[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 19 (Monday, February 23, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1461-S1462]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 90--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE CONGRESS 
    REGARDING NEGOTIATING, IN THE UNITED STATES-THAILAND FREE TRADE 
       AGREEMENT, ACCESS TO THE UNITED STATES AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

   Mr. LEVIN (for himself and Mr. Voinovich) submitted the following 
concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Finance:

                             S. Con. Res. 90

       Whereas the United States Trade Representative recently 
     announced an intention to negotiate a free trade agreement 
     (FTA) with Thailand;
       Whereas properly structured FTAs may have important 
     benefits for the United States, and a bilateral free trade 
     agreement program pursued under a coherent policy and 
     strategy may play an important role in United States trade 
     policy;
       Whereas the global automobile market is subject to 
     inherently multilateral problems that need to be addressed on 
     a multilateral basis, including numerous, widespread, and 
     complex nontariff barriers maintained by major producing 
     countries;
       Whereas providing Thailand privileged access to critical 
     segments of the United States automobile market would 
     significantly erode United States leverage to negotiate 
     reductions to global automobile market distortions in 
     multilateral negotiations, because producers from third 
     countries would be able to benefit from the privileged access 
     of Thailand under the FTA;
       Whereas Thailand is the second largest source of pick-up 
     truck production in the world, with many major automobile 
     manufacturers from outside of Thailand producing pick-up 
     trucks there;
       Whereas Thailand's Board of Investment has actively been 
     recruiting automobile producers from outside of Thailand, 
     including Japan, South Korea, and India, to produce 
     automobiles in Thailand, and some of these producers have 
     cited Thailand's privileged access to foreign markets through 
     FTAs as a rationale for setting up production in Thailand;
       Whereas many of these producers from outside of Thailand 
     have moved their pick-up truck production out of their home 
     countries and into Thailand in order to make Thailand their 
     global pick-up truck production and export bases;
       Whereas as a result of this activity by automobile 
     producers from outside of Thailand, pick-up truck production 
     in Thailand will soon approach 1,000,000 units annually, and 
     could grow even larger;
       Whereas given these facts, if Thailand were given 
     privileged access to critical segments of the United States 
     automobile market in an FTA, it could be used by third-
     country automobile producers as a backdoor into the United 
     States market; however, Japan, South Korea, India, and other 
     major producing countries would not be required to reduce 
     their tariff and nontariff barriers to United States 
     automobile producers, and in fact the tariff and nontariff 
     barriers maintained by those countries would continue to 
     distort global markets and restrict the access of United 
     States exports to markets in those countries;
       Whereas given that these third-country producers would 
     already have privileged access to the United States market 
     through the United States-Thailand FTA, their home countries 
     would have less incentive to address the inherently 
     multilateral problems in the global automobile market through 
     negotiations on a multilateral basis; and
       Whereas the United States automobile industry is a major 
     driver of the United States economy--accounting annually for 
     between 3 and 4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) 
     of the United States, leading all United States industries in 
     annual research and development spending, directly employing 
     over 500,000 highly skilled and efficient workers in jobs 
     that pay on average 60 percent higher than the average United 
     States job, and supporting the jobs of over 7,000,000 other 
     workers--and it has played a critical role in efforts to 
     revive the United States economy: Now therefore be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that 
     negotiations on access to critical segments of the United 
     States automobile market should not take place on a piecemeal 
     basis, but only--
       (1) as part of negotiations that include all major 
     automobile producing nations; and
       (2) as part of comprehensive negotiations that address both 
     tariff and nontariff barriers specific to the automobile 
     industry, with progress on eliminating tariff barriers 
     explicitly linked to concrete progress on eliminating 
     nontariff barriers.

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