Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I simply confirm the chairman's statement. I thank all who have worked very hard on this extensive measure.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, regretfully, but once again, I rise in opposition to this measure. It would add overly restrictive African content and citizenship requirements, and the transshipment penalties are extraordinary. On the matter of citizenship, sir, I would not doubt that there are 30 garment shops, factories, if you like, floors or lofts, in New York City, in Manhattan, where a majority of the employees are not American citizens. They are legal immigrants, they have rights of American workers, they are paid, and they pay taxes. But in the course of the last three centuries, we have seen enormous movements of labor from one place to another, a lot of recycling. If I could take one moment, since it is quiet and we have some distinguished Senators here, recently there was a study of illegal immigration from Mexico by some very fine sociologists, American and Mexican. The question is, Under what circumstances would illegal immigration increase? The answer is that immigration would increase if you sealed the borders because it is circular. People come up north to work. They raise money, and they go back and they can buy a car. Then they return. If there was a real wall, they would not go back. The world economy has been such since the 18th century. Exceedingly, these are good intentions of the Senator who offered essentially the same amendment yesterday. I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I so move.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I join in the Chairman's request and also in his very proper remarks about the senior Senator from Pennsylvania. I believe it has been since 1982 that the Senator began offering amendments to this effect. The antidumping laws themselves have a much longer history and have been through several major revisions, most recently in the Uruguay Round, which we implemented in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act in 1994. I think the idea of looking into this, as the Chairman suggests, is a very good one. But for the moment, sir, it is ineluctably the case that the amendment, as drafted, is inconsistent with the World Trade Organization's antidumping agreement in a number of significant ways. It does not say that we are wrong, but that we would be up against the agreed-upon international trading rules. We have an international meeting of the World Trade Organization at the end of this month in Seattle. I do not think we should arrive there this way, particularly as other countries are seeking to reopen negotiations once again on these issues, arguing that they are an antiquated idea. So I join in expressing the hope that the amendment might be withdrawn. We can take the idea with us to Seattle as something for other countries to consider when they approach our Government about modifying our existing laws. Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the managers' amendment which has just been adopted at the behest of Senator Levin, myself, and others, requires that core labor standards are necessary matters that the President must consider in granting these trade privileges. Of course, the Generalized System of Preferences incorporates substantially the same measures. The President is authorized to consider countries' compliance with these standards. Indeed, the President has already endorsed the core labor standards through the ILO Declaration adopted in 1998. There is no need to micromanage his handling of foreign affairs. In the interest of moving this measure along, with full agreement with the purposes of the Senator from Minnesota, I move to table the amendment.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. We understand that.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague. She is absolutely right. We should address this issue. We will. I thank her for bringing it before us and do not forget to come back. I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I congratulate the Senator from Minnesota for his remarks and tell him that he finds no difference of view among the managers of this legislation. We have a managers' amendment to address it. The large issue, sir, that has emerged in the context of the World Trade Organization is the relevance of the international labor conventions negotiated under the auspices of the International Labor Organization, which began here in Washington in 1919. The first were adopted at the Pan-American Union Building. The Offices of the ILO itself were provided by then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. The problem is, at the time, these trade treaties--they were trade treaties--were designed to say, just as the Senator has said: If you, country X, have a minimum wage, and country Y does not, country Y will have trade advantages which will end up with employment in the original country. So do it together--improve labor standards together by means of international labor treaties. It is a principle. We did not, until now, have any transparency. There was no inspection--a new idea, a post-World War II idea--an important key idea. There was no ranking, no reporting. We are getting there. The International Labor Organization, in 1998, issued this wonderful document: ``ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.'' And there they are, the four basic principles. We have a lot to do in this regard, but we have begun. So I congratulate the Senator. He is going to speak later and longer. I know the Senator from Montana, under some pressure of time, would like to speak now, as I understand it, on the most agreeable subject of why this is an important bill and why he voted for it in the Finance Committee.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we can all thank the Senator from Iowa for bringing this matter forward. I think we are all close to being unanimously in support of the objectives. I note, of 160 signatories to the convention, only one country has ratified it; that is the Seychelles, an island complex in the Indian Ocean with a population of 75,000. Building up an international regime in which this convention will take hold and have consequences for the children is going to be the work of a generation. It will be well worth it, but we are only at the beginning. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is to be congratulated and thanked for reporting the bill out. But we have not ratified it. That is the situation we face. But let us go forward with this vote.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise briefly to express the wish that every Member of the Senate will have heard, or will have read, the remarks of the Senator from Montana. There speaks the American voice. I trust it will be heard. Thanks to him, it will prevail.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I stand here to assert that we would not be here at this moment without the revered chairman of the Committee on Finance. He has kept to a party tradition that goes back generations. He has enabled us, sir, to pass the first trade bill in this Senate in 5 years. We were beginning to send a signal that was ominous and could have been, in the end, ruinous. But we have stepped back from that brink, and we have William Roth of Delaware to thank. I thank all of our wornout and excellent associates, David Podoff, Debbie Lamb, Linda Menghetti, and Tim Hogan on our side, and all of the majority staff. I see Frank Polk over there, and Grant Aldonas, Faryar Shirzad and Tim Keeler. It is a fine moment. Let us hope we make the most of it, sir. With great thanks to all, I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I also thank my chairman for his work, and that of his staff, in addressing an issue that I have worked on for many years. I first started this effort with my friend Congresswoman Louise Slaughter a number of years ago. Since that time even more Americans have lost their jobs as a result of tariffs on wool fabric-- fabric that is not produced in the quantity and quality needed by our domestic industry. I believe that we are close to finalizing an approach to finally resolve this issue, and I commend the chairman for his willingness to work with us on this important matter.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I accept the Senator's account. Again, I make a motion to table the amendment.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am sure the chairman will agree, and I cannot doubt that my friend from North Dakota will agree, it would be much better if the President were to go to Seattle with the traditional trade negotiating authority other Presidents have had. This President does not. It is not for the lack of the Finance Committee trying to give it to him. There has been a real breakdown at both ends of the avenue, as it were. The White House has let small political considerations enter into their calculations. We are not unknown to such failings ourselves. But the fact is, at the end of the 20th century the President of the United States does not have the negotiating authority he has had, in essence, for 65 years--since the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. The more, then, ought we try to speak to the coming negotiations in the manner suggested; the more, then, should we get this legislation passed else the President might decide not to go at all.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It is an elemental fact in international relations that most countries have a unitary legislative/executive branch, such that if the Prime Minister of Great Britain sends his Foreign Secretary to negotiate, that Foreign Secretary represents a majority in the House of Commons. Any agreement they reach will be ratified. That is not the case with us. The world discovered this in 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles, negotiated by President Wilson, was not ratified in this Chamber. That sank in over the next 20 years. So we have been giving the President this authority so his representatives can say: If I make an agreement, we will keep the agreement. Absent that, I do not know what will come. I think I am correct--I take the liberty of asking my able assistant, Dr. Podoff--we have never had a multilateral GATT or WTO negotiation without the President having traditional negotiating authority, have we, to complete the negotiations? No. This, sir, would be the first time--the first time. That is not an experiment I think we should be running, but perhaps we can make up for it in time. In the meantime, I welcome the thoughts of my friend, our colleague on the Committee on Finance.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Is it 2487?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we have stepped back from the brink. A week ago it appeared that we would reject this essential trade legislation. The first in five years. Weeks before the opening of the Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, which will launch a new round of trade negotiations. Here in the United States, in Seattle. As a tribute to the patience of our esteemed chairman, Senator Roth, and our leaders Senators Lott and Daschle, we somehow agreed to revive the bill. We now move one step closer to providing the President with legislation that will confirm, when he arrives in Seattle, that the United States Senate remains committed to open trade policies. I join the chairman of the Finance Committee in urging the Senate's support for this package of trade measures which includes the Finance Committee's sub-Saharan African and CBI trade bills, as well as the reauthorization of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) programs. Each of these measures was approved by the Finance Committee with near unanimous support. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Greenspan noted, in a speech he delivered in Boston on June 2, the ``recent evident weakening of support for free trade in this country.'' We appear to be turning against trade policies that we have pursued for 65 years. It is hard to understand this in a period when, as the New York Times reported last Friday: The American economy turned in its best quarterly performance of the year this summer, virtually guaranteeing enough momentum to carry the nation to its longest economic expansion in history early next year. Let me repeat that last phrase--``its longest economic expansion in history. . . .'' Not just peacetime, or just wartime, but ``in history.'' And what are the benefits of this unprecedented economic expansion-- an expansion that started in April 1991, is now in its eighth year, will break the record of 107 months in February 2000, and shows no sign of ending? The answer is clear: an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent--a level not seen in almost 30 years; and near zero inflation. To what can we attribute this remarkable performance of the American economy? I dare say that if the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 was one of the causes of World War II, then trade liberalization is one of the reasons for the unprecedented expansion. Other factors I would cite are just-in-time inventories--made possible by the information age, the 1993 deficit reduction act, Alan Greenspan, and perhaps some ``good luck.'' Given the tremendous transformation of the American economy--between 1960 and 1998 manufacturing employment dropped from 30 to 15 percent of total employment--there inevitably were and will be dislocations. Since 1962 we have eased the cost of dislocation to workers by providing Trade Adjustment Assistance-- assistance which will expire at the end of this week. More than 200,000 workers are eligible for trade adjustment assistance. The bill before us would continue Trade Adjustment Assistance, something we ought to do as we enact trade liberalization policies. I would also note that this legislation reflects our commitment to honor the ILO's core labor standards, a commitment made by all 174 members of the ILO. The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, adopted at the 86th International Labor Conference, declares that ``all members, even if they have not ratified the Convention in question, have an obligation, arising from the very fact of membership in the Organization, to respect, to promote, and to realize, in good faith'' these core labor standards; (1) freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; (2) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor; (3) the effective abolition of child labor; and (4) the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. Under the managers' substitute the President must assess the compliance of the CBI and sub-Saharan African countries with these core labor standards--these ``internationally recognized worker rights.'' The Generalized System of Preferences--which we put in place a quarter century ago--was the United States' response to the plea of developing countries that the industrial world ought to give them an opportunity--and a bit of an incentive--to compete in world markets. The theme then--as today--was that ``trade, not aid'' would ultimately wean countries from their dependence on foreign aid and help diversify their economies. This legislation will continue this important program. The bill puts in place--at long last--a trade policy with respect to sub-Saharan Africa, a policy that is long overdue. The economic challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa today may be even greater than they were at the height of the cold war. Consider the differing paths of South Korea and Ghana: in 1958, the year after Ghana achieved independence, its per capita GDP, at $203, exceeded that of South Korea ($171 at the time). Forty years later, in 1998, South Korea's per capita income had soared to $10,550, even after the Asian financial crisis, while Ghana's stood at a modest $390. The Africa trade legislation in this package will not reverse years of neglect and decline, but it may provide a decent start. And we endorse with this legislation President Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative--begun in 1983--updating the program to enable the CBI countries to remain competitive even as the NAFTA has eroded their market positions. The chairman and I met 6 weeks ago with the Presidents and Vice Presidents and Foreign Ministers of a number of the CBI states--the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica. They made a simple request--that we allow our trade to grow. And so this legislation will do. This is legislation which deserves strong support here in the Senate, so that we can quickly move to a conference with the House and send the President to Seattle negotiations with the bipartisan backing of trade liberalization.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, might I just slip over and make sure we have the right amendment?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, if I might comment on the remarks of my friend from North Dakota regarding the Seattle ministerial conference which begins at the end of this month. There is no wide agreement on what the next round of negotiations will address. However, there is no doubt that agriculture will be one of the matters addressed in the next round. There is much disagreement in other areas. The idea of our setting some negotiating objectives is a good idea, in my view, and I think the chairman agrees.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, if I could say to my friend from Minnesota, if he has 5 minutes, he can start.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Reverend Monsignor Andrew P. Landi, a son of New York and internationally known humanitarian, who was taken from us this past September. He was 92. Monsignor Landi was the retired assistant executive director and of Catholic Relief Services in New York City from 1966 to 1979. Upon of his retirement he was named assistant treasurer, a position he held until the time of his death. Monsignor devoted himself to the service of the poor and disposed throughout the world regardless of race, creed, or nationality. Catholic Relief Services was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States to alleviate suffering by removing its causes and promoting social justice beyond our boarders. Their mission is to aid in the development of people by fostering charity and justice throughout the world. Monsignor Landi's devotion to this mission was ceaseless. At a time when we are increasingly egocentric, we would do well to remember a man whose ministry to the disadvantaged was distinguished as a no other for faithful and untiring service. I wish to highlight the central role he played as a petitioner for overseas relief activities to numerous Federal agencies and Congress. He met with nearly every Pope since Pope Pius XII and counted Mother Teresa among his friends. This champion of the downtrodden was sent to Rome in 1944 to minister to the victims of World War II. He spent the next two decades providing haven to refuges of civil strife and natural disasters. He was named the Regional Director of the Catholic Relief Services for Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa in 1962. Monsignor Landi began his vocation as a parish priest at Our Lady of the Scapular and St. Stephen's Church in Manhattan in 1934. St. Stephens was at one time the largest Catholic parish in New York City. It is a special New York treasure as it contains several works by 19th century Italian Painter Constantino Brumidi who is best know for having done much of the artwork on display in the United States Capitol. In 1939, Monsignor Landi became the associate director of Catholic Charities in Brooklyn, NY. As I recently noted, Catholic Charities of the Brooklyn-Queens Diocese is the largest Roman Catholic human services agency in the nation. Perhaps on earth. One of seven children orphaned after the death of their mother in 1913, he focused his mission toward young people. His benevolence toward the troubled youth of Brooklyn was exceptional. During Monsignor Landi's 65 years in the priesthood he received numerous honors from several governments and organizations. He was honored by our own New York State Assembly which issued a citation on the his 90th birthday in recognition his humanitarian efforts. In closing I would like to express my deep gratitude to Monsignor Landi for his life long commitment to ending social injustice especially toward children living in poverty. His distinguished devotion to God and his fellow man is a model to us all.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, a moment on a matter that is not included in the trade legislation that has just been approved by the Senate--the near-exorbitant tariff on fine wool fabrics. This modest proposal appears to have generated an inordinate amount of controversy, all the more baffling because the facts are so persuasive. We have just a few suit manufacturers left in the United States, including Hickey-Freeman, which has produced fine tailored suits in Rochester, New York since 1899. Our tariffs are stacked against them. There is only a limited supply in the United States of fine wool fabric. The suit makers must import significant quantities of this fabric, at a current tariff rate of 30.6%. But importers can bring in completely finished wool suits duty free from Canada and Mexico, and subject to a 19.8% duty when imported from other sources. This anomaly in our tariff schedule--this tariff ``inversion''--puts domestic manufacturers of wool suits at a significant disadvantage. Senators Schumer, Durbin, Hagel, Mikulski, Specter, Nickles, Fitzgerald, Santorum, Gramm, and Thompson have joined me in sponsoring a very modest measure that would provide temporary relief to the suit- makers. We have proposed that the tariff on the very finest wool fabric--produced in only limited quantities in the United States--be suspended for a short period, and that the tariff on other classes of fine wool fabric be reduced to 19.8%--hardly a negligible tariff. This was an effort to provide some relief to our suit makers. Through the good offices of the Chairman of the Finance Committee, we undertook to address the concerns that has been raised when our bill was first introduced. After a series of meetings with all of the interested parties--and there are many--we modified our proposal to address, in a constructive way, the concerns that were raised. Our first compromise proposal was rejected out of hand. No counterproposal was forthcoming. The objection stems chiefly from two sources: a fabric manufacturer that is not currently producing the fine wool fabric at issue--but promises to do so in the future, principally from a plant it is building in Mexico; and from the American Sheep Industry Association--this despite the fact that wool of the quality required for suit fabric is sourced overwhelmingly from Australia. I am at a loss to explain the vehemence of the opposition. The fabric producer that so strongly opposes this legislation--Burlington Industries--is positioning itself to compete in the global market. As it ought to do. On January 26, 1999, the company announced a major reorganization. To quote, ``operations will be streamlined and U.S. capacity will be reduced by 25%.'' Let me repeat: ``U.S. capacity will be reduced by 25%.'' The company announced that 2900 jobs would be eliminated, an announcement made just one month after the company reported to its shareholders--on December 2, 1998, that ``we have launched a major growth initiative in Mexico.'' There followed an announcement to its customers that the fine wool fabric used to manufacture men's suits--so called ``fancies''--would not be available for a time. Even so, we cannot get agreement on tariff relief for our suit makers, who have greater need than ever for imported fabric. They must still pay a 31% tariff on imported fine wool fabric. We ought to enable them to remain competitive, just as Burlington has taken steps to remain competitive. We have kept at it. In recent days, our efforts have intensified. With a great deal of good will on the part of all interested parties, it appears that we may be inching toward an agreement that would, in fact, benefit all parties in some measure. We have included a place-holder in the trade legislation--not a solution to the wool tariffs problem, but a provision that will allow our discussions to continue over the next several days. I do thank the chairman and his staff--particularly Grant Aldonas-- for their efforts, as well as the considerable interest and attention of Senators Durbin, Schumer, and Baucus, all of whom are eager, as am I, to work this out. I intend to continue to work with our chairman and with others to resolve this matter.