[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 28917-28918]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 U.S. TRADE POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO AGRICULTURE HARM U.S. FARMERS AND 
                                RANCHERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, the U.S. economy is strong, with 
unemployment low, interest rates low, inflation low, the Dow and the 
NASDAQ outperforming our wildest expectations.
  In spite of this strong economy, there is one sector of our economy 
which is in a depressed state and has been in a depressed state for the 
last 3 years. That is agriculture. For a variety of reasons, 
agriculture is suffering. Whether it is the Asian financial crisis,

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the strong dollar, the regulatory burdens that we place on our farmers, 
all of these things are adding to the crisis in agriculture.
  Yet, there is one thing that is adding to it even more than these. 
That is the U.S.'s trade policies as they relate to agriculture, that 
have left agricultural producers at a competitive disadvantage to our 
counterparts in other countries.
  U.S. farmers know that we need trade agreements. In fact, one out of 
every 3 acres in the United States is produced for export. We have to 
have trade agreements, but trade agreements for trade agreements' sake 
are unacceptable. We have to have fair trade agreements. Trade 
agreements that leave our farmers and ranchers at a disadvantage, as 
they have in the past, are not fair.
  This is not a partisan issue. This has been a bipartisan failure on 
the part of administrations to negotiate fair trade agreements for our 
farmers and ranchers. Over 80 percent of the world's export subsidies 
are employed by the European Union. This is unfair. World trade tariffs 
average 50 percent, while in the United States, they average 10 
percent. This is unfair.
  That is why the upcoming WTO ministerial rounds that take place later 
this month and early in December in Seattle are so important to 
agriculture. I was pleased to be a co-chair and am pleased to be a co-
chair with the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), Senator 
Dorgan of North Dakota, and Senator Craig of Idaho, to chair the WTO 
trade caucus for ranchers and farmers.
  We have over 50 of this caucus, Members of both parties, Members of 
the House and Senate, that have been meeting for the last several weeks 
trying to decide what the priorities of this Congress are that we must 
address in Seattle. We have met among ourselves and discussed these 
issues. We have met with producer groups to discuss the issues, to 
identify those things that are important, that we must address during 
the upcoming rounds of the WTO negotiations.

                              {time}  1900

  Several of those things we have developed, and let me go through some 
of the important issues that we think must be addressed during this 
round of the WTO.
  Market access. We have to expand market access through tariff 
reduction or elimination. Export subsidies need to be eliminated. We 
need to reduce the European subsidies to a level provided by the United 
States before applying any formula reductions. In the past, the 
European Union has higher subsidies than the United States and our 
negotiations have reduced them proportionally. But when one group has a 
high tariff or subsidy level and another has a lower and they are 
reduced proportionally, America is still left at a competitive 
disadvantage. We must bring those to a level playing field before any 
formula reductions.
  We must have no unilateral disarmament when it comes to agriculture. 
We have to combat unfair trade practices and restore and strengthen 
enforcement tools against them. We have to improve the enforcement of 
the WTO dispute panel decisions. Currently when those decisions are 
made, there are times when our competitors will not abide by the 
dispute resolution.
  We have to support family farms. Preserve the flexibility to assist 
team farmers through income assistance, crop insurance and other 
programs that do not distort trade. We have to retain the full 
complement of nontrade distorting export tools including export credit 
guarantees, international food assistance, and market development 
programs. We have to be sure and establish disciplines on State trading 
enterprises to make them as transparent as the United States' marketing 
system is.
  And nontariff trade barriers, we have to ensure that science and risk 
assessment principles established by the Sanitary and Phytosanitary 
Accord during the Uruguay Round are the basis for measures applied to 
products of new technology and that this process is transparent. We 
also have to negotiate improved market access for products of new 
technology including bioengineered products.
  Mr. Speaker, we have met with our U.S. Trade Ambassador Charlene 
Barshevsky and our Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and I am 
pleased to report that the administration has told us that their 
highest priority in the upcoming round is agriculture. And, in fact, 
when they look at their priorities and place them against ours, they 
almost mirror the importance of the priorities that we have.
  So I am pleased that the administration is taking agriculture as an 
important negotiation during this WTO round that will start in Seattle. 
We cannot leave this round of the WTO with ag at a competitive 
disadvantage.

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