On the recordNovember 2, 1999
I certainly could attempt to do so. I would not risk overstatement. There would be a setting in which, having given the President negotiating authority for a new round of international trade talks, having arranged for Trade Adjustment Assistance to be continued as it has been for 37 years, we could say: The particular matters before us will be part of the trade negotiations--and so forth. We could say we will get to it next year. But we don't have that negotiating authority. The President goes to Seattle emptyhanded. The only thing he can bring with him is the trade legislation we have before us--which we still have to take to the House. But this is all the United States can show the world, the world which has been following us for all these years. So I hope, at a very minimum, the sense of tradition--even, if I may say, of honor--will drive us forward in this matter.
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