Byron Dorgan: “I hope to come back on Monday and find some time to discuss President Clinton's proposal to provide fast-track trade…”

“I hope to come back on Monday and find some time to discuss President Clinton's proposal to provide fast-track trade authority so he can negotiate additional trade agreements. I am opposed to that, and I am going to resist vigorously trade authority that would provide the President, any President, the opportunity to negotiate new trade agreements until we fix the problems in the old agreement. Let me leave with a couple of statistics. We now have a pretty good economy, that is true. We tackled the fiscal policy budget deficit. But the other deficit, the trade deficit, is the highest in this country's history. Every time we negotiate a new trade agreement we seem to lose. We negotiated an agreement with Canada. Our deficit was $13 billion with Canada; now it is double.”