Political Quotes

“I will be supporting the Bateman amendments, but I also want to make clear that I do not think the shipbuilding agreement itself is the solution. It will in all likelihood make much more difficult if not impossible U.S. shipbuilders' pursuit of commercial shipbuilding orders in the international market. This agreement is fatally flawed in that it permits other governments to continue direct subsidy shipbuilding payments to their yards until 1999 as long as those subsidies are committed by the end of this year. The last direct U.S. commercial subsidy program was unilaterally terminated by our Government in 1981, a full 15 years ago. I find it appalling that U.S. negotiators took part in formulation of an agreement in which numerous exceptions are granted to specific subsidizing foreign governments totaling billions of dollars. How this combination of provisions does anything other than make the international commercial playing field even more lopsided against unsubsidized American shipbuilders escapes me. A French shipyard received a subsidy package in the range of $480 million after the agreements were concluded and our negotiators had returned home. That event alone should have provided more than ample grounds for our Government to insist on reopening the negotiations for the purpose of gaining more equitable treatment for the unsubsidized U.S. industry.”