Member of Congress

Fritz Hollings

Role
Former Senator
State
SC
Party
Democrat

Speeches

TO AUTHORIZE EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA--Continued2000-09-14

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. They said, ``Hollings' crude defense of protectionism.'' They don't know what protectionism is. When you get the Government out of the competition, you do get free capitalistic activity, as Adam Smith said. Followed on by David Ricardo and his so- called comparative advantage, which said when you put the Government in, the Government has the right to print money. The Government certainly is not going to let the industry fail. Deutsche Telekom had a bond issued earlier this year and got $14 billion. Their stock has gone from 100 down to 40. The fellow brags in the newspaper: I have $100 billion in my back pocket. I am going to buy AT&T, MCI, Sprint, or any of them--they are all subject--and I want total control. So what he has told you in plain, bold language is that the German Government, which owns Deutsche Telekom, says: Heads up, I'm coming in to buy your companies and get total control. That is a distortion of the free market. That would be protectionism. I am trying to avoid that and keep the Government out of the market. I was one of the leaders in the 1996 act deregulating telecommunications. So we got the U.S. Government out, but certainly not to put the German Government in. But here they go writing these editorials about I'm a protectionist. They have no idea what's going on. That is how far off we have gotten with respect to trade. So let's get to the point. What we do is that we trade more. We export more to Belgium. We export more to the city-state of Singapore than we do to the People's Republic of China. We've got a good, viable trade partner there. We don't have any exports. I will get to the technology on another amendment. They said that high-tech is going to do it. The truth is, high tech doesn't create the jobs. I will put it in one line: We have a deficit and a balance of trade in high technology with the People's Republic of China. So mark you me, this is not going to do it whatsoever. So my amendment, which ought to be read simply so we can find out who is telling the truth and find out what the imports and exports are and what the jobs are and where they are going. Here it is: The Securities and Exchange Commission shall amend its regulations to require the inclusion of the following information in 10-K reports required to be filed with the commission. This is just information. The number of employees employed by the reporting entity outside the United States directly, indirectly, or through a joint venture or other business arrangement listed by country; the annual dollar volume of exports of goods manufactured or produced in the United States by the reporting entity to each country to which it exports; the annual dollar volume of imports of goods manufactured or produced outside the United States by the reporting entity with each country. So we will find out with these reports just exactly where we are and what the competition is, whether they are increasing jobs in the U.S. rather than decreasing. The opposition to this amendment is telling everybody to forget about it, it is another one of those Hollings amendments and we have to send it to the President and we have other more important business--there is no more important business than what is going on on the floor of the Senate--10-K reports. I don't want to belabor or compound the record itself, but I have in my hand the Boeing 10-K report. For example, Boeing, on its 10-K report, says ``the location and floor areas of the company's principal operating properties as of January 1, 2000.'' I wish you or somebody who is really interested could look at that 10-K report. They have every little item about the square footage. They know how many employees. They know generally how many employees they have, but they do not say where and what country. That is all we are asking for--the number of employees; then, the dollar volume of imports and exports, and from whence. That is all. That is all we are asking for in this particular amendment so we can get that to the Department of Commerce and finally find out. Back in the 1970s when we were debating trade, the Department of Commerce gave me this figure: 41 percent of American consumption of manufactured goods was from imports. That was 20-some years ago. I know that over half of what you and I consume is imported. We are going out of business. We don't have a strong nation. High-tech is not strengthening whatsoever--temporary employees and software people and Internet billionaires, as Newsweek wrote about the other day. But they are not really the automobile workers and parts workers or industry workers. We have the so-called ``rust belt'' in the United States. Talk how exports--that is the parts they are still making up there and sending down to Mexico to come back into finished automobiles. The most productive automobile plant in the world is not Detroit. It is down in Mexico at the Ford plant, according to J.D. Powers. I have the Bell South 10-K report. As of December 31, 1999, they employed approximately 96,200 individuals; 64,000 were employees of the telephone operation, and 55,000 represented the communications workers. They have a lot of detailed information. But all we want is the number and which country. That is all we are asking for with respect to those employees--their imports and exports. Why did the Boeing machinists lead the parade last December up in Seattle at the World Trade Organization? The premium showcase export industry of the United States was leading the parade against WTO because their jobs have gone to China. All you have to do is continue to read the different articles. We have one with respect to our friend Bill Greider, who put out a very interesting article. He wrote when President Clinton promoted Boeing aircraft sales abroad--boy, that was wonderful. He had gotten Boeing. For instance, he did not mention that in effect he was championing Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and Fuji, the Japanese heavies that manufacture a substantial portion of Boeing' planes; or that Boeing was offloading jobs from Seattle and Wichita to China as part of the deal. There it is. We are exporting our jobs. This book is nearly 6 years of age. But let me retain the remainder of my time. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I have tried, in my feeble ability here over the years, to get the Senate to pay attention to the lack of a competitive trade policy. I had hoped on this PNTR, permanent normal trade relations, with China that we might have a good debate with respect to our trade policy--whether or not the American people approve of it and whether there are some adjustments that should be made. Meanwhile our trade deficit goes up, up, and away. I was a Senator here in the early 1980s when we had a positive balance of trade. I remember when it reached a $100 billion deficit in the balance of trade; and there were all kinds of headline articles back in the 1980s, that--Chicken Little--the sky was going to fall, and everything else like that. Now we have been numbed. It has gone to $100, $200, $300 billion, and it approximates to a $400 billion deficit in the balance of trade. They don't even discuss it in the Presidential campaign. And they absolutely refuse to discuss it in the world's most deliberative body. They refuse to deliberate. They bring a fixed bill to the floor. And it is terribly tough to talk to a fixed jury. But that is the way it is. The jury is fixed. The legislation is fixed. There are no amendments. We send this to the President. The National Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the Conference Board and the National Association of Manufacturers are continuing their export of the industrial backbone of this Nation. Obviously, they make a bigger profit. They could care less about the country. In fact, years back, the chairman of the board of Caterpillar said: We are not an American company, we are international. Not long ago, earlier this year, the head of Boeing said: Oh no, we are not a United States company, we are an international company. And the best of the best, Jack Welch of GE says: We are not going to buy from our suppliers unless they send those jobs down to Mexico. There is a good, wonderful Business Week article about that--we are limited in time or I would read it--but that is exactly what he said. Unless his subcontractors went to Mexico, he was going to do business with those who had gone. So we are in one heck of a fix. They do not understand trade. Free trade is, of course, an oxymoron. Trade is an exchange for something. It is not to give something for nothing. It is not aid. But we have been treating foreign trade--free trade--as foreign aid. They just ipso facto in those polls: Are you for free trade? Oh, I am for free trade, obviously. Obviously, they are trying to say: I am for trade without restrictions and barriers. But mind you me, we are all for world peace, but we do not disband the Pentagon. As the father of the country said: The best way to preserve the peace is to prepare for war. The best way to obtain free trade is not to roll over, as we have for the past 50 years, and plead and cry and moan and groan: fair, fair, fair, fair. Whoever heard of anybody in business being fair? In America, business, unfortunately, is solely for profit. Do not give us any of these ``fairness doctrines'' of the board of directors of corporate America. You have to be able to raise a barrier in order to remove a barrier. You have to compete. All we need is a competitive trade policy. In that light, let me say at the outset, I am not against China. All of these amendments have been very good ones with respect to the human rights in China, with respect to weapons of mass destruction, with China not keeping its commitments, and so forth. Why should they keep their commitments? Japan never has. Come on. Korea knows that. China learns. Monkey see, monkey do. They said: All you have to do is puff and blow. We'll get together. And America--the United States--will roll over. So don't come around here berating China. Buy yourself a mirror and look in it. It is the Senate. Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution says: The Congress shall regulate foreign commerce--not the President, not the Supreme Court, not the Special Trade Representative, but the Congress of the United States. And although the Trade Representative is running around trying to forge new agreements that contradict our laws, even those, if they are to take the force and effect of law, have to be in the form of a treaty ratified by this Senate. So we are way out of kilter and acting with total disregard. We have gone, from the end of World War II, from 41 percent of our workforce in manufacturing down to 12 percent. The Department of Commerce just reported this last month of August, we lost 69,000 manufacturing jobs. I will never forget the exchange with the former head of Sony up in Chicago. He was lecturing the Third World, the emerging nations, and said for them to become a nation-state, they had to develop a manufacturing capacity. Somewhat afterward, pointing at me, he said: By the way, Senator, that world power that loses its manufacturing capacity will cease to be a world power. The security of the United States is like a three-legged stool. The one leg, of course, is our values. We are respected the world around for our commitment to freedom and human rights. The second leg, obviously, is the military, the superpower. But the third economic leg has been fractured over the past 50 years, as we have made a very successful attempt to conquer communism with capitalism. We sent over the Marshall Plan. We sent over the technology. We sent over the expertise. But we rolled over with respect to actually enforcing any kind of trade policy. I testified, some 40 years ago, before the old International Tariff Commission. Tom Dewey ran me around the room. The argument was: Governor, what do you expect these emerging countries, coming out of the ruins of the war, what do you expect them to make? Let them and the Third World countries, let them make the shoes and the clothing, and we will make the airplanes and the computers. Now I stand on the floor, and our global competition, they make the shoes. They make the clothing. They make the airplanes. They make the computers. They make it all. And we are going out of business. And as we go out of business, they say this particular initiative, PNTR, is good for business. It is good for their profit, but not, in the long run, good for business, no. They have to have employees. And don't worry about the productivity of the U.S. industrial worker. We have been for 30-some years now rated not only by the Bureau of Labor Statistics but by the international economic section of the United Nations as having the most productive industrial worker in the entire world. They are working harder and harder and longer hours and are getting paid less than they are in Germany, paid less than they are in Japan and several other countries. The U.S. industrial worker is not overpaid, and he is not underworked. He works more hours than any other industrial worker. Here we are, in the Senate, blabbing, be fair, whining, be fair, be fair. We continue to heap on the cost of doing business--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, minimum wage, safe working place, safe machinery, plant closing notice, parental leave. You can go right on down the list of all of these things we think up, and we, on a bipartisan basis, support them all. That goes into the cost of doing business. So since NAFTA, 38,700 jobs have left the little State of South Carolina and gone down to Mexico where none of those conditions I just mentioned are required, and they have the audacity to stand in the well and say NAFTA worked. They told us at the time of the NAFTA vote it was going to create jobs; 200,000 is the figure they used. The Chamber of Commerce, the NAM, Business Roundtable, the Secretary of Commerce, the President of the United States: We are going to create 200,000 jobs. We have lost 440,000 textile jobs alone since NAFTA. I don't know how many jobs they have lost up in New Hampshire, but I am confident I can go over to the Department of Labor and find out. Jobs are our greatest export. Export, export, from those who have never really been in trade--I practiced customs law--they keep hollering, export, export. The biggest export we have is our jobs. I am not against China. I am against us. That is who I am trying to awaken with these amendments, trying to engage in a debate so we can learn from a country with a $350- to $400 billion trade deficit, costing 1 percent of our GNP. They keep saying: Watch out, that dollar is going to have to be devalued. You watch it, when that happens, interest rates go up. Then they will all be whining around here. I remember the little $5 billion we put in some 25 years ago--we were trying to create jobs--$5 billion for the highways, just to advance highway construction, just to create jobs. Five billion? We have lost billions of dollars just this last month, way more than $5 billion in jobs; I can tell you that. The idea is, as President Lincoln said, and there is no quote more appropriate: The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. That was in his annual message to the Congress back in December of 1862. We must disenthrall ourselves. We must act anew, think anew, disenthrall ourselves, and try to save us, the great Yankee trader from New Hampshire, and all of those other Northeastern States. We had all this agriculture down South, and we believed in all that international trade. That was the Civil War. That famous Yankee trader has rolled over now, and he has gone overseas. We are definitely not against China. I could talk at length about their human rights policy. Their first human right is to feed 1.3 billion. The second is to house 1.3 billion. The third is to educate 1.3 billion. The fourth is one man, one vote. But, of course, the politicians are running around on the floor of the Congress: We want one man, one vote. You travel there. I was there in 1976 and 1986 and 1996. You go there and you see the progress towards capitalism. I am for continued trade. I have offered to cut out the ``permanent'' so I could continue this dialog with my colleagues on the floor to try to get something going of a competitive nature. We certainly don't go along with Tiananmen Square and everything else such as that, but it works for the Chinese. Suppose you were the head of China. If you let one demonstration get out of hand, another one gets out of hand. You have total chaos, with a population of 1.3 billion. Then nothing gets done. So there has to be some kind of traumatic control; let's be realistic. Don't berate them about their environment right now. It took us 200 years, and we still don't have these waste dumps cleaned up. We still don't have clean air in certain States. Workers' rights, we haven't gotten all of our workers' rights. They don't have a right to a job because they are fast disappearing. That is what it is all about. And it is not against business. Jerry Jasinowski, the distinguished head of the National Association of Manufacturers, put an article in yesterday's New York Times, entitled ``Gore's War on Business.'' I ask unanimous consent to print the article in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. These workers, he says, have been duly rewarded. Not at all. He talks about the manufacturing pay is less than their competition, that they are working long hours. They haven't been duly rewarded. What is the unease, the anxiety that they are talking about? The anxiety they are talking about is having the job. The great success of business in creating good jobs seems to be lost. He should have read the release put out the day before. I ask unanimous consent to have this NAM report on manufacturing trade printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the fact of the matter is, I know the managers of the bill have very important business to engage them, but what we are seeing here is really not just an insult to the issue at hand and this particular Senator, but what we are seeing is an insult to the Senate as the most deliberative body in the world. What they do, with respect, rather than engaging in debate, is go into the morning hour and talk about prescription medicine and Wen Ho Lee or anybody else they want to talk about--anything except trade. They know they have the vote fixed. We have had the requirement, under the Pastore rule, that you address your comments to the subject at hand. I never have wanted to call that rule on the colleagues, but I will be forced to if we are going to come back and just have morning hours. I was in a caucus earlier here at lunch. People are trying to get out of town tomorrow. I am trying to cooperate with respect to having early votes. I am willing to yield back the remainder of my time on this one. If I can hear any disputed evidence or testimony from the other side, I will be glad, then, to debate it. But if that is what they want to do, I will move on to the next amendment. I hope they get the message so we get somebody to the floor and move the amendments just as expeditiously as we can. I suggest the absence of a quorum and charge the other side because they don't care. I mean they are not even using the time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, right to the point here, there are two surprising features with respect to the globalization, global competition, international trade. I continue to try to get the Senate and the Congress itself, charged under the Constitution, article I, section 8, to fulfill its responsibility. The eye-opener has to do with agriculture, and the eye-opener has to do with technology. This particular amendment deals with the technological argument that we hear about the wonderful opportunity we have that ``you just don't understand, Senator.'' That is what we hear--that we have gone from the smokestack to post-industrial to high- tech. Everybody is running around talking about high-tech and the wonderful economy. Well, I wish high-tech did contribute that much to the economy. But the fact of the matter is there are not that many jobs, and the few jobs that are there just don't pay. Let me summarize this amendment. I ask, as a result, that the balance of trade with China in advanced technology projects be reported by the President to the Congress each year. That is in advanced technology products in an amount in excess of $5 billion. We now have a deficit in the balance of trade with the People's Republic of China of $3.2 billion, as of the end of 1999. Now I have heard from the best of sources that that deficit could become an approximate $5 billion. So I am asking the President that if it exceeds $5 billion, we not only report it, but request a negotiation with the People's Republic of China to see if we can eliminate that imbalance. That is all the amendment calls for. It is all permissive requests, asking the President to do it. There is no burden whatsoever, but it is certainly in the context of global competition that we talk about it. Let's start acting as if we know something about the competition. I say that the jobs don't pay and there are not that many of them. Right to the point, by comparison, for example, in Redmond, WA, Microsoft has 21,000 jobs when Boeing down the road has 100,000. There are many more jobs at General Motors, Ford, the auto parts industry, and otherwise, than there are in high-tech. There is a lot of money in software, and therein you find these Internet billionaires trying to get market share--not profit. They haven't come out with a profit yet. But there has been a footrace on the New York Stock Exchange to get market share and invest in those who are winners. That is understandable. That is fine. That is the American way. We applaud it. However, when you look at the number of jobs, you can go to Oracle, you can go to America Online. They now have their employees in the Philippines. Microsoft has several thousand of its employees offshore. In 1992, a suit was brought by the so-called ``part-time temporary'' employees claiming they ought to share in these stock options, other health benefits, and otherwise. They are really working full time. They won the suit. Now they have changed them to temporary employees so they are not allowed to work over 364 days a year to comply with the law. This is an article from around the beginning of the year. In Santa Clara, the heart of Silicon Valley, the number of temporary workers has jumped to 42 percent of the workforce this year, from 19 percent in the 1980s. With respect to Microsoft, temporary workers have accounted for as much as one-third of its roughly 20,000-person workforce in the Puget Sound area. In May, it stood at 5,300. I know the industrial workers at BMW, for example, have benefits and earn $21 to $22 an hour in Spartanburg, SC. We enjoy that. We appreciate it. It doesn't call for necessarily a computer expert or college graduate. There are many college graduates, of course, in the workforce. But these are jobs for high school graduates--the majority of our working population. These are the jobs for the seniors in the middle class of our democracy. Everybody is running around as if there is joy in the world on money. But they are not thinking of the strength of the democracy economically and the strength the middle class brings to our democracy, with jobs for high school graduates and not just high-tech college degrees. Of course, it is said that the technology industry now has a shortage. There is no shortage. If they only gave them full-time work, they would be there. What they are really applying for are the college graduates out of India and other countries to come in under the immigration laws. They don't want to have to pay the temporary workers even around $35,000 a year when they can get Indian workers for $25,000 a year--any way they can cut costs. Even Chinese-trained workers and others come in. They would like to change the immigration laws to cut back the permanent high-paid workforce and put in this low-paid temporary work practice. That is an eye opener to me because I just couldn't understand why they couldn't find skilled workers. The truth is, I have proof. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. It is not just bragging. It is true, as they say. We have the best in technical training in South Carolina, and we are for high tech. There isn't any question about that. We are attracting Hoffman-LaRoche, Hitachi, Honda--go right on down the list--Michelin, and all the rest of the fine industries from afar. We are proud of it. We are proud of these foreign investors. At the same time, we have to compete and maintain the strength of our economy. Look at the People's Republic of China and the comparison of exports to imports in advanced technology. The parts of advanced machinery deficit is $18.23 billion; parts and accessories of machinery not incorporating, $7.74 billion; parts of turbojet or turbo-propeller engines $4.01 billion; turbojet aircraft engines, $3.74 billion. These are all deficits with the People's Republic of China. Parts for printers, $3.52 billion; cellular radio telephones, $3.2 billion; videocassette cartridge recorders, $2.32 billion; display units, $1.64 billion; optical disk players, $1.64 billion; medical and surgical instruments and appliances, $1.22 billion; transistors, $740 million; facsimile machines, $670 million; television receivers, $57 million; laser printers, $480 million. I could keep going down the list. The point is that we have had a great relationship with the People's Republic of China. But in the required transfers of technology, that plus balance of trade has now resulted in a deficit in the balance of trade. Advanced technology products represent a rare consistent source of earnings for the United States. During the last decade alone, the surplus in global sales was $278 billion. But during the same period, U.S. trade deficits with China totaled $342 billion. It is worsening every year. That has occurred in spite of the numerous agreements with China to end the obligatory transfer of technology from U.S. companies to their Chinese counterparts to protect intellectual property and to ensure regulatory transparency and the rule of law. Failure to implement these agreements goes a long way in explaining why the total U.S. deficit with China has doubled from $338 billion in 1995, to $68.7 billion by the end of 1999. The United States also lost its technological trade surplus with China in 1995 and has suffered deficits in this area every year since then. Last year, U.S. technology exports to China failed by 17 percent while the imports soared by 34 percent. The record $3.2 billion technology trade deficit in 1999 may reach $5 billion. This year, technology imports now cost twice as much as the falling U.S. exports. Quite simply, China is developing its own export-driven, high-tech industry, and with U.S. assistance. A recent Department of Commerce study found that transferring important technology and next generation scientific research to Chinese companies is required for any access to the Chinese cheap labor force or its market. Three of the most critical technology areas are computers, telecommunications, and aerospace. The United States lost its surplus in computers and components to China in 1990, and now pays seven times as much for imports as it earns from exports. Compaq: Another foreign computer company that once dominated the Chinese market a decade ago has now been displaced by a local company. After 20 years of normal trade relations with China, no mobile telephones are exported from the United States to China. Indeed, the United States trade with China in mobile phones involves only the payment for rapidly rising imports that now cost $100 million a year. China has total control of its telephone networks. It recently abrogated a big contract with Qualcom, Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia and sold 85 percent of China's mobile phone handsets until recently. Last November, China's Ministry of Information imposed import and production quotas on mobile phones, producers, and substantial support for nine Chinese companies. Now, this agreement doesn't disturb those quotas. It does not open up that market. The People's Republic of China expects the nine companies to raise their market share from the current 5 percent to 50 percent within 5 years. The United States now has a large and rapidly growing deficit with China in advanced radar and navigational devices. Nearly half of all U.S. technology exports to China during the 1980s were Boeing aircraft and 59 percent were in aerospace. But according to the SEC filings, Boeing's gross sales to and in China have generally fallen since 1993. Incidentally, that is easy to report. It is being reported by Boeing and we just asked all of the companies to do what Boeing is doing. Boeing MD 90-30 was certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration last November with Chinese companies providing 70 percent of local contents. That is a Chinese airline, and they wonder why the Boeing workers led the strike in Seattle last December. More troubling, with the help of Boeing, Airbus, and others, China has developed its own increasingly competitive civilian and military aerospace production within 10 massive state-owned conglomerates. China is a valuable U.S. partner in many matters, but it is also a significant competitor. Experiences in the United States with deficits worsening after tariff cuts and other agreements show this is not the time to abandon strong U.S. trade laws, but rather to begin to apply them fairly and firmly, since 42 percent of China's worldwide exports go to the United States. The Chinese know how to compete. In 1990, we passed in the United Nations General Assembly a resolution to have hearings with respect to human rights in the People's Republic of China. I will never forget, they fanned out over the Pacific down into Australia, Africa, India and everywhere else, and of course they are very competitive. What do they do? The Chinese focus their diplomatic efforts on separating West European governments from the United States by offering them token political concessions and hinting they would retaliate economically against any country that supported the resolution in Geneva. A vote after 7 years, each year, and the 7th year it was turned down again by a vote of 27-17. They know how to use their valuable, mammoth 1.3 billion population market. But we, with the richest market in the world, don't want to use it. Be fair, we whine; we continue to be fair and whine. Now, with that $68 to $70 billion deficit in the balance of trade, that is their 8-percent growth. We could say we are just not going to continue this one-sided deal and we are not going to continue to import their articles. We will just stop them as they have stopped us, and with the growth they have to have, they will come to the table and talk turkey. There is no chance in the world with these children here who are in charge of our trade policy. They keep going up there to talk and talk. Again, Ambassador Barshefsky testified at the hearings: ``The rules put an absolute end to forced technology transfers.'' That was after the WTO agreement with the People's Republic of China. ``The rules put an absolute end to forced technology transfers''--but fast forward a few months. This is what they had in the Wall Street Journal, from Wednesday, June 7 of this year: ``Qualcom Learns from its Mistakes in China, U.S. Mobile Phone Maker Listens to Beijing's Call for Local Production.'' They report that after losing a lucrative deal to supply off-the- shelf cellular phones to China, Qualcom is mapping a new strategy to sell next-generation products in the world's fastest growing mobile phone market. In other words, to send over their technology. They talk about these agreements, but as John Mitchell, the former Attorney General said: Watch what we do, not what we say. Look at what they actually do and it is a disaster. Mr. President, I have a few pages of the deficits and balance of advanced technology trade with the People's Republic of China. I ask unanimous consent this be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. You have to read this one line, quoting Jasinowski: Of the total $228 billion U.S. merchandise trade deficit, so far this year 77 percent has been in manufacturing. That is a deficit in manufacturing. Can you imagine that, Mr. President? So the leaders of business and the head of manufacturing say get rid of the manufacturing. He seems to be proud of it. If I had found that statistic in my research, I would have secured it and stuck it, or deep-sixed it, or whatever you call it because you didn't really want to publicize the fact that you are losing the manufacturing jobs. With respect to understanding the need to have a competitive trade policy, the President of the United States was up in New York just last week, and he had his counterpart from London there, Tony Blair. They were talking. The news reports said Tony Blair was worried about 1,000 cashmere jobs. Why? Because we were going to put some heavy duty tariff on cashmere. For what? For bananas. We don't even produce bananas. Good Lord, have mercy. That is how far out the leadership of this country has gone. We don't even produce bananas. But Europe is not taking some other country's bananas, so we go and say we are going to start a trade war. The Prime Minister is worried about 1,000 jobs, and here I am worried about at least 800,000 jobs. Tell Tom Donohue of the Chamber of Commerce--he says he is going to create 800,000 jobs. I bet you we will lose that number of jobs with this PNTR. He knows it and I know it. They are all begging for jobs, and the President is worried and everything else of that kind, and even the media don't know what protectionism is. That is what you will soon listen to--protectionism. I hold up my hand to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I ask unanimous consent that an article entitled, ``Beware Plausible Protectionists'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 4136, and I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The other side.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I understand from the other side, now I can yield back our time; they would yield their time, and move to the next amendment. That being the case, I yield back my time and I understand the other side yields back its time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 4129 of the Senator from New Hampshire. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant bill clerk called the roll.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want a rollcall on this one because it deals with agriculture. At the present time, surprisingly, we have a deficit in the balance of trade overall in agriculture with the People's Republic of China. We do have a plus balance of trade in wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans. We want to maintain that trade. We want to help that wheat farmer in Montana. So this amendment simply says, if we get to a deficit in the balance of trade for America's farmers in wheat, corn, rice, or soybeans, that the President is requested to see if he can negotiate a better term. That is all the amendment calls for. I am sure the farmers want a recorded vote on this one. They want us to show we are supporting America's agriculture.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, at the present moment we have a $350 billion deficit in the balance of trade with the People's Republic of China, and it promises to increase. But proponents of the bill say: No, this is going to open the market in China for advanced technology. At the moment, we do have a deficit in the balance of trade in advanced technology, according to the Department of Commerce, of $3.5 billion. So this amendment says, after January 1, from thereafter, if it exceeds $5 billion, that the President try to renegotiate and get better terms. This is only a request on behalf of the President. This amendment ought to be adopted, really, by a voice vote. We can do away with the rollcall, if you want to.

Mr. HOLLINGS. This amendment deals with the Export-Import Bank. James Harmon, president, stated that the principal beneficiaries under the Export-Import Bank had a 700,000 job loss or more during the past 10 years. What we are doing, in essence, is financing our own demise. So the amendment simply states that when you apply for this particular subsidy, you must certify that you haven't moved your manufacture overseas or that you haven't sent your advanced technology abroad. Many of my colleagues have been trying to catch a plane. I wish they would take me with them. As a result, I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the order for a rollcall vote.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the remaining Hollings amendments. I think they may have been ordered on one. I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays on the other two.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will not take that long. My distinguished colleague, the chairman of our Finance Committee is really is one of our outstanding Members. I have every respect for his leadership--but on this particular score, he talks about the great market we have and that this amendment would require the President to intervene to obtain a certain balance of trade. Not at all. What I am trying to do is avoid a deficit in the balance. As they say, they are a great market. As long as the soybean association is right, as long as the wheat association is right, and the other 63-some-odd associations are right, you will never hear any more about this amendment. It will be dead on the books because nothing will have to be triggered. I am taking their word for it. I know otherwise. I have been in the agricultural business. When you mention the American Farm Bureau, I almost have to laugh. They have to do with everything but with farming. It is an insurance company. They have many times come out against the interests of the farmer. I have taken an agriculture case, on the dairy score, all the way to the Supreme Court. I learned that my dairy farmers put their milk out on the stoop, that on the first of the month it is picked up, and they don't learn for 30 days--or sometimes 2 months--whether that is going to be classed grade A, class I grade A, or whether it is going to be class III grade C. There is a tremendous difference in price. It is up to the processor to determine whether it is going to go into processing ice cream, cottage cheese, or whether it is going to be pasteurized and put on the stoop as class I grade A. So the poor farmer keeps his mouth shut because he has to get along. In short, the farmer is in the hands of the processor and the distributor in most instances. That is why you have these organizations and Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill, everybody else. They can run around and easily get these resolutions. But the hard, cold fact is, I am here for the wheat farmer, for the soybean farmer, for the corn farmer. All I am saying is, you are telling me I am going to be able to expand this wonderful market. Well, I am looking, and seeing it has contracted, and overall we have a deficit right now. I know 3\1/2\ million cannot outproduce 800 million. I know I am obligated under the agreement to bring the 800 million up to snuff with the 3\1/2\ million. So I am saying: Wait a minute here. Let's not go pell-mell down the road and ruin the one great thing we have, and that is America's agriculture. You ruined the manufacturing. Now you want to ruin its agriculture. So that is why my amendment is here. Oh, yes, there is one other point. China will gain access to the WTO. The distinguished Senator and I agree on that. But he thinks that, ipso facto, it opens the market. Japan, for 5 years has been a member of the WTO. Try to get some of these things into Japan. For those who are solely unknowing, for those who have not studied the case, if you think being a member of the WTO opens markets, you are wrong. Japan is the best example, and China is going the same way. Since they have signed this agreement, and since Ambassador Barshefsky said we did not have to have any more technology transfers in order to do business, Qualcom and many others have learned otherwise since that testimony before the Finance Committee. Amendment No. 4137

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time on amendment No. 4135, and I call up amendment No. 4137 on the Export- Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this is the dilemma we are in. We not only don't know what we are doing, we are causing great damage to the workers in America. We are all running around America saying: I am fighting for working families. Well, we are eliminating working families here on the floor of the Congress. Over the past 6 years, Congress appropriated $5 billion to run the Export-Import Bank of the United States. It subsidizes companies that sell goods abroad. James A. Harmon, President and Chairman put it this way: American workers have higher quality, better paying jobs, thanks to the Eximbank's financing. But the numbers at the bank's five biggest beneficiaries--AT&T, Bechtel, Boeing, General Electric, and McDonnell Douglas, which is now a part of Boeing--tell another story. At these companies, which have accounted for about 40 percent of all loans, grants, and long-term guarantees in this decade, overall employment has fallen 38 percent. Almost 800,000 jobs have disappeared. We are taxing the American public to pay for the elimination of these fine jobs. What does my amendment say: It says, notwithstanding any other provision of law, in addition to the requirements--and there are all kinds of requirements at Exim and OPIC--neither the Export-Import Bank or the Overseas Private Investment Corporation can provide risk insurance after December 31 of this year unless the applicant certifies that it has one, not transferred advanced technology to the People's Republic of China or, two, has not moved any production facilities until after January 1, 2001, from the United States to the People's Republic. I want to cut out the ``P'' from PNTR. I can see the lack of knowledge and certainly maybe sometimes the disregard, but to actually come in here and raise taxes to finance the Eximbank and OPIC to, in turn, finance the export of these jobs or the elimination of over 800,000 jobs, we have lost over a million manufacturing jobs in the last decade. There is no question about it. We are just going out of manufacturing entirely. We are going into making hamburgers and handling the laundry, and there are a few software folks buying the stock, making themselves some money, but even the software employee is part time. The construction worker today now has been put off as an independent contractor. He is not under health care. The department store workers are also either independent contractors or part time workers. We have taken and decimated the workforce. And they are wondering why there is malaise or anxiety. Here is the President back in May: Clinton asked rhetorically: ``So why are we having this debate, because people are anxiety ridden about the forces of globalization.'' They tell us we just don't understand the forces of globalization. After that one, I have a cover article, I ask unanimous consent to print this article. It is very interesting, ``The Backlash Behind the Anxiety of Over Globalization,'' in Business Week, dated April 24.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4135. Mr. President, the other eye opener in international trade is the matter of agriculture. I have always had a strong agricultural interest, support, in my years in public office. I willingly support price supports and quotas on agricultural products. America's agriculture is allegedly the finest in the world. We produce enough to feed ourselves and 15 other countries. But we only have 3.5 million farmers and there are 800 million farmers in the People's Republic of China. They are not only now producing to the extent where they have a glut--mind you me, I said that advisedly--a glut in agriculture, they will continue to expand upon their agricultural production once they solve the transportation and distribution problem, and start feeding the entire world. It is very difficult to understand how any of my farm friends here-- who are always calling us protectionists when we have never asked for any kind of subsidies or protection whatsoever--but if people lose their jobs, 38,700 who have lost their textile jobs, they are supposed to be retrained, you know, and get ready for high tech and the global economy. They are supposed to understand it. Agriculturally, if a few thousand farms lose out here with the bad weather, be it a storm or be it a drought, we immediately appropriate the money to take care of it. I will never forget this so-called Freedom to Farm measure that was put in here 3 years ago. Each year, now, we have gone up and increased--rather than the freedom, the subsidies: Some $7 to $8 billion. In contrast now, with the People's Republic of China, we have a deficit in a lot of items. The total agricultural trade balance is $218 million for the year 1999. Fish and crustaceans, $266 million; dairy products, $14 million--$266 million. Dairy produce; Birds' Eggs, Honey; Edible--$14.8 million. This is how they list it and that is why I read it this way. Products Of Animal Origin, Nesoi--$93.7 million. Live Trees And Other Plants; Bulbs, Roots--$3.7 million; Edible Vegetables And Certain Roots, Tubers--$55.8 million; Edible Fruit And Nuts; Peel Of Citrus Fruit--$30.6 million; Coffee, Tea, Mate And Spices--a deficit of $43.1 million; Lac; Gums; Resins And Other Vegetable Saps--$44.9 million; Edible Preparations Of Meat, Fish, Crustaceans--$69.9 million; Sugars And Sugar Confectionary--$7.8 million; Cocoa And Cocoa Preparations--$15.2 million; Preparations of Cereals, Flour, Starch Or Milk--$23.1 million; Miscellaneous Edible Preparations--$17.1 million. Listen to this one: Cotton. Here I am struggling in South Carolina, the South, cotton--I am importing cotton from the People's Republic of China. I have a $12.3 million surplus in cotton, not carded but combed. It would be unfair to talk, with this particular amendment, about the deficit and all of these things because we already have a deficit. We do have a plus balance of trade in wheat, corn, and rice. It is listed under cereals, is the way they list it at the Department of Agriculture. We have a plus balance of trade in wheat, corn, and rice, and a plus balance of trade in soybeans. That is why I made this amendment to read ``wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans.'' I wanted to start off, as in soybeans, I have a plus balance of trade of $288.1 million. So we are happy. We have a plus balance of trade of wheat, corn, and rice of $39.6 million. I am looking at that particular category and whereby 4 years ago we had a plus balance of $440.7 million, it is down to $39.6 million. It promises maybe next year to go to a deficit. I have all the farm boys saying: Wait a minute, wait a minute, we have to export. We have to export agriculture, export agriculture. We are not exporting agriculture, on balance, to the Peoples' Republic of China. We have a deficit. We are importing it now. If this continues, we will definitely have a deficit, in the sense--let me tell you what this agreement calls for. We are trying to really improve the competitor. These are the kind of agreements we make when we send Barshefsky and that crowd abroad. I read: China and the United States agree to actively promote comprehensive cooperation in agriculture, in the field of high technology, and encourage research institutes and agricultural enterprises to collaborate in high-tech research and development. Do not for a minute think the Chinese are not coming. They are going to come for those high-tech items, go to our agricultural colleges, go to our experimental development stations, and they are going to collaborate on all the high-tech research and development. Mostly, they will be taking; they are not giving any. Reading further: China and the United States agree enterprises should be urged to make investment in each country to produce and do business in high-tech agricultural products. They will have to make investments in that country to produce and do business in high-tech agricultural products. They agree with the content provision in agriculture, and yet my colleagues say: Whoopee, this is a wonderful agreement. I think I will be around here long enough for these farmers to go out of business. Watch them. That wheat, as I said, is going from 440 million in a 4-year period down to just 40 million bushels. Reading further: Review and technical assistance--the United States will review its technical assistance programs in China to consider ways to increase the efficacy of these programs. The United States will create special educational symposiums specific to China's needs in cooperation with the U.S. land grant universities for Chinese officials and producers. Ambassador Barshefsky is a wonderful negotiator for the Chinese. She is agreeing to have special symposiums when we already have a deficit in agricultural trade. We have to set up a symposium to increase the deficit. Continuing: The United States will provide opportunities for young Chinese leaders to visit the U.S. farms, ranches, and universities to study management systems and production technologies. The United States will arrange opportunities for the Chinese officials and business leaders to study U.S. marketing and distribution of agricultural products in China and the United States. As a means to implement the principle of technological cooperation and exchange, China and the United States will implement specific projects listed below. The U.S. livestock industry will provide free registration and enrollment for select Chinese officials, and Cattlemen College classes during the NCBA convention and summer conferences. The U.S. livestock industry will provide free registration and enrollment for select Chinese officials and producers at the world pork symposium; strengthening cooperation and conservation of genetic resources for livestock, poultry, and forage grass; strengthening cooperation in selection and utilization of new breeds and varieties; technical assistance on quick testing, monitoring, and management of major animal diseases; technical assistance on environmentally sound production practices; waste disposal techniques. The United States will provide technical assistance in water conservation and management for China to further its work in identifying and conserving key water resources. It goes on and on. This is an agreement to put ourselves out of business. They come to the floor and say: Oh, we have so much more fertile, arable land than they have, so many millions of acres. They have more land under irrigation than the United States. It is an offset now, but they will be getting more irrigation, in addition to the advanced productivity we already have. But we politicians in Congress say: You don't understand; global competition, globalization; you are just resisting globalization; that is yesteryear's politician; you have to modernize; we are for change; we are global. We are globally going out of business. That is why I have this amendment. That is, if this exceeds $5 billion in those four categories, it is only $3.5 billion now, but if we start losing on wheat, corn, and soybeans, we are goners in agriculture. This amendment provides that if this occurs and this was misrepresented to us--the Senate is charged under the Constitution, article I, section 8, to regulate foreign commerce--if we were misled, we can say: Please renegotiate and see how we can right this situation. We do not have this in advanced technology. We do not have this in electronics and manufactured products. We do not have a plus balance of trade in agricultural products. But the little bit we have left, my farmers realize if you are voting against this amendment, you vote against America's most productive farmer. We are agreeing to make the Chinese more productive. If you think an American farmer can outwork a Chinese farmer, you are whistling ``Dixie.'' They are the hardest working people in the world. They are like us in the South. We are still hungry. That is why the BMW plants not only produce more but they produce better quality. That is why we are doubling the size of the BMW plant from Munich, Germany, and we will continue to compete. Generally speaking, the rest of the country, up in your neck of the woods, I say to the Presiding Officer, they have gotten spoiled. We started the globalization in Rhode Island. We started 50 years ago trying to move every industry that was in Rhode Island because you had them and we did not have them. We moved them down to South Carolina. Now they have been moved from South Carolina to Malaysia, Mexico, and now to China under this particular agreement. That is what is really happening. We know how to get the industry, and we know how to lose the industry. We have experienced it. We are talking from a brute measure of experience. This ought to be understood in the Senate. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am ready, if I may, to just respond, if you don't mind, for a couple minutes. How much time do I have?

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TO AUTHORIZE EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA2000-09-14

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Wait a minute, Mr. President. I was told to be here at 11 o'clock. We have these amendments. We are trying to give everybody 10 minutes here or there, so I am starting, instead of 11 o'clock, I guess we are going to 11:30, quarter to 12, and we are trying to get through these amendments. I am trying to move to the State-Justice- Commerce appropriations bill. So what is the disposition here? What do the managers of the bill wish?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Very well.

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