Clinton Touts Administration
Position On Various Ag Issues

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Opening foreign markets is a high priority for his administration, President Clinton said here recently.

Clinton, touring a tomato co-op in Arkansas, said the biggest problem faced by agriculture in foreign trade today is tariffs on farm products.

"We've had some real success in opening Japan to specific food products," he said.

But the problem of tariffs remains. Worldwide, the average tariff on farm products is 50 percent. In the United States, it's less than 10 percent.

"I think we just have to tell people, look, we tried to give you access to our markets, you've got to give us access to yours," Clinton continued. "We have to have better parity here. They have the benefit of selling in our market. They ought to give us a chance to sell into theirs."

Clinton said that is why he wanted the U.S. to host the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization which opens the end of November in Seattle.

"That's why we wanted to kick off this trade deal," Clinton explained. "I think the biggest advantage, not just for farmers, but for all of America, is the advantage we'd have in agricultural sales."

He denied that trade negotiators are planning on offering up program crops such as sugar and tobacco and their support quotas in return for other countries removing their subsidies and tariffs.

"To the best of my knowledge, there's been no pre-existing offer like that put on the table," Clinton said. "If there was one, they'd have to discuss it with me first. Neither the Secretary of Agriculture nor I have been consulted on that. I don't believe a position of that magnitude would be taken without prior consultation with us. It wouldn't hold water if we didn't agree."

He also conceded there are problems in trade with genetically modified organisms and hormone treated beef.

"We've repeatedly told the Europeans and the whole world that the United States has prided itself on having not only the cheapest, but the safest food supply in the world," Clinton said. "We never want to sell anything to our people, much less anybody else, that isn't safe."

He expressed confidence in the findings of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"Our foods are safe," he said. "If we didn't believe that, we wouldn't be selling them. We certainly wouldn't be eating them."

One of the problems, and he said the Europeans recognize it, is that there is no equivalent organization to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the European Union as a whole nor in the individual European countries.

"What we've tried to do is get them, not necessarily to agree with us on everything, but not to panic," he said.

Clinton said he wants the Europeans to make a commitment to base their decisions on science and evidence, not on politics and fear.

"The United State is not about to sell to other people or to people at home food that we think is dangerous," he said. "We will never, never do that."

Clinton said genetically modified organisms, so-called "GMOs, have been reviewed by appropriate authorities in which he has confidence, and they say it cuts the cost of production and is perfectly safe.

"Our goal with the Europeans is to get them to commit unambiguously to make these decisions based on science," he said.

"The GMOs, we've got to give the Europeans a chance to look at it, but it's got to be done on a science basis," Clinton continued. "I would never commit an American child to eat anything that was unsafe. If we had any reason, based on our own scientific reviews, to question this, we would question it. All we want the Europeans to do is have the same kind of scientific approach. If we can get there, we can work through this, and it will all come out just fine."

With beef, it's a different issue, Clinton said.

"We have a decision there by the governing body of the WTO," Clinton explained. "We won and they lost. They panicked over their so-called mad cow problem and, as a result, it became an occasion to discriminate against our beef, which is just wrong."

He noted that the U.S. has won two important agricultural cases, one involving beef, the other involving bananas, which are not produced in American but which are owned by American companies.

"If we lose a case before the WTO, they expect us to honor the ruling," he said. "We've won, not once, not twice, but three times, and they keep ignoring the rulings."

Clinton said he has already imposed some sanctions and intends to impose more until the U.S. gets satisfaction.

"We won the beef case, and we're entitled to the results of our victory," he said. "We're in a real serious confrontation with the Europeans over the beef and banana issue. I think we'll prevail, and I think we'll prevail in fairly short order."

He opined that recent changes in the leadership of the European Union are positive.

"You've got a whole crowd of immensely talented people in there, so I'm very hopeful that we're finely going to get some good results," he said.

With regard to "fast track" legislation, the ability of the administration to negotiate a trade agreement and then present it to the Senate as a whole, Clinton said failure to achieve that authority makes reaching an agreement more difficult, but it's not critical.

Clinton contended that U.S. trade negotiators going into the next round of the WTO negotiations are at a disadvantage without fast track, and he will make another push for fast track authority before leaving office.

"But there's not too much of a disadvantage," he said. "We can still negotiate because we have the WTO framework."

He said negotiators can still come up with something to bring back to Congress, noting that any agreement will be three years down the road.

"To the extent that we're at any disadvantage, it's more psychological than anything else," Clinton said. "Other countries have traditionally been far more protectionist than America. We have a stronger economy and we tend to be more competitive. We understand the benefits we get from open markets."

He claimed that when Congress refused to give him fast track authority, it made it easier for other countries to refuse to reduce their tariffs on farm products and otherwise be more protectionist.

"It's like a psychological advantage, but the way the WTO system works, when we launch this new trade round, it won't be completed for three years, so the fact that we don't have fast track authority right now is not a big problem," he said.

It's a bigger problem with U.S. efforts to develop a free trade area in the Americas and get its neighbors to keep buying more and more U.S. products.

"Our trade has grown more with Latin America than it has with any other part of the world," Clinton noted. "We can still get a very good WTO deal without fast track because we can't ratify it for three years, anyway."

On the home front, with growing consolidation in agriculture and low commodity prices, Clinton insisted the 1995 Farm Bill needs to be changed.

"When the Republican Congress passed it at the end of the session, they did it in such a way that I had to sign it or otherwise we would have been left with a 1948 law which was even worse," he claimed. "The problem is it has no safety net that's adjustable to the conditions. I think that's very important to change."

Clinton said the federal government has put a lot of money into emergency payments to farmers the last two years, but it's given out in a distribution system under existing law which means that some big farmers get it, even if they don't plant and don't need the money.

"It's a windfall," he said. "Some of the family farmers that are actually out there killing themselves every year, in spite of all the money we're spending, are not adequately compensated. I think it's a mistake. I frankly think that a majority in Congress is not as sensitive as they should be to family farmers, individual farmers."