[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18954]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    U.S.-CHILE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 7, 2003, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Speaker, on June 6, 2003, the United States and 
Chile signed a historic and comprehensive free trade agreement designed 
to reduce barriers and facilitate trade and investment between both 
countries. Negotiations had begun back in December 2000, and 14 
negotiating rounds were held. In the final round, 230 negotiators 
worked 9 straight days to come up with an agreement that contains more 
than 800 pages of text and annexes.
  The result of all this hard work is a state-of-the-art trade pact 
that includes groundbreaking provisions which have never been 
negotiated as part of a free trade agreement. For example, the 
agreement includes new anticorruption rules in government contracting, 
and commitments to make end-user piracy of copyrighted works a criminal 
offense. Also included are new customs procedures which will increase 
transparency, efficiency, and timeliness of customs clearance 
procedures while maintaining strong border security.
  Chile has agreed to new regulatory transparency commitments that will 
govern the interaction of service regulators with private parties, 
increasing public access to rulemaking procedures. In addition, the 
dispute settlement process will become more transparent with more 
public hearings, access to legal submissions, and the rights of third 
parties to submit views.
  But beyond the precedent-setting features of the agreement, there is 
a bottom-line reality. Right now most of Chile's products enter the 
United States duty free under the GSP, or generalized system of 
preferences. In contrast, our exports to Chile face a uniform tariff of 
6 percent. Once the U.S.-Chile free trade agreement enters into force, 
Chile's 6 percent tariff will be removed immediately from more than 85 
percent of U.S. exports. Tariffs on the remaining products will be 
phased out over 4 to 12 years.
  This is a good agreement which covers a particularly wide range of 
products and services. Not only does it address the liberalization of 
merchandise trade; it also includes groundbreaking areas such as e-
commerce, express delivery services, strong copyright and trade 
protections, and across-the-board liberalization of trade in services.
  In short, there is something for everyone to like in this agreement. 
But as with other trade agreements, there is also something for 
everyone to question. The three areas that are often addressed by 
Members who have not had an opportunity to focus on the agreement, and 
we heard from a couple of them this morning, are: labor, the 
environment, and immigration. For instance, some Members who are not 
familiar with Chile and its labor laws question whether the labor 
provisions in this agreement are strong enough. The facts are that 
Chile has recently rewritten most of its Pinochet-era labor laws, 
reaffirming its obligation as a member of the international labor 
organization, and committed in this agreement to a key binding 
obligation not to fail to effectively enforce its labor laws through a 
sustained or recurring course of action or inaction. Labor protections 
within Chile and within this agreement are strong and sound.
  And because it is a free trade agreement, other Members question 
whether it preserves environmental protections, but this free trade 
agreement includes provisions requiring parties to establish high 
levels of environmental protection and to not weaken or reduce 
environmental laws to attract trade or investment. It provides for 
dispute settlement and for environmental cooperation between the 
parties.
  And last, some Members have questioned the impact this agreement may 
have on our immigration policy and whether it will open the door to a 
new wave of immigrants. The answer is no. It is true that in order to 
facilitate trade and services this agreement does allow for temporary 
entry of business professionals into Chile and into the United States. 
The number of professionals allowed entry into Chile is unlimited, 
while the number of Chilean professionals in the United States is 
1,400. But I want to point out that the implementing legislation 
ensures that Chile professional category comes under the existing H-1B 
umbrella as H-1B1.
  Further, the legislation clarifies that the Chile H-1B professional 
category is capped and these individuals will count under the overall 
H-1B program cap. The same fees can be charged for entry, and the 
agreement permits the U.S. to require attestations modeled after core 
elements of the Labor Condition Application of the current H-1B visa 
program.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good agreement with a good trading partner 
that will be good for our businesses and workers. I plan to vote for 
the U.S.-Chile trade agreement, and urge my colleagues to do the same.

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