[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 116 (Friday, July 29, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5034-S5036]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS WITH SOUTH KOREA, COLOMBIA, AND PANAMA
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I want to remind my colleagues that this
work period was supposed to be our opportunity to finally enact, after
years of delay, the Free Trade Agreements with our allies South Korea,
Colombia, and Panama.
These agreements were signed over 4 years ago, and this
administration has had more than 2\1/2\ years to submit them to
Congress for consideration, but they have failed to do so.
Unfortunately, we are going to have to continue to wait at least until
September before we get a vote.
Why does it matter that we pass these agreements? It matters for two
reasons: first, because expanding trade opportunities creates American
jobs; second, because we live in a competitive global economy and other
nations are not standing still while we delay.
Economists overwhelmingly agree that expanding trade opportunities
creates jobs. The Obama White House, for example, estimates that
enactment of these three trade agreements will boost exports by at
least $12 billion, supporting over 70,000 American jobs.
The fact that lowering barriers to U.S. exports will create jobs for
American workers is common sense. Consider that our market is already
largely open to foreign imports, including those from Korea, Colombia,
and Panama. Without trade agreements to ensure similar treatment for
our exporters, American businesses will continue to face high tariff
and nontariff barriers abroad.
Consider one example: the market for agricultural products in Korea,
which is the world's thirteenth largest economy. Korea's tariffs on
imported agricultural goods average 54 percent, compared to an average
9-percent tariff on these imports into the United States. Mr.
President, 54 percent added on for us to get our agricultural products
into Korea; only 9 percent for them to get those same products into the
United States, that is a 45-percent differential.
Passage of the Korea Free Trade Agreement will level this playing
field. Yet this administration continues to delay sending the
agreements to Congress. The Obama White House would prefer to hold
these agreements hostage because of a desire to expand the Trade
Adjustment Assistance Program rather than improve the competitive
position of American producers.
At a time of near record unemployment and slow economic growth, this
[[Page S5035]]
delay is unacceptable. I want to put a fine point on that by saying
that just this morning the numbers came out. The Bureau of Economic
Analysis released its advance estimate of growth in the inflation-
adjusted gross domestic product, GDP, for the second quarter. According
to the advance estimate, annualized GDP growth in the second quarter
was 1.3 percent.
They went back and revised the first quarter of 2011. They revised it
downward to .4 percent, down from a reported rate of 1.9 percent. So
they have adjusted downward the first quarter growth rate from 1.9
percent down to .4 percent, and we now know, according to the advance
estimate at least, that second quarter GDP growth is only 1.3 percent--
way under what the assumptions have been, way under what the estimates
have been, and way under what it is going to take for us to get the
economy turned around and growing again and get people back to work.
Couple that with the job-crushing regulations, the taxes that have
come since this administration has taken office, and it is making it
very difficult for our economy to recover and to grow and to get back
on track. So the administration wishes to hold these agreements hostage
because of their desire to expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance
Program rather than get these producers back access to these markets we
should have access to in some of these countries, and we cannot afford
to wait any longer to do that.
The reasons are very clear. We have an economy that is sluggish, that
is struggling to get back on its feet. We have three free trade
agreements that have been hanging around here languishing literally now
for 4 years that would open up export opportunities and, as I said,
even according to the President's own estimates, add 70,000 jobs to our
economy.
The position of Leader McConnell and Republican Senators has been
consistent from the beginning. We are happy to have a debate on the
merits of expanding trade adjustment assistance and to consider this
bill as a stand-alone measure. But we will not hold the trade
agreements hostage to consideration of trade adjustment assistance.
I want to commend my colleagues Senators Portman and Blunt for the
letter they recently spearheaded with 10 other Republican Senators
committing to support the necessary procedural votes to consider trade
adjustment assistance as a stand-alone measure and on its own merits.
In light of this letter, it is very clear the administration has run
out of excuses for not submitting the trade agreements to Congress.
I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, to have the Portman-Blunt
letter printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, July 19, 2011.
President Barack Obama,
The White House,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: as Republican Senators, we urge you to
submit the Korea, Colombia and Panama trade agreements as
soon as possible, with the understanding that we will support
a separate Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bill that
reflects the bipartisan reforms negotiated by Chairmen Baucus
and Camp and the White House.
In order to move this process forward, we commit to
supporting cloture on the motion to proceed to such a TAA
bill and cloture on the bill itself. We believe that the
trade agreements and TAA should receive separate up or down
votes on their merits.
We therefore urge you to separate the pending trade
agreements and TAA, and immediately submit the three trade
agreements to Congress.
Sincerely,
Roy Blunt, Scott P. Brown, Rob Portman, John Boozman,
John Hoeven, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Johnny
Isakson, Ron Wicker, Dan Coats, Thad Cochran, Mike
Johanns.
Mr. THUNE. There is a path forward in both the House and the Senate
for trade adjustment assistance, and we have bipartisan majorities in
both Chambers waiting to vote for the Korea, Colombia, and Panama
agreements. So why are we still waiting for the White House to do the
right thing and send us these agreements?
This ongoing delay is having a real impact on American businesses,
and it will only get worse. On July 1, the European Union-Korea trade
agreement went into effect. According to press reports, European
exports to Korea rose 16 percent in the first 13 days after the Korea-
EU Free Trade Agreement entered into force.
Let's be clear about what this means. Korean consumers are choosing
to buy German, French, and British cars, electronics, and agricultural
products rather than American-made products because these European
products now have a price advantage. This was entirely preventable if
we had acted on the U.S.-Korea agreement sooner.
Likewise, the Canada-Colombia agreement will go into effect on August
15. This will result in an advantage for Canadian goods, such as
construction equipment, aircraft, and a range of other industrial and
agricultural products. Much as with Korea, the United States businesses
will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage because we have
failed to act.
Again, this did not have to happen. The administration finalized its
labor action plan for Colombia back in April. We have had plenty of
time to consider these agreements over the past several months.
Instead, we are facing a situation where United States wheat producers
are likely to be completely shut out of the Colombian market once the
agreement with Canada has gone into effect.
This is amazing, when you think about it, when you consider that just
a few years ago American wheat producers dominated the market in
Colombia with a 73-percent market share. That was as of 2008.
In 2010, for the first time in the history of United States-Colombia
trade, the United States lost to Argentina its position as Colombia's
No. 1 agricultural supplier.
Consider the story of three crops we grow in South Dakota: soybeans,
corn, and wheat. The combined market share in Colombia for these three
U.S. agricultural exports has decreased from 81 percent in 2008 to 19
percent as of 2010--a decline of 62 percentage points in a 2-year
period; an 81-percent to a 19-percent market share in corn, wheat, and
soybeans, for American agricultural producers. Think about that. That
is a staggering collapse, which was totally avoidable, totally
preventable, if we had simply acted on these trade agreements much
sooner. This is the real cost of our delay while our trading partners
continue to pursue new regional and bilateral trade agreements.
We are living in a global economy where America cannot afford to
stand still on trade. As Senator Baucus noted at a recent Finance
Committee hearing, in 1960, exports accounted for only 3.6 percent of
our entire U.S. GDP; today, exports account for 12.5 percent of our
GDP. Exports of U.S. goods and services support over 10 million
American jobs.
It is long past time we get back in the game by passing the three
pending trade agreements. America's manufacturers, America's farmers,
and America's service providers cannot afford to wait any longer. So I
call upon the administration to submit the trade agreements to Congress
before the August recess. We are not going to be able to consider these
agreements until September, but sending them to Congress now will send
a strong signal that this administration is finally serious about
getting them done. It would also be an important show of good faith to
our close allies, South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. These job-
creating, market-opening trade agreements should be at the top of the
agenda when we get back in September.
Again, I want to reemphasize the importance of that in light of these
economic numbers, the data that is coming out that points out that in
the second quarter of this year our economic growth was a sluggish 1.3
percent, and that the revised estimate now for the first quarter of
this year was .4 percent.
We will never get the unemployment rate down, we will never get
America's economy expanding and back on its feet, we will never start
dealing with these massive debt issues we have, one, if we do not cut
spending--which is the other issue we are debating today--but also if
we are not growing and expanding the American economy.
We can do that. There are so many things these trade agreements would
do not only for agricultural exporters but for other producers of
American goods, and we ought to be doing that.
[[Page S5036]]
It is high time we at least do some of the things we can do to get the
economy growing again. I cannot emphasize enough the lost market
opportunities, the lost chance at economic growth, the lost jobs that
are associated with the fact that this administration has delayed now,
since they have been in office--2\1/2\ years--in submitting these three
free trade agreements to Congress, three free trade agreements that
have broad bipartisan support from Congress, which we as Republicans
have been waiting to act upon now for almost the 4 years since these
agreements were negotiated in the first place.
So it is high time we change that. It is one thing that we can do to
affect the economy in this country, among the other things. I would
simply add as sort of a final point, the debate we are having about the
debt limit is also one that needs to be dealt with if we are going to
get serious about growing the economy and creating jobs.
If we look at the economy, we look at this President's economic
record, and we look at the data, almost every metric we can measure, he
has made this economy much worse. The President has said repeatedly--
and he said it in his speech the other night--he blames the previous
administration for where we are today. I do not think anybody here will
dispute the fact that he inherited a difficult set of economic
circumstances. But there is no question, if we look at every metric,
that he has made the situation much worse.
Whether that is unemployment, which is up 18 percent--there are 2.1
million more people unemployed today than there were when he took
office--whether it is the debt, which has grown by 35 percent since he
took office; whether it is the number of Americans who are receiving
food stamps, which has gone up by 40 percent since he took office--and
I might add in my State of South Dakota, a 58-percent increase in the
number of people receiving food stamps.
The cost of health care in this country is up 19 percent since this
President took office. The cost of gasoline has gone up almost 100
percent--99 percent--since this President took office. The amount of
the debt per person in this country has gone up by $11,000. Every
American now owes $11,000 more as their share of our Federal debt since
this President took office.
The economic record of this administration is abysmal. It is high
time we took the steps to do something about that. It strikes me at
least, as I look at the policies they have been putting in place, that
they seem to want to make it more difficult and more expensive for
people in this country to create jobs. We see that in regulations
coming out of all of these various agencies. We see it in the massive
runup in the growth, in the size of government, the new mandates that
have been imposed on a lot of our small businesses as a result of the
new health care bill, the new taxes that have been imposed on our small
businesses as a result of the new health care legislation.
At every turn American small businesses, which create the jobs that
will get this economy growing again, tell us the economic uncertainty,
the job-crushing policies that are coming out of this administration
have been a major inhibitor, a major impediment to them creating jobs
and getting people back to work in this country.
The trade agreements are just something I would add on to that list.
We have three trade agreements that have been teed up. It has been
almost 4 years since they were negotiated. This administration has been
in office now for 2\1/2\ years. The President continually gets up, as
he did at the State of the Union, and talks about wanting to double the
trade in 5 years, talks about supporting these three trade agreements.
Yet it is a very simple thing. All he has to do is submit them to
Congress. The trade agreements are negotiated. All he has to do is send
them here. We are ready to act to put Americans back to work, to open
up export opportunities to American producers, to get the economy
growing again, and create jobs.
I hope in addition to dealing with the issue of runaway spending and
debt, which, in my view, is the predominant issue we need to deal
with--and, clearly, between now and Tuesday we have to get a solution
in place that will avert the economic adversity we could be dealing
with, the adverse circumstances if we do not deal with that. But that
needs to be accompanied by serious reductions in spending, spending
reforms. Then we have to be putting in place policies that will enable
economic growth in this country, that will make it less expensive, less
difficult for small businesses to create jobs, not more difficult.
Unfortunately, that is the record to date of this administration. I
hope we can change that and start today by sending these trade
agreements to the Congress so we can act on them and get these things
approved and get American businesses exporting to these three
countries.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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