David Thomas: “20 years ago, I began meeting with European parliamentarians in a joint meeting between Members of Congress and the…”

“20 years ago, I began meeting with European parliamentarians in a joint meeting between Members of Congress and the European parliament. It was over the discussion of the Europeans' failure to open their markets to agricultural products from the United States and, frankly, from other countries around the world. They had what they called a common agricultural policy, but it was really a social policy. They wanted to make sure they subsidized their agriculture products to keep their people down on the farm. Over those 20 years, the European Parliament and the European Union has grown and the United States has continued to grow, but there has been virtually no movement in opening European markets. The gentlewoman from California's desire to focus the debate on bananas frankly misses the mark completely. I would have wished it would have been the raisin issue that would have been the first issue in front of WTO. We could have used that. It could have been the pasta issue. It could have been the canned peaches issue. It is in fact the beef hormone issue, along with bananas. The argument that this is being done for some individual for some nefarious reason really misses the mark of world economics.”