Doug Bereuter: “our good friend and very able U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Zoellick, about to represent America at the…”

“our good friend and very able U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Zoellick, about to represent America at the WTO trade summit in Cancun this week, should be given a message and a mission. The message comes from this Member of Congress, a strong supporter of trade liberalization, one of the farm-state Members from the Great Plains and Midwest Caucus that together has been a strong and crucial force for trade liberalization over the years. Mr. Speaker, here is the message with which we should arm Ambassador Zoellick on the subject of agricultural trade: First, we must harmonize, we must have harmonization. That is to say, developing countries must agree to sharp reductions in their tariffs on agriculture imports, and developed countries like the European Union countries and Japan must cut their higher production subsidies proportionally more than the U.S. Large agricultural exporters classified as developing countries, like Brazil, also must steeply cut their agricultural subsidy. Second, we must have an end to the large agricultural export subsidies of the European Union; and America can end its small export subsidies, which are used occasionally as a shot across the bow of the EU. Third, we must insist that the European Union dramatically restructure its agriculture support programs by a greater delinking of subsidy programs from production at the same time as the U.S. proportionally makes the same adjustment in our smaller level of subsidy.”