Meeting President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia

MEETING PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE OF COLOMBIA

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AMENDMENT NO. 1713 TO AMENDMENT NO. 1665

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Iowa [Mr. GRASSLEY] proposes an amendment numbered 1713 to amendment No. 1665.

The amendment reads as follows:
(Purpose: To provide that funds must be used in a manner consistent with the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act of 2002)

Strike all after ``Sec. 522.'' and insert the following: ``None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used in a manner that is inconsistent with the principle negotiating objective of the United States with respect to trade remedy laws to preserve the ability of the United States--

``(1) to enforce vigorously its trade laws, including the antidumping, countervailing duty, and safeguard laws;

``(2) to avoid agreements that--

``(A) lessen the effectiveness of domestic and international disciplines on unfair trade, especially dumping and subsidies; or

``(B) lessen the effectiveness of domestic and international safeguard provisions, in order to ensure that United States workers, agricultural producers, and firms can compete fully on fair terms and enjoy the benefits of reciprocal trade concessions; and

``(3) to address and remedy market distortions that lead to dumping and subsidization, including overcapacity, cartelization, and market-access barriers.''.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, what I have tried to do in this second-degree amendment is correct some flaws in the Dorgan amendment. My amendment is also meant to ensure that we maintain the strength of our trade remedy laws.

My amendment makes it clear that no funds may be used to negotiate trade agreements that do not enable the United States to preserve our ability to enforce rigorously our trade laws, including antidumping and safeguard laws.

Quite obviously, if we have laws on our books to protect our economy from unfair competition, every Senator wants to make sure those laws are rigorously enforced, including antidumping and safeguard laws.

In addition, under my amendment, our trade negotiators must avoid agreements that lessen the effectiveness of domestic and international disciplines on unfair trade, especially for dumping and subsidies. This pertains to a situation if they would lessen the effectiveness of domestic and international safeguard provisions.

My amendment is a good amendment which will ensure our trade remedy laws remain strong and that U.S. workers have effective protection against unfair import competition.

The underlying amendment I am amending, the Dorgan amendment No. 1665, purports to do the same thing. And it might. But it also has some very serious--and perhaps, hopefully, unintended--consequences. The Dorgan amendment says no funds may be used ``to negotiate or enter into a trade agreement that modifies or amends any law of the United States that provides safeguards from unfair foreign trade practices. .....''

Now, that sounds pretty good. But if you look at this amendment a little deeper, you can see that it has serious problems. Such a sweeping amendment would prohibit our negotiators from entering into trade agreements even if the trade agreement resulted in stronger trade remedy laws.

For example, if we could not negotiate bilateral agricultural safeguards similar to those we have recently negotiated in our bilateral agreements with Chile and Australia--and these are only two examples--or maybe even in the plurilateral agreement, such as passed by the Senate, CAFTA--we could not negotiate multilateral agreements such as the OECD steel negotiations that could strengthen our trade remedy laws.

At the same time, the Dorgan amendment would severely hamper our ability to negotiate trade agreements that benefit U.S. exporters.

Now, that may be a well-intended position of my friend from the agricultural State of North Dakota--and I work with him on a lot of agricultural legislation--but it is a slippery path where we cannot even discuss trade remedies even if those discussions end up strengthening some of these remedies, such as in the case of CAFTA and Australia and Chile.

It will happen that our trade partners will respond by demanding other items be taken off the table. In other words, once we go to the table in good faith to negotiate, and we start saying, ``This is not negotiable, that is not negotiable,'' then you could understand that trading partners are all going to have their pet projects off the table. If we want to negotiate strengthening some remedies, as we did in the case of Australia, Chile, we could not do that. So I am trying to correct some of the inadequacies within this amendment.

Of course, when you start getting things taken off the table--the United States takes something off; the European Union takes something off; India takes something off--it has to have all items on the table in order to protect the economic interests of the United States. Particularly I found that going back to the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, you had to have everything on the table to win any benefit for American agriculture.

The amendment by my friend from North Dakota would only serve to hamstring our negotiators, particularly if those negotiators want to strengthen our positions, as we did in Australia and Chile. And this amendment would be doing it at a time just as we are pushing the Europeans, we are pushing the Brazilians, we are pushing the G20 group, the G10 group--and for that matter I think we are pushing every other G-numbered group you can think of--to get some help for the American economy, which comes from negotiations to get down trade barriers, to get all of these groups, Europeans, Brazilians, G20, G10, G-everybody, serious and start making meaningful concessions in these negotiations, especially for the benefit of American agriculture.

Today, foreign agricultural markets are among the most protected sectors in world trade. Global tariffs on agriculture average about 62 percent. The United States, I believe, is about 11 percent. Thus, America's farmers and ranchers have much to gain if we can deliver a comprehensive, multilateral trade agreement that lowers tariffs across the board and forces subsidizing nations to harmonize and reduce their tariffs.

Let me quantify that: 62-percent worldwide average of tariffs up here of other countries; the United States at 11 percent down here. We bring these other countries down to ours, or down part way to ours; or if we bring ours down lower, as they bring theirs down lower. Common sense dictates a win-win situation for our farmers.

Because of some of these concerns as to the Dorgan amendment that I have raised about maybe the inability to even strengthen some of our trade remedies, as we did in Australia and Chile, many groups have been concerned. This amendment by my distinguished friend from North Dakota has been before the Senate now for about 4 days, so a lot of other groups have written to me about their opposition because they are concerned about it: the American Farm Bureau, the Business Roundtable, Coalition of Service Industries, the Comprehensive Market Access Coalition, the Emergency Committee for American Trade, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Foreign Trade Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Council for International Business, and, lastly--and one that is very important to the upper Midwest--the Corn Refiners Association.

All of these groups I have listed have expressed their strong opposition to the Dorgan amendment and I would hope would be satisfied with the amendment I have put before the Senate.

Even more important than those who want this bill to become law, the administration has weighed in strongly against the Dorgan amendment. I would like to quote from a letter I received from our Commerce Secretary, Mr. Gutierrez, and our U.S. Trade Representative, former Congressman and now Ambassador Rob Portman:

..... Senator Dorgan's amendment would undermine our efforts to protect our workers and firms from unfair trade practices and to open foreign markets to America's goods and services. ..... the amendment would prevent us from negotiating agreements to improve protections against unfair trade practices where the current rules may not be fully effective.

Then they go on to say:

The amendment could also prevent us from negotiating stronger disciplines on foreign subsidies and protections for U.S. exporters against abuses by foreign users of trade remedy laws.

In fact, the Secretary and the Ambassador feel so strongly about the damages this amendment could do, they sent a letter saying they would recommend that the President veto the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill if the Dorgan amendment is included.

So the bottom line: the choice is pretty simple. If Senators want to take away an opportunity to strengthen trade remedy laws, in effect, hamper our negotiators, and at the same time ensure a veto of this bill, a veto of a bill that is very important, then support the Dorgan amendment. But if Senators want to preserve strong trade remedy laws, and even opportunities to make them stronger, and avoid a veto, then please support my second-degree amendment.

I urge my colleagues to carefully consider the stakes in this vote. I think the stakes are high. There is a way to both preserve and improve our trade remedy laws, also a way of avoiding a Presidential veto, and that would be voting for my amendment No. 1713, which is a second-degree amendment to the Dorgan amendment No. 1665.

I do not know whether the Senator from North Dakota intended to not give our negotiators an opportunity to strengthen our trade remedy laws, as we did in Australia and Chile, but my amendment will take care of that oversight.

I yield the floor.

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AMENDMENT NO. 1665

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Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have spoken previously on this amendment. I will not prolong the debate. This amendment is very simple. It says that our negotiators, in negotiating a new trade round, shall not be allowed to negotiate the weakening of the basic protections in our trade law, antidumping laws, countervailing duties, the protections that protect American ranchers and farmers and businesses and workers. We must stand up for the economic interests of this country.

The reason this amendment is necessary is because it has been widely announced that our negotiators are prepared to agree with others to lay on the table the weakening of our basic protections, such as antidumping laws and countervailing duties. That would injure this country, move more jobs outside of this country, hurt farmers, ranchers, businesses, and workers.

I hope support for this amendment will send a very strong signal to those who are negotiating these trade treaties.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to vote against this amendment, No. 1, because Commerce Secretary Gutierrez and Mr. Portman, our Trade Representative, have said they are going to recommend a veto of the bill if the Dorgan amendment is adopted.

Also, I have these organizations that have sent a letter in opposition to the amendment. The organizations include the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Peanut Product Manufacturers, Inc., the American Soybean Association, the Corn Refiners Association, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the Food Products Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the International Dairy Foods Association, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Chicken Council, the National Corn Growers Association, et cetera, et cetera--with about eight more I could read.

We have adopted my amendment now. We have a policy that is broad to make sure things are not weakened, but if they want to be strengthened, they can be strengthened, as well, as we don't take a lot of things off the negotiating table. If we are going to be successful in agriculture, we have to have a broad number of issues on the table to get any success for agriculture.

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