[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 21001]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            U.S. TRADE LAWS

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would like to engage in a colloquy with 
the Senator from West Virginia. On May 23, during the debate of the 
trade bill, Senator Rockefeller spoke on some of the provisions in the 
Trade Promotion Authority provisions relating to trade remedy laws. 
There has been continued discussion of these issues over the past 
several months, so I would like to take this opportunity to clarify 
that the points we made in discussing the Senate bill apply equally to 
the Conference Bill.
  Section 2102(b)(14) of the TPA bill states that it is a ``principal'' 
U.S. negotiating objective to preserve, in all trade negotiations, the 
ability of the United States to enforce rigorously its trade remedy 
laws and to avoid any agreement that would require weakening of the 
current U.S. antidumping, countervailing duty and safeguard remedies. 
The Committee on Finance regards strict adherence to this directive as 
critical in advancing the economic interests of the United States in 
future trade agreements.
  The directive encompasses any weakening of the existing remedies, 
whether at the level of statute, regulation or agency practice. This 
means that the Administration must reject any new international rule or 
obligation whose acceptance would lead to relief under our existing 
trade laws becoming more difficult, uncertain, or costly for domestic 
industries to achieve and maintain over time.
  I want to highlight again some examples of new international 
obligations that have been proposed by WTO members, and that would 
obviously result in a weakening of U.S. trade laws and therefore must 
be rejected under the standard set out in section 2102(b)(14).
  These include:
  No. 1, a ``public interest'' rule politicizing and encumbering the 
administrative processes under which trade remedy laws are currently 
applied;
  No. 2, a requirement to exempt from trade remedy measures items 
alleged to be in ``short supply'' in the domestic market;
  No. 3, a ``lesser duty'' rule limiting antidumping and countervailing 
duties to some amount less than the calculated margin of dumping or 
subsidy, such as the amount supposedly necessary to offset the injury;
  No. 4, any extension of faulty dispute resolution models such as 
Chapter 19 of the NAFTA;
  No. 5, changes to the rules for ``sunset'' reviews of antidumping and 
CVD measures which would make it more difficult to keep relief in 
place;
  No. 6, additional constraints or criteria for dumping calculations, 
in areas where current WTO rules and U.S. law vest discretion in the 
administering authority; and
  No. 7, special rules and standards that would make it easier for a 
particular group of countries, such as developing countries, to utilize 
injurious dumping or subsidies as a means of getting ahead in 
international trade.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I agree, and I also want to clarify that section 
2102(b)(14) is a ``no weakening'' provision, and not a ``no net 
weakening'' provision. In other words, it encompasses any new 
international obligation whose acceptance would impair current U.S. 
trade remedies by making relief costlier, more uncertain, or otherwise 
harder to achieve and maintain over time. An agreement that includes 
such changes must be rejected, and it is no answer, insofar as section 
2102(b)(14) and the intent of the Congress is concerned, to contend 
that the agreement in question also includes some ``strengthening'' 
provisions.
  As I believe the strong vote on the Dayton-Craig amendment 
demonstrated, it would be a serious mistake to think that an agreement 
or package of agreements can be successfully presented to Congress for 
approval, under fast-track rules or otherwise, if it includes weakening 
changes to our trade remedy laws.
  I would also like to clarify that this negotiating directive does not 
preclude U.S. negotiators from addressing the very serious shortcomings 
that have become apparent in the operation of the WTO dispute 
settlement system.
  Mr. BAUCUS. That is exactly right. As explained in the Finance 
Committee's report on the TPA measure, in a series of decisions 
involving trade remedy measures, the WTO Appellate Body and lower 
dispute settlement panels have fabricated obligations which our 
negotiators never accepted and blatantly disregarded the discretion 
which the Uruguay Round negotiators intended national investigating 
authorities to retain. These WTO tribunals have violated their mandate 
not to increase or reduce the rights and obligations of WTO Members; 
have imposed their preferences and interpretations, and those of a 
biased WTO Secretariat, on the United States and on other WTO Members; 
and have issued decisions with no basis in the legal texts they 
supposedly were interpreting.
  The effect has been to upset the careful balance achieved in the 
Uruguay Round by adding new, and wholly unwarranted, constraints on the 
use of trade remedies. The no-weakening directive presents no 
impediment to the pursuit of a forceful U.S. agenda to address the 
problems plaguing WTO dispute settlement.

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