Lugar Says Administration Not Interested in Fast Track

October 1, 1999

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) says the Clinton Administration apparently isn't interested in getting congressional approval for fast-track authority to negotiate trade treaties. Yet, he adds, the administration wants to complete the upcoming World Trade Organization talks in three years. Without fast track, "there seems to be a contradiction inherent in these two positions," says Lugar.

"Administration officials have stated that they do not view fast-track authority as a requirement for beginning a new round, citing the fact that the Reagan Administration did not have fast-track authority when it began the Uruguay Round in 1986," Lugar said at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing Thursday.

"While that is true," he continued, "most of us recall that very little, if anything, was accomplished during the first two years of the Uruguay Round. It was only after Congress voted fast-track authority in 1988 that any substantive talks occurred. Even then the progress was very slow, and the Uruguay Round negotiations did not conclude until December 1993."

Lugar and other Senators also questioned USTR special ambassador Peter Scher about the Clinton's Administration's plans for early tariff cuts in some sectors, even before the talks are finished. Farm groups have fiercely criticized this "early harvest" concept, which they believe could reduce U.S. ability to put pressure on other countries for agricultural reforms.

Scher also said the United States will use the talks to pressure Europe for faster approval of bioengineered crops. But Senators like Arkansas's Blance Lambert Lincoln were also concerned about recent statements by the Archer Daniels Midland Co. encouraging separation of genetically modified from conventional grain.

August Schumacher, Jr., USDA under secretary, told the committee the administration had developed "a bold agricultural agenda" for the talks, scheduled to open this fall in Seattle. The administration wants export subsidies eliminated, a further reduction in worldwide tariffs, an expansion of market access under tariff-rate quotas, disciplines on state trading enterprises, easier trade in biotechnology products, and no opening of the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement.

The European Union is an example of the need for those goals, Schumacher added. In its Agenda 2000 proposal, the EU "retreated from fundamental reform of its domestic agricultural policies," he said. That has led to continued use of export subsidies and domestic support programs "that distort world prices and agricultural trade." Other countries also have called on the EU to restructure its farm policies with little response, he added.

National Corn Growers Association official Kyle Phillips agreed with the goals Schumacher outlined, but he also said there should be a "WTO commitment not to restrict or prohibit the export of agricultural products." The United States, Phillips added, "must advocate a very aggressive trade agenda while defending the domestic programs that provide a minimum safety net for U.S. producers."

Leland Swenson, National Farmers Union president, said the Uruguay Round reduced budget outlays for domestic policies that provided "commodity specific assistance to producers." That left production volume management, trade levels and commodity prices for U.S. farmers and ranchers to "a global market place."

So when recent economic instability hit several nations and caused currency fluctuations and reduced demand beyond producers' control, "we witnessed historic low prices for many farm products and increased stocks due to export demand that failed to meet the growth expectations of many policy makers and merchandising and processing experts whose vested interest is the expansion of trade volumes from any source, not improved income prospects for American farmers and ranchers."

NFU wants economic impact statements developed on the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the WTO on family sized farms and ranches in the United States, by state and commodity, before any trade agreements are finalized.

"We will oppose attempts by U.S. negotiators to bargain away existing American farm policies or authorities that could limit net farm income in the United States or even in other countries. Any trade policy that negatively affects net farm income will only force efficient family sized farms into untenable economic situations, leading to the further loss of rural communities and unnecessary concentration of farming enterprises in the United States," Swenson said.