Hatch Welcomes Senate Consideration of Trade Agreements; Renews Call for Aggressive Trade Agenda

Utah Senator Says, “We cannot afford to allow nations to race ahead while our workers stay behind. Their approval can be the first good step toward reigniting a vigorous international trade agenda that puts America first, and enables the United States to once again lead the world in opening markets and expanding economic growth.”

WASHINGTON – In a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, today welcomed Senate consideration on the long-stalled trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea and called on the Obama Administration to renew Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to help advance an aggressive, job-creating trade agenda. Hatch’s remarks were delivered in advance of tonight’s Senate vote on the implementing trade bills.

“We need strong vision and leadership in the global economy. We can start by approving these three free trade agreements,” said Hatch. “The fact is, tariffs on our exports to Colombia, Panama and South Korea are much too high. These agreements will eliminate these tariffs. But the benefits of each agreement go far beyond tariff elimination. The agreements also guarantee fair access for U.S. service providers, reduce unfair barriers to our agriculture exports, provide high levels of protection for intellectual property rights, and ensure high levels of investment protection.”

“In short, each of these agreements helps U.S. workers compete and win in these growing markets. Make no mistake. If we don’t take advantage of these new markets, other countries will, and it is the U.S. worker who will lose,” Hatch continued. “We cannot afford to allow nations to race ahead while our workers stay behind. Their approval can be the first good step toward reigniting a vigorous international trade agenda that puts America first, and enables the United States to once again lead the world in opening markets and expanding economic growth.”

Below is the text of Hatch’s full speech delivered on the Senate floor this afternoon:

Mr. President, over the past several weeks the Senate has focused closely on international trade. We have debated Trade Adjustment Assistance, a bill to penalize China’s currency policies, and our pending free trade agreements. These have been robust debates. It is an appropriate capstone that we will soon be approving our trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

The reality is that these agreements should have passed long ago. Although completed over four years ago, they were first blocked in the 111th Congress by a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. They were then delayed by our own President, who devised excuse after excuse for not acting to implement them.

This spring, after the excuses related to the agreements themselves were addressed by our trading partners, the President made a new demand. This time it was Trade Adjustment Assistance spending. The President made it clear that, if this domestic spending program was not expanded and approved, he would abandon our allies in Colombia, Panama and South Korea and cede these growing markets to our foreign competitors.

It took Congress months to untie this substantive and procedural Gordian knot that President Obama created.

Throughout this long period of delay, U.S. workers and exporters were denied the benefits of these agreements. At the same time, these allies began to doubt the commitment of the United States to our friendship, as well as our ability to deliver on our promises.

I am concerned that, going forward, the President will put even more new conditions on his support for trade and trade agreements. I certainly hope not. As a nation we cannot afford to hold our international economic competitiveness hostage to unrelated demands for more spending or to a liberal social agenda. If our economy is going to grow and our workers prosper, we need to do better.

Trade is good for the United States. Today, the United States is the world’s largest economy. Contrary to the views of many Americans, the United States exports more in goods and services than any other country. It is imperative that the United States continue to open foreign markets. After all, 95 percent of the world’s population lives outside of the United States. Economists estimate that almost 83 percent of growth over the next five years will take place outside of the United States. Simply put, most of our future customers are located in foreign countries.

U.S. exporters face foreign barriers that limit our ability to sell U.S. goods and services in foreign markets. Often foreign tariffs on our exports tend to be much higher than our own tariffs. U.S. trade agreements level the playing field. They reduce or eliminate tariffs and other barriers to U.S. exports.

The math is pretty simple. Lower tariffs and fewer barriers mean more exports, and more exports mean more jobs.

But we cannot reduce these tariffs or eliminate these barriers without the right tools. In my mind, renewing trade negotiating authority is the key to our future success. I was frankly dismayed when my colleagues across the aisle, just a few weeks ago, rejected an amendment to provide their own President with the authority to negotiate new trade agreements. We all know that the authority to negotiate trade agreements expired years ago. Since then, the United States has been sitting on the sidelines while other countries negotiate agreements all around the world.

There is no doubt about it. Even with approval of these three FTAs, the United States is already far behind. It is my understanding that there are 209 free trade agreements around the world. The United States is a party to just twelve such agreements with seventeen countries. We should be expanding the number of our free trade agreements and the number of our free trade partner countries.

Everyone knows that if you are not in the game, you cannot win. But right now, the United States is not in the game. While it is true that the President is in the process of negotiating an agreement to create a Trans-Pacific Partnership, we all know that the chances of it actually succeeding are almost non-existent without trade negotiating authority.

Let’s keep in mind that trade negotiating authority has been the norm rather than the exception for much of this past century. Congress first authorized reciprocal negotiating authority in 1934 to help pull the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. That authority was renewed eleven times between 1934 and 1962. In 1974, Congress first authorized the President to negotiate tariff and non-tariff barriers and bring them back for Congressional consideration on an expedited basis, without amendment. Every President since 1974 has sought that authority from Congress.

President Ford argued that the legislation “enable[s] the United States to play a leading role in …multilateral negotiations.”

President Carter said that the legislation “solidif[ies] America’s position in the international community.”

Ronald Reagan extolled the virtues of TPA, noting that when properly used it “manifestly serves our national economic interests.”

President George H.W. Bush noted that extension of TPA was “in the vital national interest of the United States and absolutely fundamental to our major foreign policy objectives.”

President Clinton argued strenuously for TPA, making the case that “the legislation will give us the authority to increase access to foreign markets…if we don’t seize those opportunities, our competitors surely will. An ‘America last’ strategy is unacceptable.”

President George W. Bush successfully made the case that TPA was critical to opening up markets around the world. And, once he achieved its renewal, he made opening foreign markets a key priority of his administration. To give credit where it is due, if it wasn’t for President Bush’s leadership in seeking TPA and negotiating agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, we wouldn’t have any agreements to consider here today.

Unfortunately, President Obama, while touting the importance of exports, has been virtually silent on the need for TPA. Instead of leading on TPA, this President has consistently ducked the issue, avoided the debate, and let America continue to fall further behind.

This America last — or as some put it, leading from behind — strategy is unacceptable.

We need strong vision and leadership in the global economy. We can start by approving these three free trade agreements. The fact is, tariffs on our exports to Colombia, Panama and South Korea are much too high. These agreements will eliminate these tariffs. But the benefits of each agreement go far beyond tariff elimination. The agreements also guarantee fair access for U.S. service providers, reduce unfair barriers to our agriculture exports, provide high levels of protection for intellectual property rights, and ensure high levels of investment protection. In short, each of these agreements helps U.S. workers compete and win in these growing markets.
Make no mistake. If we don’t take advantage of these new markets, other countries will, and it is the U.S. worker who will lose.

We cannot afford to allow nations to race ahead while our workers stay behind. I urge my colleagues to join with me in supporting each one of these trade agreements. Their approval can be the first good step toward reigniting a vigorous international trade agenda that puts America first, and enables the United States to once again lead the world in opening markets and expanding economic growth.

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