[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25806-25807]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          FREE BUT FAIR TRADE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 4 minutes.
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, the author of H. Res. 298, the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky) has worked tirelessly here, along with the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and many others to try and do 
something about this dumping and subsidy of foreign products that, in 
fact, have damaged American workers, American goods, and in my opinion 
our future economy. Even though right now it makes it look like our 
prices are low and our economy is helped and buoyed by this action.
  The gentleman from Indiana will be here, he being the greatest Notre 
Dame fan in the Congress and being totally elated by the fighting 
Irish's comeback victory over Southern Cal. So being an old Pitt guy, I 
am not going to be all that ecstatic about it, but the gentleman from 
Indiana is still out there cheering on the Irish.
  Mr. Speaker, the very first steel mill that closed in America, we 
called it Black Monday back then, was in Youngstown, Ohio. 11,000 
steelworkers got a notice one morning that their plant was closing and 
their job was gone. Congress has done a bunch of things since then to 
give plant closing notices, but frankly I do not even understand why we 
have to be doing something like this with the administration that in my 
opinion should know better. I think every administration should know a 
little better.
  We are getting ripped off big time. People keep hearing about 
dumping. I do not know if the American people know what dumping means. 
It is not all that sophisticated. It is not rocket science here. 
Dumping is when a product costs $20 to make but they sell it in America 
for $15, $5 below what it costs them to make the product themselves. 
What does that do? There are those purists that say that is great. They 
are subsidizing the American economy. They are doing us a favor at $5 a 
product.
  But, Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is the American producers now 
cannot meet the competition. Little by little the American competition 
dwindles and before long there is a vacuum. No American company 
produces the product and that product that looked so juicy at $15 is 
now coming in here at $35.
  The final result of this is we cannot have dumping, we cannot have 
subsidies, if in fact they are going to play by a different set of 
rules. That is what frosts my pumpkin here.
  I think with the dumping of illegal steel Congress did not do what 
they had to do. Congress should have passed a ban. Send it to the 
President and let these presidents that fire up all these union workers 
every election veto the bill and show what they are standing for.
  Mr. Speaker, we should not be managing illegal trade; we should be 
banning illegal trade.
  So I particularly feel our program is all wet. I think we have 
allowed these administrations to use an awful lot of rhetoric and 
politicking around election time and maintain a program that is anti-
American, so help me God. But I want to credit the efforts at least we 
are trying to take. What we are doing is recommending that the 
administration does not allow any more of this chicanery on illegal 
trade. Wow. I hope that works. But in any regard, I think it is better 
than what we are doing.
  Mr. Speaker, I think there is a lot more that has to be done. And I 
think it is time to pass some legislation that says look, play by the 
same rules we play by because there is one trick word I believe and one 
magic word that deals with this trade business. It is called 
reciprocity. I think it is time to treat our trading partners the way 
they deal with us. We should ideally deal with free trade, but first we 
should deal with fair trade.
  Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favor of House 
Resolution 298, the Maintain United States Trade Law Resolution. There 
have been a number of pieces of legislation introduced this Congress 
aimed at strengthening our trade laws. While some of these bills have 
been very technical in nature, we have before us today a resolution 
that is so simple and straightforward that there can be no hidden 
agenda. It sends forth one basic, yet vital, message from the Congress 
to the Administration, and that message is this--do not allow the 
current antidumping and countervailing duty laws to be weakened.
  Just over a month from now, the WTO will convene at the Seattle 
Ministerial to launch a new round of trade talks. An agenda has been 
set for these negotiations that does not include the antidumping and 
countervailing duty rules, yet there are a number of countries seeking 
to expand the agenda in order to debate them. The existing rules were 
concluded only with great difficulty during the Uruguay Round, and have 
hardly been tested. In no way have the existing rules been proven to be 
defective. Therefore, it would be clearly a rash decision to reopen 
them at this point in time.
  Fortunately the Administration seems to have recognized the 
importance of maintaining these trade laws and has stated on a number 
of occasions that they will not allow them to be reopened at this next 
round of talks. Apparently, some Members in this House feel this is 
enough assurance, but I speak today on behalf of the almost 200 
cosponsors of this resolution who know the Congress must vocalize their 
support for the Administration's stated approach. We must show our 
trading partners that we wholeheartedly support and endorse our 
negotiators and their position at the Seattle Ministerial.
  On a number of occasions, I have heard people state their concern 
that there is a growing protectionist tide in the U.S. and around the 
world. There are even those out there who believe this resolution will 
help fuel this tide, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Free 
trade must be synonymous with fair trade, and our antidumping and 
countervailing duty laws target only illegal imports, not those that 
are fairly traded. If you really want to see a growing protectionist 
tide in this country, go down the road of weakening our fair trade laws 
and just watch what happens. Weakening these laws will lead to a flood 
of illegal imports like we have never seen, and the result will be 
scores of American companies out of business and innumerable American 
workers without jobs. We will then see an unprecedented discontent with 
foreign manufacturers and, in no time, a movement toward closing our 
doors to foreign imports, fair and unfair alike. If you're looking for 
a recipe for protectionism, weakening our existing trade laws is the 
quick and easy way to get there.
  Nothing good can come out of reopening the antidumping and 
countervailing duty rules,

[[Page 25807]]

yet there is a very real possibility that it could happen. There is a 
Constitutional responsibility for Congress to join with the 
Administration in a unified approach and let it be known that we will 
not sit idly by and watch our fair trade laws be bargained away. 
Supporting this resolution is a way for us to say that we believe 
American farmers and manufacturers deserve to be on an equal footing 
with their counterparts around the world.
  I mentioned earlier that these trade laws are the backbone of 
America's open-market policy. Well, it is now time for this Congress 
and the Administration to show that they have a backbone when it comes 
to negotiating the future for all Americans. I urge my colleagues to 
stand with me today in support of the Maintain United States Trade Law 
Resolution.

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