Doug Bereuter: “I want to commend the two gentlemen from Illinois (Mr. Crane) and (Mr. Ewing) and the gentleman from California (Mr.…”

“I want to commend the two gentlemen from Illinois (Mr. Crane) and (Mr. Ewing) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui) for bringing this important resolution to the floor. I am in strong support of it. It is extremely important for two reasons: First, it puts on notice those foreign countries that restrict access to U.S. agricultural exports that the United States will simply not continue to tolerate formal or disguised barriers to U.S. agriculture imports. Though the United States agriculture trade surplus totaled nearly $57 billion in 1997, it should have been at least 5 billion more. Because countries like China restrict our meat, wheat and citrus imports and the European Union hides behind pseudo phytosanitary and sanitary barriers to U.S. agricultural imports, we, our farmers, that is, are cost a lot of money, about 5 billion at least. Mr. Speaker, Ambassador Carla Hills, former USTR, and President George Bush nearly imposed hundreds of millions of dollars in additional tariffs on European gourmet products sold in the United States because the European Union would not agree to reduce export subsidies under the Uruguay Round trade negotiations.”