[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 105 (Monday, July 29, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7450-S7451]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE TRADE AGREEMENT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in the coming days I assume there will be 
a lot of suspender-snapping, back-thumping, chortling, and crowing 
about the new fast track trade agreement that was announced in the 
weekend press.
  There was a conference in the House and Senate. They came out with a 
new trade agreement. The moniker is trade promotion authority. It is a 
fancy way of saying fast-track trade authority for President Bush.
  I didn't support fast track trade authority for President Clinton, 
and I don't support it for President Bush. This is not a victory for 
our country.

  I assume, this week, because the conference report has passed the 
House, it will come to the Senate. We will have speeches by people 
wearing dark suits who talk about how wonderful this is for our 
country, what a wonderful thing it is that we now have fast-track trade 
authority. So some of our trade negotiators can go overseas somewhere, 
go into a room, close the door, lock it, keep the public out, and 
negotiate in secret a new trade agreement, and then come back to the 
Congress and say: Here it is. Take it or leave it. No amendments. Up or 
down. No changes.
  The people who apparently believe in this do not believe in the first 
law of holes; that is, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. 
They believe, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging, look for 
more shovels.
  Let me talk for a moment about where we are with our trade deficits. 
This chart shows the record trade deficits we have seen over the past 
decade. When the year 2002 figures are posted, they will be way off the 
chart up here: about a $480 billion trade deficit in goods. That is 
money we owe to others, money we owe to people outside this country. 
They will have a future claim on America's income. This is very serious 
for our country. Yet we have people walking around here saying: We just 
need to do more of the same.
  One of the more recent trade agreements we did was NAFTA. They 
promised us hundreds of thousands of new jobs, if we melded the 
economies of the United States and Mexico, for trade purposes. I have a 
chart that shows what has happened as a result of NAFTA: 700,000 jobs 
lost.
  Incidentally, prior to NAFTA, we had a very small trade surplus with 
Mexico. After NAFTA, we turned that small surplus into a huge deficit. 
We had a modest trade deficit with Canada. It turned into a very large 
deficit. So we have this very large trade deficit now with Canada and 
Mexico, and people say: Gosh, that is wonderful; isn't it? No, it is 
not wonderful. It is moving in the wrong direction.
  It is not that I don't believe in the global economy and the ability 
of nations and businesses to exchange goods and services back and 
forth. I studied economics, taught economics for a while, and 
understand the doctrine of comparative advantage: Doing that which you 
do best, and trading with others who do what they do best. All of that 
makes sense to me.
  But I also think the rules have to be fair, and open markets have to 
be opened. The rules have to be transparent and fair. And they are not.
  If I might just give some examples of these rules and the problems 
with the rules.
  I use, often, the example of automobile trade with Korea. Korea is a 
good friend of the United States. South Korea has been an ally of ours 
for some long while. We have a trading relationship with Korea. But let 
me show you what has happened between the United States and Korea in 
one area of trade.
  Last year, the Koreans shipped 618,000 cars into the United States--
Hyundais, Daewoos--Korean cars. So 618,000 Korean cars came here from 
Korea, and we were able to ship Korea 2,800 cars; in other words, 217 
to 1. Is it because our cars are bad cars? No, that is not it. It is 
because if you try to ship a Ford Mustang to Korea, they will throw up 
all kinds of trade barriers. They just do not want United States cars 
shipped to Korea. They want only for Korean cars to access the American 
marketplace.
  Is that fair? No, it is not fair. Does anybody in this country have 
the backbone and nerve to stand up to another country and say to them: 
Look, we like you a lot. You are allies of ours. We are good friends. 
But I will tell you what. In international trade, we have a notion of 
fairness. Open your markets to us, and we will open our markets to you. 
But if you close your markets to the United States, ship your cars to 
Nigeria or perhaps Iran, and see how quickly they sell.

  Let's talk about beef exports to Europe. Go to Europe. The Presiding 
Officer has been in Europe. Pick up a newspaper in Europe--I have been 
there this year--and you read about European trade restrictions on U.S. 
beef, allegedly because of hormones. The way they picture it, it is as 
if we are shipping them beef that came from cows with two heads. That 
is the way it is portrayed in the European press. They keep United 
States beef out of Europe.
  So our country actually tried to do something about that. We said: 
Look, you either allow United States beef into Europe or we are going 
to take action against you. So, finally, a little bit of backbone from 
our trade representatives, right? Finally, we have some nerve. Finally, 
we have the good old American spirit and we are going to stand up for 
our producers. We couldn't get beef into Europe, so we took action.
  Our trade representatives filed a case at the WTO against the 
Europeans for their restrictions on our beef. The WTO actually ruled on 
it, which itself is a surprise. The WTO said: Europe, you are wrong. 
You must allow United States beef into Europe. Europe said: It doesn't 
matter. We are not going to do it. So our trade negotiators said: We 
are going to take action against the Europeans. Do you know what we are 
going to do? We are going to retaliate by imposing tariffs on European 
truffles, goose livers, and Roquefort cheese.

[[Page S7451]]

  Now, that will strike fear in any country, won't it? They will not 
allow our beef in Europe, but we are going to make it tough for them. 
We are going to take action against truffles, goose livers, and 
Roquefort cheese. Good for us.
  When, on Earth, will we have the nerve to say to other countries, we 
demand--we insist--on fair trade?
  Twelve years ago we reached an agreement with Japan on beef. All the 
trade negotiators celebrated as if they just won the 100-yard dash in 
the Olympics, as if they were all wearing gold medals because we 
reached a trade agreement with Japan on beef. But 12 years later, every 
single pound of American beef going into Japan still bears a 38.5-
percent tariff.
  Try to send T-bones to Tokyo, a 37.5-percent tariff--every pound of 
beef. We have a $60 to $70 billion trade deficit with Japan, yet we 
cannot get beef into Japan without a tariff near 40 percent. It doesn't 
make any sense to me.
  This issue goes on and on. In my part of the country, we face an 
avalanche of unfairly subsidized Canadian grain coming in from a 
monopoly called the Canadian Wheat Board. We can't do a thing about it 
because the last trade agreement that came through here limited our 
remedies under section 301. We don't do a thing about it, so this grain 
floods into our country from Canada. It is unfair.
  Our Canadian friends, they are good friends of ours, but they are not 
playing fair with respect to trade and grain. So U.S. wheat producers, 
family farmers, put together the information to file a complaint. They 
won the complaint. The U.S. Trade Representative judged that the 
Canadians, through the Canadian Wheat Board, are engaged in unfair 
trade.
  What is the remedy? Well, apparently, according to our trade 
ambassador, the remedy is just to say that the Canadians ought to 
really watch it. No tariffs. No effective actions. No sanctions. Just: 
You had better watch it. That is not the way to deal with international 
trade.
  When this so-called fast-track authority agreement was reached in 
conference, the committee of jurisdiction issued a memorandum 
describing what they did in conference and what a terrific deal it is.
  Trade adjustment assistance: They tripled it. That provides 
assistance with health insurance for displaced workers. So if you lose 
your job because of these trade agreements, guess what? We are going to 
exchange for your job some health insurance for you. Boy, that is quite 
a deal, isn't it?
  We are going to expand coverage to secondary workers who are affected 
by a firm moving overseas. These trade agreements make it easier to 
move a firm overseas, so if you lose your job, and if you are not a 
primary worker but a secondary worker, we are going to cover you for 
the first time. That is going to make you feel really good as you go 
home and tell your family: I have lost my job. But guess what. I am a 
secondary worker, and I think I am covered with some health insurance 
for a while. I think I am going to get a little health insurance here.
  There is a pilot program for providing wage insurance for older 
workers, realizing the difficulty for older workers to change careers. 
Why would you to have change a career? Because your job just went to 
Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or Indonesia, where they are going to do for 20 
cents an hour what you did for a living wage in this country.
  There is a new benefit for farmers and ranchers who have been losing 
money hand over fist because of price collapses. If they lose money now 
because of these new trade agreements, there is a little help for them. 
Somebody takes their market away, we give them just a little bit of 
help in trade adjustment assistance. Lose your job? Lose your farm? 
Lose your ranch? Guess what. We will help you out a little.
  The issue, according to these folks, is not about fair trade. The 
fight is about how can we provide assistance to Americans who are going 
to lose their jobs.
  For me, the question is this: What are the elements of fair trade? 
What is price for admission to the American marketplace? We fought for 
a century about fair labor standards, about not having children go down 
in coal mines, and not having children work in factories, about 
requiring safe workplaces, about a minimum wage, about the right to 
organize. Then some companies decided: We can skip all of that. We can 
pole vault over all those things. We can hire someone in Indonesia and 
pay them 24 cents an hour to make shoes. We don't have to worry about 
all those things we had to worry about in the United States.
  When we in the Senate were debating the current fast track bill in 
May, the Presiding Officer offered an amendment which I cosponsored, 
the Dayton-Craig amendment. It said: If in the next negotiation, there 
is any attempt to weaken the remedies for American producers, 
countervailing duties, any number of remedies to take action against 
unfair trade, if that is the case, there is going to be a separate vote 
in the Congress on that. The amendment passed in the Senate by a wide, 
bipartisan vote. Sixty one Senators voted for it. But when the bill got 
to conference, the provision got dropped, just got dropped. Instead, we 
got the right to do a sense-of-the-Senate vote. Well, thank you very 
much. You could do that before, and the new provision does nothing to 
defend our trade laws. It doesn't mean anything. If you just like to be 
here and put your suit and necktie on to vote for the heck of it, be 
our guest, come and do it, but this doesn't mean anything. They dropped 
an effective provision from the Senate version of the trade bill, one 
that would have helped producers in this country.
  They also dropped my amendment that said on investor dispute 
resolutions in NAFTA, proceedings must be open, they must be 
transparent. The door must be open. The public must see it. Now it is 
done in secrecy.
  They dropped my amendment. They dropped anything that was good. Then 
they put a sort of chocolate coating on things that were bad, sent it 
out here, and said: Hope that tastes good. Well, it doesn't taste good. 
This doesn't make any sense to us.
  It is interesting, there is only one view of trade that you can 
embrace these days. We have the largest trade deficit in history; last 
month over $41 billion--last month alone. A lot of major papers won't 
run a piece on the trade deficit on their op-ed page because there is 
only one view on their op-ed pages: You are either for global trade or 
you are against it. If you are against it, you are some sort of 
xenophobic isolationist stooge who just doesn't get it. Everybody else 
sees over the horizon. Those who oppose fast track don't.
  That is one of the most thoughtless approaches to a trade debate I 
can imagine. We will have a lengthier discussion on this, this week. I 
will have much more to say.
  Let me say again, I believe expanded trade is helpful to this country 
provided expanded trade is fair trade. We have been victimized in so 
many ways by so many trade agreements--recently, NAFTA and the WTO. You 
name it, I will show you the trade agreement that has expanded our 
trade deficit, hurt our producers, moved our jobs overseas, and nobody 
seems to care very much. Do you hear one peep on the floor of the 
Senate about the largest trade deficit in history? Just one? I don't 
hear a thing. Yet it hurts this country. It is going to cause this 
country serious economic problems in the future.
  I have so much more to say today, and so little time to say it. I 
want the Senator from Alaska to have the opportunity to speak for the 
last 5 minutes. So when this legislation comes to the floor of the 
Senate, I will speak at greater length later in the week. In the 
meantime, suffice it to say, some of us don't celebrate as much as 
others when they talk about the ingredients of this conference report 
on fast track. This is not advancing our country's interest. It is it 
not fair to producers and to workers.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. I thank Senator Dorgan for his courtesy.

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