[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 52 (Wednesday, May 1, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3598-S3601]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 TRADE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are about to have the chairman of the 
Finance Committee and the ranking member of the Finance Committee offer 
a managers' package to the Andean trade bill that will be the pending 
business when we complete morning business.
  No doubt some who watch the proceedings will be confused by what is 
happening because we have an Andean trade bill that will apparently be 
amended by something called trade adjustment assistance and, more 
importantly, will be amended by something called trade promotion 
authority. Trade Promotion Authority is a euphemism for fast-track 
trade authority. One would expect fast-track trade authority would be 
brought to the floor by itself. It is a very big policy issue. Yet it 
is coming in the form of a managers' package. One amendment is a part 
of the managers' package. I regret that, but that is how we have to 
deal with it.
  I will speak about trade generally and explain why I do not support 
trade promotion authority or so-called fast track. I did not support 
giving fast-track trade authority to President Clinton, and he didn't 
get it. And I don't support giving fast-track trade authority to this 
President, and he should not have it.
  Let me describe for a moment why I feel that way. This is what the 
Constitution says about international trade. Article I, section 8, 
says: The Congress shall have the power . . . To regulate commerce with 
foreign nations.
  Not the President, not the trade ambassador, not some trade 
negotiator, but the U.S. Congress.
  Fast track does away with that. Under fast track, Congress handcuffs 
its hands behind its back and says to a President, go negotiate a trade 
agreement somewhere and bring it back to the Congress, and we guarantee 
none of us will be able to offer an amendment, no matter how flawed the 
deal might be. Fast track means expedited procedures by which a trade 
treaty comes through the Congress guaranteeing no one has the ability 
to offer an amendment.
  It is undemocratic. It does not make sense. Why would Congress, being 
told by the U.S. Constitution what their objection and their 
responsibilities are, decide to cede those responsibilities to the 
President? It does not make sense to me.
  There is an old saying, there is no education in the second kick of a 
mule. Having been through this a couple of times and been burned badly, 
Congress ought to understand when a bad trade agreement is negotiated 
and brought back. It is very hard for the Congress to turn down a 
negotiated trade agreement. What happens is the Congress

[[Page S3599]]

embraces the agreement in total and rants about the specific provisions 
in the agreement that injure specific industries in the country because 
they are unfair, but no one can do anything about it.
  We had a speech by Trade Representative Zoellick about 5 or 6 months 
ago. He was giving a speech in Chicago. Speaking to a business group in 
Chicago, Zoellick described lawmakers and lobbyists who oppose trade 
promotion authority, fast track, a bill sponsored by House Ways and 
Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, and said they are ``xenophobes 
and isolationists.'' That is a thoughtless way to debate this issue--
``xenophobes and isolationists.''

  A colleague of mine yesterday, in discussing this, said something 
with which I strongly agree. This country ought not ever hang its head 
with respect to the issue of trade. This country can, should, and will 
be proud of its record in trade. We have led the world in opening 
markets, in deciding we want to lead the world in expanded trade, in 
freer trade and in fair trade. That has always been what this country 
has done. No one ought to point to this country with respect to trade 
issues. We have open markets, we have free trade, we have always been 
willing to compete almost anywhere, any time, under any set of 
circumstances. We have nothing at all to be ashamed of. We have a great 
deal to be proud of with respect to international trade.
  We are now moving into a different area. Globalization is here. We 
are not going to turn back the clock. Globalization is part of our 
lives. The question isn't whether to embrace it; the question is: What 
are the rules for globalization? What are the rules for the new global 
economy? Are there rules of fair play for admission to the American 
marketplace?
  We have had men and women die on the streets in this country who were 
walking the streets and demonstrating for the right to form labor 
unions early in the last century, demanding the right of workers to 
form labor unions. This country now has free labor unions. We had 
people marching in the street to demand safe workplaces. Now we have 
rules and laws that require workplaces be safe for workers. We had 
people marching in the streets to demand child labor laws, to take the 
10- and 12-year-old kids out of the coal mines and the factories. Now 
we have laws in this country with respect to child labor. We had people 
marching in the streets in America trying to prohibit those who were 
producing chemicals from and dumping them into our water and our air 
and polluting our environment. Now we have clean air and clean water 
laws, and we have prohibitions against those who pollute our 
environment. These fights have been over the conditions of production.
  So, in a global economy, what is the admission to the American 
marketplace, where we have already had the debate and made the 
decisions about those issues, the issues of a fair wage, a safe 
workplace, the right to organize, the prohibition against polluting? 
What is the admission to our marketplace? I ask the question, Is it 
fair trade for someone overseas in some foreign land who hires 12-year-
old kids, pays them 12 cents an hour, and puts them in a factory 12 
hours a day, to make a product they ship to Pittsburgh, Fargo, or Los 
Angeles? Is that fair trade for the men and women of the American 
workforce to compete against? Twenty-cent-an-hour labor by 12-year-old 
kids? Twelve-cent-an-hour labor by 10-year-old kids? Is it fair to 
compete against a plant overseas that can dump its chemicals in the 
water, its pollutants in the air, hire underage children, have unsafe 
workplaces, and prohibit their workers the right to organize? Is that 
fair competition for American workers?
  Will those who want to produce in our world simply pole-vault over 
all of those difficult issues we have already addressed in our 
country--a safe workplace, child labor, a fair income, the right to 
organize, a prohibition against polluting the air and water? Can they 
just pole-vault over all of that and go to a country where they do not 
have to abide by any of that. They can hire kids, dump chemicals in the 
water and the air, fail to pay a living wage, and do nothing to have a 
safe workplace. They can produce whatever product they want, and ship 
it to the American marketplace.

  That is not fair trade. It is not fair to the American worker. It is 
not fair competition. It is not fair to American businesses trying to 
compete in those circumstances.
  Fast-track authority will be voted on here in the next week or so, 2 
weeks perhaps. We are told it is sweetened and made less bitter by 
something called trade adjustment assistance. That means help for 
people who have lost their jobs. It's ironic, isn't it, that we are 
told these new trade agreements they want to negotiate will be good for 
our country, but they are already making plans for all the people that 
will lose their jobs because of these new trade agreements?
  I guarantee that there is not one Member of the Senate who will lose 
his or her job because of a trade negotiation overseas. Our negotiators 
will rush overseas, if we give this authority. They will close the room 
and in secret negotiate a trade deal, and I guarantee there not one 
Member of the Senate will have his job directly threatened by that 
trade agreement. It is just the folks who work in the factories, the 
plants, on the factory floors who are producing products that cannot 
compete with unfair competition.
  I am not someone who believes we ought to put up a wall or we ought 
to promote less trade. I believe we ought to have essentially free 
markets and expanded trade. But I demand fair trade. I just demand fair 
trade. If we do not have fair trade, then this country ought to have 
the backbone, the muscle, and the strength to say to other countries: 
You must open your markets to this country's products and the products 
you send to this country must be produced under conditions that are 
fair.
  Whenever the subject of trade comes up, a lot of people are quick to 
classify the different views into two camps: the larger, expansive view 
of people who are smart and get it and see over the horizon and 
understand the global economy; that is, the people who support fast 
track; and the others are xenophobes, who are stooges, who don't 
understand any of this, have blinders on and cannot see over the 
horizon. They oppose fast track.
  Those who write the editorials, those who are lobbying on behalf of 
fast track, those who make comments like Mr. Zoellick, they create 
these thoughtless divisions of those who get it and those who don't; 
those who are smart and those who are not. Of course that is not the 
issue at all. Let me describe what the issue is.
  I talked about the issues we fought about in this country for years. 
There are 2.9 million children in Brazil under the age of 15 who are 
working, working in manufacturing plants and other circumstances that 
will produce products that will come to our marketplace. Is it fair 
trade to ask someone from Pittsburgh, trying to raise a family, being 
paid a decent wage, working in a factory that requires a safe 
workplace--is it fair trade to ask that person to compete against a 12-
year-old? The legal minimum age for workers in Peru is 12. That is the 
legal working age.
  So which of our workers and in which of our States do we want to have 
to compete against 12-year-olds? Is it fair to have the product of 12-
year-olds sit on America's store shelves so the consumers can get a 
good deal, buying cheap products, because 12-year-olds in some foreign 
land produced it?

  And shouldn't foreign markets be open to our products, which are 
produced under decent working conditions. Every time I come to the 
floor, I cite the example of the Korean auto market. I know the Korean 
automobile industry chokes on it because I have gotten several letters 
from them now. I use this as an example of fair trade because there is 
just such a lopsided trade imbalance with Korea when it comes to cars.
  Last year Korea shipped 620,000 Korean cars to the United States. Do 
you know how many American cars we were able to sell in Korea? We sold 
2,800.
  Let me say that again. Korea shipped us 620,000 Korean automobiles 
and we were able to sell 2,800 U.S. automobiles in Korea. Do you know 
why? Because the Koreans don't want to buy U.S. automobiles--I am 
talking about the Korean Government. They don't want Koreans to 
purchase U.S. automobiles, and they put a series of obstacles up

[[Page S3600]]

against us selling cars in Korea. Fair? Of course it is not fair. Is 
there somebody going to do something about that? No. Our trade 
negotiators are not interested in solving problems--only in negotiating 
new agreements.
  Will Rogers once said that the United States of America has never 
lost a war and never won a conference. He surely must have been 
thinking of our trade negotiators because they lose almost immediately 
when they begin negotiating.
  If I had some feeling somebody, somewhere, someplace was going to 
solve a problem or two here or there, then I would maybe have a little 
confidence. But I could stand here and recite problem after problem. 
There is the unfair trade involving wheat from Canada, that comes here 
from a monopoly called the Canadian Wheat Board that would be illegal 
in this country, taking money out of the pockets of our family farmers, 
and nothing is being done about it.
  How about Brazilian sugar that undermines our sugar program? The 
sugar is shipped to Canada, where it is packed into molasses. The 
molasses are shipped to the United States, where the sugar is taken 
out, and the molasses are shipped back to Canada. This is just a 
blatantly unfair trade practice, yet nobody is doing anything about it.
  Or let's talk about barriers to U.S. exports of high-fructose corn 
syrup to Mexico. The Mexicans said they would let it into their 
country. But they will not.
  Every pound of beef going from this country to Japan has a 38.5-
percent tariff, every single pound of American beef. We ought to get 
more T-bones into Japan. Our negotiators thought it was a triumph to 
get Japanese tariffs on U.S. beef reduced to 38.5-percent. Is that a 
success? I don't think so.
  I hardly dare begin to speak of China. The problems of getting access 
to the Chinese marketplace are legion.
  Wheat flour--try to sell wheat flour to the European Union. There is 
a 78-percent tariff on wheat flour to the European Union, so our 
farmers can't get wheat flour into the European Union. In fact, we 
can't get U.S. beef into the European Union because it is produced with 
hormones. The European press has the Europeans thinking we produce cows 
with two heads.
  Do you know what happened? What happened was interesting. It is 
typical of, in my judgment, our weak-kneed trade approach. Because 
Europe has caused us a problem on beef, we took the EU to the World 
Trade Organization. For once, the World Trade Organization actually 
ruled in our favor. They ruled that we could take action against 
Europe. Do you know what action we took against Europe? We slap them 
with penalties on truffles, goose liver, and Roquefort cheese. That 
will sure scare the Devil out of the European Union. America is going 
to take action against their truffles or goose liver.

  The fact is, our country is unwilling to stand up and exhibit the 
backbone necessary to say to other countries: This marketplace is the 
only one like it in the world. There is no substitute for it. We want 
it open to you. But understand this: The American marketplace is open 
to your products but your marketplace must be open to ours. No, it is 
not open to your products if you are going to ship us prison labor 
production and, yes, we have had some of those goods coming from 
Chinese prisons to be put on the store shelves of this country. That is 
unfair. Our marketplace isn't open to you if you are going to lock 
kids, 10- and 12-year-old kids in plants producing carpets. That is not 
fair trade. Our markets will be open to you, but you must open your 
markets to us.
  Having said all of this, those who might listen will say: All right. 
So this is someone who doesn't like trade.
  Nonsense. I think trade is very important. I think expanded trade is 
very important. It is just that our country has to think differently.
  For the first 25 years after the Second World War, our trade was all 
foreign policy. It didn't have anything to do with economic policy. We 
could tie one hand behind our back and beat anybody in the world. We 
were the best, the strongest, and the fact is, we could out-trade 
anybody under any set of circumstances. So for 25 years our trade 
policy was foreign policy. But the second 25 years after the Second 
World War things are different. Our competitors are shrewd and tough 
competitors--Japan, Europe, Canada, China, and others. The fact is they 
have grown to be shrewd, tough international competitors, and our trade 
policy can't be foreign policy anymore. It must be tough, hard-nosed 
economic policy that requires of them what we demand of ourselves. 
Regrettably, as a country have not been willing to do that. We are 
always interested in negotiating the next agreement, notwithstanding 
the problems that we have created in the past agreements. We just can't 
continue to do that.
  My understanding is that we are going to have a managers' amendment 
offered. When the ranking member and the chairman show up, I will be 
happy to give up the floor. But I am going to offer an amendment, 
hopefully this afternoon--the first amendment on Trade Promotion 
Authority. I have a number of amendments, as do many of my colleagues 
on this issue. The first amendment I am going to offer is very simple. 
It deals with the issue of the North American Free Trade Agreement that 
we negotiated previously. It was a terrible agreement. When we started 
negotiating with Mexico and Canada, we had a small trade surplus with 
Mexico. We have managed to turn that into a huge deficit. We had a 
moderate trade deficit with Canada, and managed to increase that many 
times over. That is the record of NAFTA.
  I am going to offer an amendment that says that investor dispute 
tribunals must be opened to the public. We now have a circumstance 
where when you have an investor dispute with NAFTA, a tribunal is 
created. It is a three-person tribunal. It is done in secret. It is 
behind closed doors. It is done in secret. The records are secret. The 
testimony is in secret. The only thing known are the results.
  We ought not ever allow that to happen. My amendment is going to say 
no more secrecy. My amendment is going to say if we are going to be a 
part of NAFTA, the tribunals must be open. A little fresh air and 
sunshine will disinfect that process. I hope this amendment will be 
accepted by the Senate.
  Let me speak briefly about one of the most egregious cases being 
considered by one of these tribunals. A few years ago, California 
decided to eliminate MTBE from our gasoline, and other states have done 
the same. We have discovered that this gasoline additive shows up in 
drinking water. It is going to injure the public health.
  So California says: We have to get rid of MTBE. We will ban it from 
gasoline as an additive.
  Because this country, for its own reasons, decides to stand up for 
the health of its citizens, we are now being sued under the NAFTA 
agreement by the Canadian company that makes MTBE. We are getting sued 
for close to a billion dollars. A tribunal is hearing that case, and is 
doing so in secret.
  Here we are. That is the result of trade agreements that don't pay 
nearly enough attention to fairness for this country and fairness to 
international trade.
  My expectation is that we will be debating this for perhaps a week or 
2 weeks, with many amendments.
  I heard a rumor--I don't know whether it is true or not--that the 
chairman and ranking member have reached some kind of agreement perhaps 
to oppose amendments to fast track. I hope that is not the case. My 
hope is--because most of us are not on the Finance Committee--that we 
will be able to come to the Chamber and offer ideas perhaps they have 
not thought of. I don't expect that committee has a monopoly on good 
ideas.
  My expectation is that perhaps there are 80 or 85 other Members of 
the Senate who might have some ideas that could be considered 
meritorious and that could be added to fast-track trade authority.
  I don't support fast-track trade authority. But perhaps in the 
process of amending this we can change it sufficiently so that it won't 
adversely impact this country. I hope we will be able to see some 
support for meritorious amendments that will be offered on the floor of 
the Senate.
  There is a lot to discuss with respect to trade. I will not try to 
touch on every point right now. I think we are waiting for the chairman 
and ranking member to come and offer their amendments.
  But I would like to talk for a moment about another issue on trade.

[[Page S3601]]

This is something that I raised with Secretary of State Colin Powell 
yesterday in an appropriations hearing. It also has to do with trade.
  I fought for over 3 years on the floor of the Senate and was finally 
successful last year to make it legal again to sell food to Cuba. For 
40 years we have had an embargo; we couldn't sell a thing to Cuba. We 
could not even sell food or medicine. My contention is that is 
basically immoral for us to use food as a weapon. We sell food to 
Communist China. We sell food to Communist Vietnam. But for 40 years we 
couldn't sell food to Cuba.
  So I kicked and scratched for a long while with some of my 
colleagues. I was able to get that aspect of the embargo changed. Just 
last year, we were able to get it changed so we can actually sell food 
to Cuba.
  Cuba had a hurricane recently that caused a great deal of damage, and 
they need food. They are offering to buy it, and to pay cash. Cuba has 
now purchased $70 million worth of food from the United States in 
recent months.

  A fellow named Pedro Alvarez heads a group called Alimport, which is 
the Cuban agency that buys food. He was going to come to this country 
and inspect some facilities, visit a number of agricultural states, 
including coming to my State of North Dakota. They were prepared to buy 
wheat and dried beans, I understand.
  The State Department issued him a visa. He applied for and was given 
a visa by our interest section for Cuba to come to the United States. 
Yet abruptly, the visa was revoked.
  I am trying to find out why the visa was revoked. My staff called the 
State Department. The State Department said: Well, it is our policy not 
to encourage food sales to Cuba.
  Yesterday, I asked the Secretary of State: Is that your policy?
  The Secretary of State said: It is news to me. I have no such policy.
  Someone deep in the bowels of the State Department apparently defined 
for himself the State Department's policy, and did not bother to check 
with Secretary Powell.
  I asked for an investigation. Why do you revoke the visa issued to 
someone who wants to come to our country to buy wheat, dried beans, 
corn and eggs? Who decided that somehow that threatens our country? 
Where does that kind of thinking come from?
  I expect I will probably hear from Secretary Powell in the next day 
or two. I hope so. I wrote a rather lengthy letter last week. I had the 
opportunity to question him before an Appropriations Committee hearing 
yesterday.
  At a time when agricultural prices have collapsed and our family 
farmers are hanging on by their fingertips trying to make a go of it, 
we have some folks somewhere behind the drapes inside the State 
Department deciding they really don't want to sell food to Cuba and 
they don't want someone coming up here from Cuba to buy dried beans. If 
there is some perceived threat about that, I wish someone would inform 
me and the Senate.
  That is one more example of the strange approach that people take to 
international trade. We ought never, under any circumstance, use food 
as a weapon. It is immoral. Does anyone think Fidel Castro has ever 
missed a meal because this country had an embargo for 40 years on the 
shipment of food to Cuba? Does anyone think he has ever missed 
breakfast, lunch, or dinner? No. Those sorts of things hurt poor 
people, sick people, and hungry people. They don't hurt Fidel Castro.
  I have personally written to Mr. Alvarez saying: I am inviting you to 
this country. I have written to the Secretary of State saying: I want 
you to provide visas to the people who want to come up and buy food 
from our family farmers.
  That is just one more piece in a long, sorry saga of international 
trade that doesn't represent our country's interests.
  I am very interested in having robust, strong expanded, trade. I am 
very interested in finding ways by which we can force open foreign 
markets. But the record is abysmal. We agreed to NAFTA, GATT, and we do 
United States-Canada agreements.
  The fact is that very little has changed in the behavior of China, 
Europe, Japan, and other countries. Our country leads the way in 
unilateral behavior in international trade that says our market is 
open. Our country ought to use its leverage to say we are going to hold 
up a mirror. If your market isn't open to us, you go sell your 
trinkets, trousers, and cars somewhere else. And, as soon as you 
understand that other marketplaces don't offer you what our market 
does, you come back and agree to open up your marketplace to American 
businesses and American workers. Then we will have reciprocal trade 
that is fair to both sides, that is multilateral, and that is 
beneficial to us, and the countries with whom we do trade agreements.
  I believe we are about ready to have the chairman and ranking member 
come.
  I am very happy to offer an amendment as soon as they are interested 
in coming. I think they have lengthy opening statements. I will also 
have an opening statement at some point to amplify these remarks. But I 
am anxious to offer an amendment this afternoon. I am anxious to have a 
vote on an amendment, for that matter. If they come and offer their 
managers' package, give their opening statements, and then let me be 
recognized to offer an amendment, we could debate the amendment for an 
hour and then we could have a vote today. I would be happy to do that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The deputy majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota has been very 
patient and persuasive, as he always is. He has been in the Chamber on 
several different occasions wishing to speak. He has a lot to say about 
this legislation. He has indicated he has a number of amendments. I 
have spoken to him about some of the amendments. They sound pretty good 
to me.
  The manager, Senator Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, 
should be in the Chamber soon to lay down that managers' package. I was 
in touch with him just a few minutes ago. But he is not here now.

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