Political Quotes

“our top U.S. trade negotiators traveled this week and last in Europe, Africa, and Asia. They are making a concerted effort to encourage certain influential countries among our 148 trading partners in the World Trade Organization to put meaningful agricultural offers on the table in Geneva. We are coming down to the wire in the most recent round of multilateral trade negotiations, referred to as the Doha Development Round. The offers that our trading partners put on the table in the next month or two are the starting point for agricultural negotiators. That deal in agriculture will be combined with the results of similar negotiations in the manufacturing and services sectors of the economy. Together, they constitute the outcome of the round that has been going on for the last 4 years. Without a deal in agriculture, however, the Doha Development Round will falter. While bilateral trade agreements are beneficial to U.S. exporters, it is through multilateral negotiations that across-the-board tariff reductions can be achieved. That is why the Doha Development Round is so crucial. The agricultural negotiations are significant to all of us representing states with agricultural constituencies. In the case of Pennsylvania, production agriculture generated $4 billion in cash receipts in 2003, according to USDA statistics. That's $4 billion for the producers of livestock and commodities in my State.…”