go along with these countries, and to even backtrack or hold 
the line with respect to Andean trade--that we owe them a duty to 
develop it. We all want to develop everything. But you can go forward 
and develop and develop until you become underdeveloped, which is our 
predicament today. Debt overseas stirs up trouble at home.
  There is an article in Business Week that I ask unanimous consent to 
have printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S3487]]

                   [From Business Week, May 6, 2002]

                 Debt Overseas Stirs Up Trouble at Home

               (By James C. Cooper and Kathleen Madigan]

       The world economies are finally mounting a recovery from 
     last year's slump. Even the latest word on Japan is a bit 
     more upbeat. The reason, of course, is the upturn in the U.S. 
     economy. The U.S. led the world into a downturn that hit 
     different regions with varying impact, and it will be the 
     locomotive for the recovery.
       But therein lies a problem. U.S. financial obligations to 
     the rest of the world are once again on the rise as America 
     grows ever more dependent on foreign capital to finance its 
     growth. Back in March, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan 
     Greenspan noted that over the past six years, about 40% of 
     the increase in the U.S. capital stock was financed by 
     foreign investment, a pattern that will require an ever-
     larger flow of interest payments going out to foreigners. 
     ``Countries that have gone down this path invariably have run 
     into trouble,'' said Greenspan, ``and so would we.''
       Greenspan was highlighting the fact that the gap between 
     what an economy consumes and what it produces cannot continue 
     to widen indefinitely. At some point, foreigners come to the 
     belief that either the country's overconsumption requires a 
     policy adjustment, or that investment opportunities elsewhere 
     begin to look more attractive.
       The most important result of this shift is the softening of 
     the debtor nation's currency. For the U.S., a weaker dollar 
     won't be a problem if the adjustment occurs slowly and 
     orderly. However, currency markets rarely move that way. And 
     any sharp change in the dollar's value could wreak havoc in 
     the financial markets as well as portend a higher level of 
     inflation as the price of imports begins to rise. 
     Consequently, the U.S.'s mounting external debt is clearly 
     the most crucial structural problem facing the economy. And 
     unlike other recent economic troubles, there may be no easy 
     way out.
       Typically, a recession helps narrow the trade deficit. But 
     last year's slump was anything but typical, and the U.S. 
     external imbalance did not improve much. Now, renewed growth 
     in U.S. demand, coupled with the potent buying power of the 
     U.S. dollar, is drawing in imports by the boatload (chart), 
     which once again means the U.S. trade deficit is widening 
     sharply. The January and February increase in imported goods 
     was the largest two-month rise in two decades.
       The trade gap is the main component of the current-account 
     deficit, which is the broadest measure of U.S. financial 
     obligations to other countries. After last year's respite, 
     the external debt is starting to mount up anew. Last year's 
     current-account gap hit 4.1% of gross domestic product, and 
     it could reach 5% by the end of 2002. That would be the 
     largest rate in the industrialized world and larger than in 
     many emerging-market nations.
       Finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized 
     countries informally voiced concern about the U.S. current-
     account problem in Washington on Apr. 20 during the spring 
     meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World 
     Bank. Europe, in particular, expressed worries that the 
     imbalance could eventually put the dollar, financial markets, 
     and U.S. and world growth at risk.
       One solution would be a gradual weakening in the dollar. 
     But stemming the dollar's rise has proved difficult. Even 
     during the official recession months of 2001, the broad 
     trade-weighted value of the dollar continued to rise (chart). 
     And while last year's economic slump was much worse in the 
     U.S. than in Europe, the dollar remains slightly stronger vs. 
     the euro, compared with this time last year.

                           *   *   *   *   *

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we have a $400 billion deficit in the 
balance of trade. We have a horrendous budget deficit of $168 billion. 
We are in the red. Even after all the money came in on April 15, we are 
still in the red by $168 billion. We are going to be around $300 
billion to $350 billion in the red by the end of September. That is our 
fiscal deficit.
  We are not paying the bills. We are cutting taxes. We are running 
around saying we ought to make permanent the temporary tax cuts, which 
of course cost us another $4 trillion, and we are wondering why we have 
a deficit. In a similar fashion, we ought to be aware that we are in 
competition when we talk about trade.
  Let me refer to just one little bit of history because you can't 
fault our globalization and trading partners. I have been in the game. 
In 1960, as South Carolina's governor, I took a trade mission to Latin 
America and to Europe. Today, we have 117 German plants in South 
Carolina. I will never forget calling on Michelin in downtown Paris in 
June of 1960 to come to America. Now, they have about 11,000 employees 
and 4 big facilities. I called upon Bowater in London. Now the Bowater 
headquarters are in Greenville, SC. We believe in trade, and we believe 
in development. I have to pay particular attention at this time to jobs 
in the United States.
  That is what we did in the earliest days. We had just won our freedom 
when our friends in the mother country said: We will trade with the 
fledgling little United States of America with what it produces best, 
and England would trade with us what England produced best. Free trade, 
free trade, the doctrine of comparison advantage, as written by David 
Ricardo.
  Alexander Hamilton wrote a little booklet, A Report on Manufactures. 
It was Hamilton and Madison who wrote our Federalist Papers. Hamilton 
is one of the most disregarded former Treasury Secretaries with a 
magnificent history of having built this industrial giant, the United 
States of America.
  He countered to the Brits in that particular little booklet--I will 
not read it, but I will get a copy and put it in the Record during the 
debate--he told the Brits: Bug off. He said: We are not going to remain 
your colony shipping to you our coal, our timber, our rice, our cotton, 
our indigo, our iron ore, and import from England the manufactured 
products. We will become a nation state by developing our own 
manufacturing capacity.
  As a result, on July 4, 1789, the second bill Congress passed was a 
protectionist measure, a tariff bill on various articles. We began the 
United States with protectionism.
  When the Transcontinental Railroad was being built, they said: We can 
get the steel from England to build the railroad. President Lincoln 
said: No, not at all. We are going to build up our own steel mills. 
When we get through, we will not only have the Transcontinental 
Railroad but we will have the steel capacity.
  Lincoln provided protectionism for steel; Roosevelt for agriculture; 
and Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, provided protectionism for oil with 
import quotas on oil. We built this industrial giant, the United States 
of America, with protectionism.
  Don't go around here with these silly childish pollsters saying: Yes, 
you have to be for free trade, free trade. They do not know anything 
about it. They know nothing about the economy. They know nothing about 
the creation of jobs. They have never been in the business of trying to 
create jobs and bringing industrial expansion to your State and to this 
country. They just do not know. They automatically ask to be given free 
trade, free trade. The truth of the matter is that we have to put in a 
competitive trade policy.

  Since I mentioned deficits, I would be glad if I could get a 
cosponsor or another vote in this body to put on a value-added tax. 
These are serious times. During every moment of the history of the 
United States of America in war, we paid for the war. We put on special 
tax and revenue provisions to pay for the war.
  Now we have a President who comes and says: We are at war. We are 
going to have to run deficits. And, incidentally, the war will never 
end.
  What kind of leadership is that? I would put on a value-added tax and 
say: Pay for that war. Get the deficits down. If anybody within the 
sound of my voice wants to help cosponsor it, let me know. I have put 
it in before at least two-times. I have thought it through thoroughly. 
One of the biggest disadvantages we have is we are the only 
industrialized nation that does not have that tax.
  How does that work to our disadvantage?
  If I manufacture this desk in the United States of America, in 
Washington, I have to pay all the different taxes. If I am over in 
Virginia, or in Maryland, I pay the State taxes, the corporate taxes, 
the personal income taxes, and I ship it to Europe and to downtown 
Paris. They will put on a 17-percent value-added tax.
  In contrast, if I manufacture that desk in Europe, in Paris, they 
will put on a 17-percent value-added tax, but they rebate it when it 
leaves the border and is exported to Washington, DC. It is a given. The 
value-added taxes are rebated at the border. That is a big advantage 
which all of the trading partners have with us.
  If we are going to get serious about fast track and Andean trade, I 
am not particularly interested in a copout.
  Let's remove that 17-percent disadvantage immediately and pay for the 
government we are giving the people of the United States of America 
here this year.

[[Page S3488]]

  Yes, by the end of September we are going to spend some $300 billion 
more than we take in. We can pay for it. We always have, but not under 
the leadership here. Everything is: Let's have more loss of the 
revenues. Let's run up the debt, the current accounts deficit and debt, 
the trade deficit, and the fiscal deficit of the United States of 
America. It is a tragic thing. But we could easily get that done.
  Now, those competing nations say: Look, don't give me this 
environment stuff. Don't give me this label stuff. There is no chance 
of putting on the label and environmental protections, say the 
Mexicans, as we have here in the United States. That is an advantage. 
As long as those people suffer, that is a disadvantage as we see it, 
but that is an advantage to them, and they are going to continue so 
they can build up themselves economically and strong just as the United 
States of America did in its earliest days.
  We did not even pass the income tax until 1913. We financed our 
entire Government with tariffs and protectionism. But we run around now 
in the 21st century: free trade, free trade, that we can't have any 
increase in taxes or pay the bill.
  It's a very peculiar thing. If I run for Governor of South Carolina, 
I have to go all over the State and promise that I will pay the bill. 
If I run for the U.S. Senate in the same State, I run all over the same 
State promising I will not pay the bill. It is the same people, but 
that is the way the pollsters have conditioned it, and that is the way 
the media has covered that particular predicament. They have no idea. 
Yes, David Broder, the pre-eminent columnist, pointed out over the 
weekend how all the Governors and all the mayors all over the country 
are having to cut educational budgets, or else lose their credit 
ratings. If they lose their credit ratings, then they get no 
development, and then they even again lose more revenues or income from 
their different taxes. So they are having to cut back.
  But we up here in Washington are all running for reelection, saying: 
We will pay. Let's make the tax cut permanent. Let's lose another $4 
trillion. We don't care. By the way, there is a war on. We are going to 
have deficits. So sui pig. Everybody come. Anybody who wants anything, 
we have the money. We will just print it. And with respect to the 
economy, we can forget about jobs.
  Let me, now that I have a good friend in the Senate Chamber, talk 
about the Washington solution because I have some other issues to talk 
about. But we have tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
  Let's do it Washington's way. Washington says: Now you have to get 
with globalization and high tech and retrain and retrain. That was Mao 
Tse-tung, if I remember correctly. We are getting to be like China with 
Mao. And we are going to reeducate.
  Well, let's say, down in Andrews, SC, where 40 years ago an Oneida 
plant came to the State of South Carolina to make T-shirts, now has to 
close. At the time of their closing, what they had was 487 employees. 
And the average age of the employees was 47 years of age. And then it 
is tomorrow morning and we have done it Washington's way. They are 
reeducated, they are retrained, they are now high tech, and we have 487 
expert computer operators.
  I ask, are you going to hire the 47-year-old computer operator or a 
21-year-old computer operator? Are you going to take on the retirement 
costs for that 47-year-old, and take on the health costs for that 47-
year-old, or are you going to cancel that on the books and take on the 
21-year-old? The answer is obvious. Those people are stuck down there.

  Down in Spartanburg, where we have a new BMW plant, unemployment was 
3.2-percent last year. It is now at 6.1-percent. And in the surrounding 
counties, it is 11-percent, 12-percent, even 14-percent.
  With NAFTA, we were going to create jobs, solve the immigration 
problem, and do away with the drug problem. It was going to be the 
finest thing since sliced bread. But instead of getting 200,000 jobs, 
we have lost 1.3 million manufacturing jobs. That is from the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics.
  The drug problem has gotten worse, killing so many people. The 
immigration problem has gotten worse, to such a point that now we are 
passing legislation and breaking up the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service. I think the House is on track. We have to do something about 
immigration laws, and everything else of that kind.
  In little South Carolina, since NAFTA we have lost 53,900 textile 
jobs alone. We did not create jobs. And you put my State into poverty 
and into welfare. And I take no comfort in the idea that now we are 
going to pass trade adjustment assistance like it is just a little 
temporary thing. The United States of America is going out of business. 
We are on the road, as England, of the haves and the have nots. And we 
are not going to be creating anything in manufacturing or producing 
anything to export.
  So that is the trouble for the lethargic economy. It is not consumer 
confidence. It is not just the manufacturing because there is no 
manufacturing to boil up. You watch it. This recession downtime is 
going to last the rest of this year, and into next year, until we get a 
hold of ourselves and start rebuilding America.
  Yes. When people ask what we should do as a result of 9-11, instead 
of President Bush saying, we should take a trip with our kids, getting 
our families to go to Disney World, let's give our neighbor a job.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I yield to my colleague from North Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator state whether he is speaking 
in support or in opposition to the cloture motion?
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator from 
Ohio yield for a question.
  Mr. DeWINE. I yield for a question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator speaking in support or in 
opposition to the cloture motion?
  Mr. DeWINE. The Senator is speaking in favor of the motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair thanks the Senator.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized following Senator DeWine's presentation for a period of 25 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask that my time be taken off the time 
of those in favor of the motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time will be subtracted.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, as the trade debate in the Senate gets 
underway, I rise to talk about some of the important issues involved in 
this debate and the vital role trade plays in our Nation's foreign 
policy and, really, in the health of our overall economy.
  The trade legislation before us represents a tremendous opportunity, 
an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate its leadership in 
hemispheric and world trade. The sad fact is that over the last decade, 
the United States has not led in this area. Of the more than 130 
bilateral and free trade agreements worldwide, the United States is 
party to just three. The European Union, on the other hand, has free 
trade agreements with 27 countries. Mexico, the United States and my 
home State of Ohio's second leading trade partner, has negotiated 25 
agreements in the past 8 years--25 compared to our 3. Quite simply, we 
have underutilized trade as a tool in foreign policy; I believe to the 
detriment of our Nation and our neighbors within the Western 
Hemisphere.
  It is in our national interest to be surrounded by stable 
democracies. When we trade with our Latin American neighbors, we are 
helping them economically, which in turn helps maintain internal 
stability, peace, and democratic reform.
  It is also beneficial to the United States to trade within our 
hemisphere because if we don't, other nations and their businesses will 
take our markets. No country is waiting for us to act

[[Page S3489]]

first. In the end, the longer we wait to pursue more free trade 
opportunities in our hemisphere and around the globe, the more we stand 
to lose.
  Take, for example, my home State of Ohio. The future of our economy 
is linked in part at least to our ability to send our products 
overseas. When given the chance, Ohio's business men and women and 
Ohio's farmers can and do compete effectively on the world stage. Just 
listen to these figures: Ohio exported more than $28 billion worth of 
manufactured goods. In fact, one in every five manufacturing jobs in 
the State is tied to exports. In most years, one-third to one-half of 
Ohio's major cash crops in the agricultural field--corn, wheat, 
soybeans--is found in markets and meals outside our own country.

  Look beyond Ohio to our entire hemisphere. With a combined gross 
domestic product of more than $10 trillion, which encompasses 800 
million people, trade with our hemispheric neighbors represents vast 
opportunities.
  These are opportunities we simply must not ignore. Right now, Europe, 
Asia, and Canada are all securing their economic fortunes throughout 
Latin America by trading with the Mercosur, a powerful trading block 
consisting of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. As of now, the 
Mercosur countries are the EU's largest trading partners. Two-way trade 
between the EU and the Mercosur totaled $43 billion in the year 2000. 
That is compared to $38 billion from the United States in the Mercosur. 
The EU currently imports five times more from the Mercosur than the 
United States does. Between 1990 and 1998, the total value of trade 
flows between the Mercosur and the EU increased almost 125 percent.
  It is becoming increasingly obvious that the EU is not going to sit 
idle and let the United States gain much of a new market share in this 
region. In fact, just last Friday, in Brussels, the EU was working to 
finalize a free trade agreement with Chile. Earlier this month, the EU 
set out its strategy for negotiating new economic partnerships with 
Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific countries. And as we speak, the EU's 
trade commissioner is in Mexico addressing the EU's relationship with 
Mexico, almost 2 years after the free trade agreement they entered into 
went into effect.
  This is the hemisphere in which we live. Those should be our markets. 
To lose them through neglect would be a truly shameful outcome for our 
country.
  The bill before us this afternoon, the Andean Trade Preference Act, 
would renew but also enhance our commitment to helping the Andean 
region: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. It would help them, but 
it also would help us. It would help them to develop economic 
alternatives, for example, to drug crop production. The Andean 
Preference Act expired on December 4, 2001. The law provides 
preferential, mostly duty-free treatment on selected U.S. imports from 
the region.
  The countries of the Andean region certainly need our help, and we 
need their help. For the past 10 years, the Andean Trade Preference Act 
has helped the United States and these four countries develop 
legitimate, strong, and expanding commercial ties. Between 1991 and 
1999, total two-way trade nearly doubled between our countries.
  During this same time period, U.S. exports grew 65 percent, and U.S. 
imports from these countries increased by 98 percent.
  In 1999, a severe economic recession in the region did, in fact, curb 
U.S. exports, but U.S. imports continued to grow by 17 percent. U.S. 
imports to Colombia during this same time increased 155 percent since 
ATPA was enacted. The Colombian flower industry is a prime example of 
how U.S. trade policy can support important economic benefits both in 
Colombia and here at home and at the same time provide jobs and income 
to people so they do not feel the necessity to become involved in the 
drug trade.
  In 1965, Colombia exported just $20,000 worth of flowers to the 
United States. Today, these exports total nearly $600 million. The 
flower industry generates 75,000 direct jobs in Colombia, jobs that 
offer year-round stability and health and retirement benefits, not to 
mention a legitimate economic alternative to elicit drug production.
  The Colombian industry also directly generates 7,000 U.S. jobs. 
Indirectly, even more jobs are created, with U.S. supermarkets 
employing more than 24,000 people in their flower departments, and U.S. 
flower shops employing nearly 125,000 people.
  We also have substantially increased our exports to the Andean 
region. Under ATPA, our exports have gone up by 84 percent, to $6.6 
billion in the year 2000.
  Despite these gains, ATPA must be expanded. NAFTA and the Caribbean 
Basin Initiative have changed the playing field and have created a 
competitive disadvantage for Andean countries. For example, most 
Caribbean apparel enters the United States duty free, while Andean 
apparel enters with a 14-percent duty. We also must remember that ATPA 
is about more than just trade. This is an issue of national security.
  The stability of the Western Hemisphere is at stake. Open markets are 
absolutely vital for developing nations to overcome poverty and create 
opportunity. Fragile economies place peace and democracy at risk.
  With aid, with trade, and with democracy, we can foster peace among 
our neighbors. It is in our national interest to pursue an aggressive 
trade agenda in the Western Hemisphere, to combat growing threats and 
promote prosperity. Free markets and open trade are the best weapons 
against poverty, against disease, against tyranny and, yes, against the 
drug dealers.
  For example, if Africa, Asia, and Latin America were each to increase 
their share of world exports by just 1 percent, it would lift 128 
million people out of poverty, with all the consequences that would 
have. Tariff barriers on products from the Third World are more than 
four times higher than those encountered by richer nations. Such 
barriers cost poor countries approximately $100 billion a year. That is 
twice as much as these nations receive in foreign aid. Tariff barriers 
on products from the Third World are more than four times higher than 
those encountered by richer nations.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of renewing 
and expanding the Andean Trade Preference Expansion Act. It is the 
right thing to do for our neighbors and for our businesses at home. It 
is the right thing for our country.

                          ____________________