[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16546-16547]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              RUSSIA PNTR

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am pleased the Senate is considering a 
critical bill this week to establish permanent normal trade relations 
with Russia. I should have borrowed my friend's sign that says ``PTC 
Creates Jobs,'' which may very well be an accurate equation, but PNTR 
also will equal jobs. We can compete given the opportunity to compete, 
and that is what these trade relationships are all about. This 
legislation overwhelmingly has passed the House. It is going to have 
strong bipartisan support in the Senate, and I believe it will pass 
today and needs to pass today.
  Russia joined the World Trade Organization in August of 2012. Since 
that time, our exporters--U.S. companies--have not been able to take 
full advantage of the fact that they have this new way to get to the 
Russian market because we haven't granted permanent normal trade 
relationships to Russia.
  Since all the other major WTO members already have that permanent 
relationship, they have had a real advantage since August of last year, 
as they can move forward immediately and compete and make agreements 
that American companies can't make. American companies are the only 
companies losing market share after Russia joined the World Trade 
Organization--and not because they are not as competitive. But until we 
do what we need to do here today, they will be working at a real 
disadvantage.
  In addition to securing a level playing field for American companies, 
we also need to replace the Jackson-Vanik policy with something that, 
frankly, has now more real-world potential and real-world 
understanding. Russia is clearly not the Russia of Soviet days, but we 
still have reasons to be concerned about individual freedom of 
expression in Russia. We need to express that concern. That is why I am 
in support of a portion of this bill that Senator Cardin and Senator 
Kyl have fought for during this whole discussion and now have in this 
bill, in the House bill--the portion where we look at the terrible 
treatment and ultimate death of Sergei Magnitsky.
  This provision will ensure that those who were complicit in those 
activities and in his ill-treatment and death don't get a free pass. It 
sends messages to other countries that while we want to trade with 
them, we also want to continue to speak strongly for the rights of 
individuals, no matter where they are, to speak up against their 
government.
  Normalizing trade relations with Russia is also an important move to 
my State and, I assume, all our States. I know in Missouri we exported 
$86 million to Russia in 2011, and exports are up 6 percent already 
from that year since we started 2012. Worldwide, Missouri exports more 
than $12.3 billion in goods and services--or at least we did in 2010--
and almost half of that was exported to countries where we have free-
trade agreements. We need to continue to do that. Nearly 300 Missouri 
companies supported 32,000 jobs that were driven by exports. So 32,000 
people in Missouri have jobs because of trade, and a lot of that trade 
is in our hemisphere.
  I want to come back to that in a minute. I am concerned on the 
Russian agreement that Russia has failed to agree to bring its animal 
health and food safety measures in line with the WTO agreement on the 
application of sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, called the SPS 
agreement. I am going to continue to monitor this situation to ensure 
that American agricultural exports--and pork would be a good example of 
this--don't face market access barriers in Russia.
  Free trade has to be fair trade. Free trade doesn't work if it is not 
fair trade. If it is fair trade and free trade, American workers and 
American companies can and do actively and positively compete all over 
the world. In fact, we have a little bit of trade imbalance these days, 
and I think we should be concerned that 57 percent of it is in energy. 
If we become more energy self-sufficient, we could easily reduce our 
trade imbalance by 50 percent. If we just got North American energy as 
our focus for energy, we could only be more secure, and we would also 
have a better trade relationship.
  This legislation we are dealing with today, the Russia PNTR, builds 
on the progress we made last year with the passage of the three free-
trade amendments. Many of us on this side worked closely with our 
friends on the other side and the White House to get these long 
negotiated deals passed. In the 6 months since our free-trade agreement 
with South Korea took effect, trade between our two countries has 
increased by over $30 billion--a $30 billion increase in 6 months.
  As we are trying to figure how to grow our economy, the export world 
and free trade is one of the places we can have the most speedy 
application of what we do to grow our economy. Thirty billion dollars 
in Korea alone.
  American exports to Colombia have increased 20 percent since that 
free-trade agreement took effect. The ratification of the Panama Free 
Trade Agreement just went into effect a few weeks ago, but that enables 
American firms to fully participate in the economic opportunities that 
will occur with the expansion of the Panama Canal and the continued 
growth of that economy. What happens there is critical to us.
  This agreement, I have said already, has passed the House and I think 
it will pass the Senate today. There are other things we can and should 
do. We need to work with the President, and the President should be 
working with Republicans and Democrats who are friends of trade to do 
several things. One would be trade promotion authority. We used to call 
this fast track. This is where the administration can negotiate an 
agreement, and then the House and Senate either vote yes or no on that 
agreement. It is the only way to get agreements done in the world we 
live in today.
  Right now, the administration has no realistic way of passing trade 
agreements through the Congress. The President needs to work with 
Congress so that we will give him the authority. He needs to ask for 
it, and he needs to want it so we can have these agreements. This gives 
our trading partners the confidence they need to make the concessions 
that you make in negotiation and know that the agreement is going to be 
the agreement. It is either going to be that agreement or no agreement 
at all.
  Since the TPA lapsed in 2006, we haven't negotiated a single new 
free-trade agreement. If that doesn't tell us how important it is that 
we move back to a way to get these agreements done, I don't know what 
would.
  Second, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. These negotiations seem to me 
to be languishing right now and need senior administration attention in 
order to gather the steam they need. A strong Trans-Pacific Partnership 
is the most effective way to consolidate our leadership in that part of 
the world.
  At a time when China is aggressively moving into east Asia, we also 
need to look at the Philippines. Senator Inouye and I have a bill that 
would strengthen our relationship with the Philippines called the SAVE 
Act. I would like to see the administration work with the two of us to 
see what we could get done to have that relationship that has been so 
strong and has lasted so long become even closer as we

[[Page 16547]]

figure out how to trade with that economy in a way that makes them more 
stable and closer friends of the United States. Frankly, we will 
benefit, our workforce will benefit from that agreement.
  There is a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement that puts us in a 
better situation to trade with the European Union. This should be one 
of the easiest agreements we have ever done because we have two mature 
economies trying to trade with each other. The normal negotiations 
about labor and environment and other things that sometimes take so 
long in these agreements, frankly, shouldn't take long. The Presiding 
Officer has spent a lot of time with our NATO partners, and they would 
be the same partners that would be our EU trading partners if we will 
move forward there.
  Finally, we need fresh trade policies with the Americas. We now have 
trade agreements with six countries that were part of the Dominican 
Republic CAFTA agreement with Mexico, Canada, Panama, Colombia, Chile, 
and Peru, and we have a trading preferences agreement with Haiti. But 
we really need to look to see what we can do to trade in this 
hemisphere, improve our economic relationship with the South American 
giant country and giant economy of Brazil.
  Your best trading partners should be your neighbors. Certainly, 
Canada and Mexico have proved that. When we send Canada $1, they 
traditionally send us back somewhere in the neighborhood of $1. Right 
now it is about 91 cents. In our trade with Mexico, Mexico now sends us 
back, a year ago probably--and this number continues to grow--75 cents. 
That is why on the energy front, when we deal with them, it makes a 
difference. So they have proven that your neighbors should be your best 
trading partners.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BLUNT. We need to expand the economic partnerships to our 
neighborhood. The Western Hemisphere needs more attention. Trade makes 
sense for America. Trade creates jobs. Trade creates opportunity. I am 
glad we are voting on this trade agreement today.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maine.

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