[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 369-371]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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SENATE RESOLUTION 289--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE WITH RESPECT 
   TO FREE TRADE NEGOTIATIONS THAT COULD ADVERSELY IMPACT THE SUGAR 
                     INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES

  Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Dayton, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Conrad, and Mr. 
Enzi) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Finance:


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                              S. Res. 289

       Whereas the President has concluded negotiations with El 
     Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua to form a 
     Central American Free Trade Agreement (referred to in this 
     resolution as ``CAFTA''), and is seeking to incorporate Costa 
     Rica and the Dominican Republic into that agreement;
       Whereas CAFTA seeks to provide those countries with 
     increased access to the United States sugar market;
       Whereas, simultaneously, the Administration has embarked on 
     a multitude of free trade agreements with major sugar 
     producing nations such as Australia, members of the South 
     Africa Customs Union, Thailand, nations of the Western 
     Hemisphere, and others, and has made it clear that access to 
     the United States sugar market is on the negotiating table;
       Whereas, the United States sugar market is already 
     oversupplied, with declining consumption forcing domestic 
     sugar producers to store extremely high quantities of sugar;
       Whereas significant increases in sugar imports under CAFTA 
     and other trade agreements currently under negotiation could 
     render inoperable basic elements of the United States sugar 
     program enacted under the Farm Security and Rural Investment 
     Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-171);
       Whereas effects on the United States sugar program would 
     wreak havoc in the United States sugar industry, and result 
     in the loss of thousands of jobs and farms involved in sugar 
     production in 19 States across the country; and
       Whereas any constructive effort to address distortion in 
     the world sugar market should be handled multilaterally 
     through the World Trade Organization, in a manner that 
     addresses comprehensively and simultaneously the sugar 
     subsidy programs of all major world producers, and should not 
     be handled through bilateral or regional agreements: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
       (1) the President should renegotiate provisions of CAFTA 
     relating to access to the United States sugar market, so as 
     to grant no greater access to the United States sugar market 
     than is currently enjoyed by the signatories to the 
     agreement; and
       (2) the President should not include sugar as an element of 
     negotiations in any bilateral or regional free trade 
     agreement.

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to, at the conclusion of my 
remarks, offer a resolution on behalf of myself, Senators Dayton, 
Coleman, and Conrad. This resolution deals with the issue of trade 
negotiations that have been conducted with the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement countries. It also relates to my concern about the 
trade negotiations that are underway today, this morning, in 
Washington, DC, with Australia to try to create a free trade agreement 
with Australia.
  I will explain the resolution. After the whereases, it says:

       It is resolved that the sense of the Senate is that the 
     President should renegotiate provisions of the Central 
     American Free Trade Agreement relating to access to the 
     United States sugar markets so as to grant no greater access 
     to the U.S. sugar market than is currently enjoyed by the 
     signatories to this CAFTA agreement; 2, the President should 
     not include sugar as an element of negotiations in any 
     bilateral or regional free trade agreement.

  I want to explain why we feel this way. I will also observe that this 
is bipartisan in its offering. It is very important to our region of 
the country. First, let me explain sugar. Sugar comes from sugar beets 
and sugarcane produced by our growers. With sugar beets, it is in the 
Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota. We have the 
opportunity to plant beets and process the resulting crop into sugar, 
and in this country we have a robust sugar industry with many growers 
living out on the land and producing a crop and contributing to our 
economy.
  Most of the sugar internationally around the world is traded between 
countries on a contract basis--country-to-country contracts. That is 
the way most sugar is traded. But there is surplus sugar outside of 
those contracts that represents dumped sugar; it is surplus dumped 
sugar, priced at a nickel a pound, or 5, 6, 7 cents a pound, and then 
thrown all over the world wherever it may rest, and it devastates local 
markets.
  Let me describe with this chart what we have in this country. Our 
U.S. consumption of sugar is about 7.8 million metric tons, and we 
import a little over a million metric tons. We are now engaged in trade 
agreements with countries that produce a massive quantity of sugar, 
much of it for export. This is the potential exports from countries 
with whom we are engaged now in negotiations for free trade agreements. 
You can see the CAFTA countries--Central American Free Trade Agreement 
countries--which are Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica which has not yet 
signed on, El Salvador, and so on. This is Australia, Thailand, the 
Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, which includes Brazil. You can 
see this is a giant amount of sugar.
  The proposition is this. Our trade negotiator has put sugar on the 
table in grade negotiations on these bilateral agreements. The result 
of it is death by a thousand cuts to our domestic sugar producers. If 
we end where I think we will end with the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, and others, we 
will end up as a country without a domestic sugar industry.
  The sugar beet growers who live on the land and produce sugar beets 
will not be there in the future because they cannot compete and should 
not be expected to compete against dumped sugar. Yet that is where we 
are heading.
  This ought not be a part of the trade agreements the trade ambassador 
is now negotiating. The larger question with respect to sugar trade 
ought to be dealt with in the World Trade Organization, not individual 
trade agreements, with the Central American Free Trade Agreement--the 
free trade agreement with the Americas. That is the position we take, 
Senator Conrad, Senator Dayton, Senator Coleman, myself, and others 
here in the Senate.
  Let me tell you what has happened. In the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement, the U.S. Ambassador put sugar on the table and negotiated an 
agreement that was going to allow incremental sugar to come into our 
country. Will that quantity of sugar by itself destroy our industry? 
No, it will not. But the precedent will. That is because that precedent 
means sugar will be in the Australia agreement and the FTAA agreement 
and the quantity of sugar that is going to come into this country at 
dumped prices will inevitably destroy our sugar industry. That is why 
we must stop it.
  Let me tell you what happened yesterday. Yesterday, in Inside U.S. 
Trade--that is the publication--and also in North Dakota newspapers was 
a story: ``U.S. Withholds Sugar Offer in Australia Trade FTA 
Negotiations.''

       U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has said the U.S. 
     position is not to provide Australia with any increased 
     market access for sugar, said a U.S. trade official.

  Good for them. That is exactly the right position and one I support, 
one I aspire to achieve, to stop having sugar as part of these 
negotiations.
  Let me read to you today's news.

       A U.S. trade official is being quoted as saying Bush 
     administration trade negotiators have asked Australian 
     negotiators to settle for a free trade agreement which does 
     not open the U.S. market to any more Australian sugar.
       But the official denied U.S. trade representative Robert 
     Zoellick had told a North Dakota radio station that sugar had 
     been taken off the table.

  So they are saying a representative of the trade ambassador is quoted 
as saying sugar will not be in the Australia agreement--yesterday. But 
today, the official, a trade official from this administration, denied 
that Ambassador Zoellick had told a North Dakota radio station sugar 
had been taken off the table.
  Mixed messages, I would say. But at least today's news from the USTR 
is sugar is a part of this. It will be a part of it.
  That is the concern we have with the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement. When you put it in that agreement, they will want to put it 
in Australia's and Brazil's agreement, and there you go, one step at a 
time toward disaster for our growers, our farmers out there who are 
trying to make a living. They can make a living by competing. I don't 
mind asking them to compete and they don't mind competing. But they 
can't compete against dumped sugar that represents a world price of a 
nickel or 6 cents a pound, that has no relationship to the cost of

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production. All that has is a relationship to dumped price. It will 
destroy our industry.
  We are offering a resolution today--my two colleagues from the State 
of Minnesota, my colleague from North Dakota--a resolution that says to 
the President: Renegotiate the provision of the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement relating to access to the sugar market, No. 1. No. 2, 
do not include sugar as an element of negotiations in any bilateral or 
regional free trade agreement.
  I hope the Senate will pass this sense-of-the-Senate resolution. I 
hope we can get a vote on it. I hope the Senate will express itself to 
the trade ambassador and the President: Don't do this. It is unfair to 
our growers, unfair to our farmers, unfair to an industry that produces 
substantial numbers of jobs and economic opportunity.
  The sugar beet industry in the Red River Valley of North Dakota has 
$1 to $2 billion of impact in our economy, and once again I say they 
can compete and they will compete when asked to compete anywhere around 
the world, but they cannot compete against unfair trade, and dumped 
sugar is unfair trade, yet that is exactly what we are connecting to in 
these trade agreements and that is why we want to stop it right now 
before it goes further.
  Australian representatives are in Washington, DC, now. The ambassador 
for the United States who negotiates trade agreements says he wants to 
finish this agreement by the end of January. If they finish this 
agreement with Australia, my hope is the Senate will have expressed 
itself by that time in a way that says: Do not do this with respect to 
sugar. Do not take steps that potentially destroy the sugar industry in 
this country, that potentially destroy the opportunity of beet growers 
in the Red River Valley to make a living. That is not a step forward; 
that is a step backward for this country.
  I hope the trade ambassador hears this. I don't understand for the 
life of me why we got a message yesterday saying, I am going to do the 
right thing, I won't have sugar in the negotiations with Australia, and 
then today--and this is on ABC, incidentally, Online, you can go to the 
Internet and see it--today the United States trade official denied that 
the trade ambassador said that. I don't understand this at all.
  My hope is the Senate will do what it has done before on this issue 
of sugar. The Senate has taken a position on this before. The sugar 
program of ours works. It provides good prices, advantageous prices for 
the American consumer, it provides assured quality of supply, and it 
provides an opportunity, with fair trade, for our growers to make a 
living in this country in the sugar industry, an industry that is 
important to our country.
  I am going to have this resolution introduced at the conclusion of my 
remarks. My hope is my colleagues in Congress will support it. I know 
there are many who are strong supporters of the position that it is 
fine to negotiate trade agreements but it is not fine to undercut our 
country's interests with trade agreements.
  It is almost impossible for me to begin talking about trade without 
describing the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We have the 
largest trade deficit in human history right now, the largest deficit 
ever after our trade negotiations and agreements have been put in 
place--the largest deficits ever. We have an agreement with Canada and 
take a modest trade deficit and turn it into a big one. We have an 
agreement with Mexico and take a trade surplus and turn it into a big 
deficit. The trade deficit with Japan just keeps growing. The deficit 
with China is out of sight, well over $100 billion and will probably 
reach $130 billion this year; almost a third of a billion dollars a day 
in trade deficit with just China alone. With Europe? I can't even begin 
to describe the problems we have with Europe in beef and other areas. 
The fact is, we need to fix this.
  Will Rogers said many years ago, the United States of America has 
never lost a war and never won a conference. He must surely have been 
thinking of our trade negotiators. It takes them no more than a week or 
two to come back with a trade agreement that undercuts especially the 
interests of American agriculture, but if you look at the trade 
deficit, I would say undercuts this country's economic interests. It is 
not in this country's economic interests to continue to see this trade 
deficit grow and grow and grow.
  That trade deficit, incidentally, is connected to the process by 
which jobs stream out of this country, by companies that decide they 
want to produce elsewhere and ship into this country, by companies that 
decide they want to move jobs offshore. ``We want to create a new 
mailbox someplace in the Bermudas or Bahamas or some other tax haven 
country in order not to have to pay taxes to the U.S., and at the same 
time close our factories and ship jobs overseas.''
  That is what this measure is, that is the consequence of this, and 
that is why this has to change, in my judgment.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming would like 
to be added as an original cosponsor of the resolution.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming. He has 
been an assertive and strong voice on a number of these trade issues, 
including specifically the sugar issue. I am proud to have him as a 
cosponsor on this resolution.

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