The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“VIETNAM TRADE ACT” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S10105-S10126 on Oct. 3, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
VIETNAM TRADE ACT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will now resume consideration of H.J. Res. 51, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 51) approving the extension of nondiscriminatory treatment with respect to the products of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I just spoke to my colleague, the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, the only other Senator on the floor, who is about to speak on the pending bill, and asked if I might have just a few minutes. So I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business for 5 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Specter are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the pending bill regarding normal trade relations with Vietnam.
It is significant for us to look at what is occurring on the Senate floor as compared to what happened on the House side. There are two issues involved. One is the numerous human rights violations committed by the country of Vietnam, and the second is the other issue--which is the issue binding--of whether or not we should have so-called normal, if you will, trade relations with the country of Vietnam.
I want to point out a few facts. Before I do that, I again point out that before the House passed normalization of trade with Vietnam, it passed H.R. 2833, dealing with human rights violations in Vietnam. I have a copy of the vote, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Roll 335--To Promote Freedom and Democracy in Vietnam
YEAS--410
AbercrombieAckermanAderholtAkinAllenAndrewsArmeyBacaBachusBairdBakerBaldacciBaldwinBallengerBarciaBarrBarrettBartlettBartonBassBecerraBentsenBereuterBerkleyBermanBerryBiggertBilirakisBishopBlagojevichBlumenauerBluntBoehlertBoehnerBonillaBoniorBonoBorskiBoswellBoucherBoydBrady (PA)Brady (TX)Brown (FL)Brown (OH)Brown (SC)BryantBurrBurtonBuyerCallahanCalvertCampCannonCantorCapitoCappsCapuanoCardinCarson (IN)Carson (OK)CastleChabotChamblissClayClaytonClementClyburnCobleCollinsCombestConditCookseyCostelloCoxCoyneCramerCrenshawCrowleyCubinCulbersonCummingsCunninghamDavis (CA)Davis (FL)Davis, Jo AnnDavis, TomDealDeFazioDeGetteDelahuntDeLauroDeLayDeMintDeutschDiaz-BalartDicksDingellDoggettDooleyDoolittleDoyleDreierDuncanDunnEdwardsEhlersEhrlichEmersonEngelEnglishEshooEtheridgeEvansEverettFarrFattahFergusonFilnerFlakeFletcherFoleyForbesFordFossellaFrelinghuysenFrostGalleglyGanskeGekasGephardtGibbonsGilchrestGilmanGonzalezGoodeGoodlatteGordonGossGrahamGrangerGravesGreen (TX)Green (WI)GreenwoodGrucciGutierrezGutknechtHall (OH)Hall (TX)HansenHarmanHartHastings (WA)HayworthHefleyHergerHillHillearyHilliardHincheyHinojosaHobsonHoeffelHoekstraHoldenHoltHondaHooleyHostettlerHoughtonHoyerHulshofHunterHydeInsleeIsaksonIsraelIssaIstookJackson (IL)Jackson-Lee (TX)JeffersonJenkinsJohnJohnson (CT)Johnson (IL)Johnson, E. B.Johnson, SamJones (OH)KanjorskiKellerKellyKennedy (MN)Kennedy (RI)KernsKildeeKilpatrickKind (WI)King (NY)KingstonKirkKleczkaKnollenbergKolbeKucinichLaFalceLaHoodLampsonLangevinLantosLargentLarsen (WA)Larson (CT)LathamLaTouretteLeachLeeLevinLewis (CA)Lewis (GA)Lewis (KY)LinderLoBiondoLofgrenLoweyLucas (KY)Lucas (OK)LutherMaloney (CT)Maloney (NY)ManzulloMarkeyMascaraMathesonMatsuiMcCarthy (MO)McCarthy (NY)McCollumMcCreryMcDermottMcGovernMcHughMcInnisMcIntyreMcKeonMcKinneyMcNultyMeehanMeeks (NY)MenendezMicaMillender-McDonaldMiller (FL)Miller, GaryMiller, GeorgeMinkMooreMoran (KS)Moran (VA)MorellaMurthaMyrickNadlerNapolitanoNealNethercuttNeyNorthupNorwoodNussleOberstarObeyOlverOrtizOsborneOseOtterOwensPallonePascrellPastorPaynePelosiPencePeterson (MN)Peterson (PA)PetriPhelpsPickeringPittsPlattsPomboPomeroyPrice (NC)Pryce (OH)PutnamQuinnRadanovichRahallRamstadRangelRegulaRehbergReyesReynoldsRileyRiversRodriguezRoemerRogers (KY)Rogers (MI)RohrabacherRos-LehtinenRossRothmanRoukemaRoybal-AllardRoyceRushRyan (WI)Ryun (KS)SaboSanchezSandersSandlinSawyerSaxtonSchafferSchakowskySchiffSchrockScottSensenbrennerSerranoSessionsShadeggShawShaysSherwoodShimkusShowsShusterSimmonsSimpsonSkeenSkeltonSlaughterSmith (MI)Smith (NJ)Smith (TX)Smith (WA)SnyderSolisSouderSprattStarkStearnsStenholmStricklandStumpStupakSununuSweeneyTancredoTannerTauscherTauzinTaylor (MS)Taylor (NC)TerryThomasThompson (CA)Thompson (MS)ThornberryThuneThurmanTiahrtTiberiTierneyToomeyTownsTurnerUdall (CO)Udall (NM)UptonVelazquezViscloskyVitterWaldenWalshWampWatersWatkins (OK)Watson (CA)Watt (NC)WaxmanWeinerWeldon (FL)Weldon (PA)WellerWexlerWhitfieldWickerWilsonWolfWoolseyWuWynnYoung (FL)
NAYS--1
Paul
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, this is a vote of 410-1, which noted the human rights violations Vietnam has committed.
I ask my colleagues for the Record why we cannot have a similar vote in the Senate. If those who want to normalize relations with Vietnam choose to ignore the numerous human rights violations of that country, is that right? Where we had something that passed the House 410-1 and was sent over here, why can't we have a vote on that either before or after the vote on normalization of trade relations? I will tell you why. Because one Senator objects.
I want to point out to the majority side that at the appropriate time when someone from the majority is here on the floor, I am going to ask unanimous consent that we move to that legislation. I believe that is the appropriate thing to do.
Let me proceed by saying I don't think it is a secret that I have been a long-time critic of the regime in Hanoi. I have visited there four or five times, if not more, as a Senator and as a Congressman. I think I know pretty well the situation there. A lot of the criticism that I brought up has focused pretty much on the POW-MIA issue in the sense that in spite of all the statements to the contrary by many, they have not provided full disclosure on our missing. I will get back to that.
First, I want to comment on the passage in the House of H.R. 2833, the Vietnam Human Rights Act, before they took up normal trade relations. The House is saying: We know what you are doing; we are putting you on notice. We can't do that here in the Senate today because one Senator is blocking, as far as I know, it coming to the Senate floor--410-1, and we can't even get a vote on it in the Senate.
I commend the House for its action. They did the right thing. I don't agree with their passing normal trade relations, but they at least passed the human rights violation notification so that we now know and the world now knows about these violations. We should expect Vietnam to improve its record on human rights if we are trying to trade with them.
Why is that so unreasonable? We make these demands on other nations. But when it comes to Vietnam, we have to ignore their horrible record of open human rights violations. It is abysmal. Our own State Department explains it in its ``Country Report on Human Rights Practices.'' We can't ignore these things.
My question is, Why doesn't the Senate do what the House did and pass the Vietnam Human Rights Act? It is here at the desk. We could pass it.
I have a letter from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom requesting that the Senate pass H.R. 2833, the Vietnam Human Rights Act. I ask unanimous consent that the letter from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
United States Commission On
International Religious Freedom,
Washington, DC, September 12, 2001.
Congress Should Demand Religious-Freedom Improvements As It Considers
Vietnam Trade Agreement
The Senate will soon consider the Bilateral Trade Agreement
(BTA) with Vietnam, approved by the House of Representatives last week. The agreement will extend Normal Trade Relations status to Vietnam, although this will remain subject to annual review. Given the very serious violations of religious freedom in that country, the Commission in May made a series of recommendations to the Bush Administration and Congress. Primary among these was that U.S. lawmakers should ratify the BTA only after Hanoi undertakes to improve protection of religious freedom or after Congress passes a resolution calling for the Vietnamese government to make such improvements.
The Vietnam Human Rights Act (H.R. 2833) passed by the House last week implements this and other Commission recommendations. Besides expressing U.S. concern about Vietnam's religious-freedom and human rights abuses, the Act authorizes assistance to organizations promoting human rights in Vietnam and declares support for Radio Free Asia broadcasting. The Commission urges the Senate to act likewise.
The Commission believes that approval of the BTA without any U.S. action with regard to religious freedom risks worsening the religious-freedom situation in Vietnam because it may be interpreted by the government of Vietnam as a signal of American indifference. The Commission notes that religious freedom in the People's Republic of China declined markedly after last year's approval of Permanent Normal Trade Relations status, unaccompanied by any substantial U.S. action with regard to religious freedom in that country.
Despite a marked increase in religious practice among the Vietnamese people in the last 10 years, the Vietnamese government continues to suppress organized religious activities forcefully and to monitor and control religious communities. This repression is mirrored by the recent crackdown on important political dissidents. The government prohibits religious activity by those not affiliated with one of the six officially recognized religious organizations. Individuals have been detained, fined, imprisoned, and kept under close surveillance by security forces for engaging in
``illegal'' religious activities. In addition, the government uses the recognition process to monitor and control officially sanctioned religious groups: restricting the procurement and distribution of religious literature, controlling religious training, and interfering with the selection of religious leaders.
The Vietnamese government in March placed Fr. Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly under administrative detention (i.e. house arrest) for ``publicly slandering'' the Vietnamese Communist Party and ``distorting'' the government's policy on religion. This occurred after Fr. Ly submitted written testimony on religious persecution in Vietnam for the Commission's February 2001 hearing on that country.
In order to demonstrate significant improvement in religious freedom, the Vietnamese government should:
Release from imprisonment, detention, house arrest, or intimidating surveillance persons who are so restricted due to their religious identities or activities.
Permit unhindered access to religious leaders by U.S. diplomatic personnel and government officials, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and respected international human rights organizations, including, if requested, a return visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance.
Establish the freedom to engage in religious activities
(including the freedom for religious groups to govern themselves and select their leaders, worship publicly, express and advocate religious beliefs, and distribute religious literature) outside state-controlled religious organizations and eliminate controls on the activities of officially registered organizations. Allow indigenous religious communities to conduct educational, charitable, and humanitarian activities.
Permit religious groups to gather for annual observances of primary religious holidays.
Return confiscated religious properties.
Permit domestic Vietnamese religious organizations and individuals to interact with foreign organizations and individuals.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I quote from this letter.
Congress Should Demand Religious-freedom Improvements As It Considers Vietnam Trade Agreement.
The Senate will soon consider the Bilateral Trade Agreement with Vietnam approved by the House of Representatives last week.
Given the very serious violations of religious freedom in that country, the Commission in May made a series of recommendations to the Bush administration and Congress. Primary among these was that U.S. lawmakers should ratify the BTA only after Hanoi undertakes to improve protection of religious freedom or after the Congress passes a resolution calling for the Vietnamese government to make such improvements.
You have the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom asking us to do this. The House did it, and we are not doing it.
The Vietnam Human Rights Act which passed the House last week implements this and other Commission recommendations. The Commission urges the Senate to do likewise. However, we cannot do that because of the fact that someone is holding it up. That, to me, is unfortunate.
I am going to propose a unanimous consent request. At that time, I know the majority will object, but I want to propose it. I want to also say that I may ask for this a number of times.
I believe the individual Senator or Senators who oppose having a vote on human rights should come down and defend themselves. I would like to hear why it is we can't pass something that passed the House 410-1.
I know my colleague from Montana has a hearing to go to. I am more than happy to yield to the Senator from Montana in just a second so that he can go off to his hearing, providing I can reclaim the floor after the Senator from Montana speaks.
I ask unanimous consent that following the vote on H.J. Res. 51, extension of nondiscrimination with respect to products of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Senate immediately proceed to a vote on final passage of H.R. 2833, the Vietnam Human Rights Act.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BAUCUS. I object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I yield to Senator Baucus and that I can regain the floor after Senator Baucus completes his remarks.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator a question? I temporarily object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Will the Senator from New Hampshire yield for a question?
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Certainly.
Mr. BAUCUS. I think it is only proper that the Senator from New Hampshire regain the floor. I would just like his counsel, if he again asks unanimous consent whether he will refrain from doing so until somebody is on the floor to object.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Absolutely.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I do not object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BAUCUS. I thank my friend from New Hampshire. I deeply value his friendship. We have worked very closely together in lots of matters, particularly on the Environment and Public Works Committee. He is a man of tremendous integrity and is a very good Senator. I deeply appreciate his efforts in the Senate.
Mr. President, I rise in support of the House Joint Resolution 51, which would approve the trade agreement between the United States and Vietnam. This agreement was signed last year, and it would extend normal trade relations status to Vietnam.
It is identical to Senate Joint Resolution 16. That was approved unanimously by the Finance Committee in July of this year.
Our trade agreement with Vietnam represents an important step in a healing process, a step that has been a long time in coming.
Let me just review the history a bit.
After two decades of relative isolation from one another, our two countries began the process of normalizing ties and of healing in the mid-1990s.
In 1994, we lifted our embargo with Vietnam.
Then, in 1995, we normalized diplomatic relations, sending Pete Peterson to be our first Ambassador to Vietnam since the war. A true hero, Pete Peterson did a tremendous job, working with the Vietnamese to help locate missing American personnel, and to help facilitate the orderly departure from Vietnam of refugees and other immigrants.
In 1998, President Clinton waived the Jackson-Vanik prohibitions. This enabled Vietnam to obtain access to financial credit and guarantee programs sponsored by the U.S. Government.
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese Government has done its part. By all accounts, the Government has cooperated in efforts to fully account for missing American personnel. As former Ambassador Peterson reported in June 2000--I am quoting his report now--
Since 1993, [39] joint field activities have been conducted in Vietnam, 288 possible American remains have been repatriated, and the remains of 135 formerly unaccounted-for American servicemen have been identified, including 26 since January 1999.
Continuing to quote Ambassador Peterson:
This would not have been possible without bilateral cooperation between the U.S. and Vietnam. Of the 196 Americans that were on the Last Known Alive list, fate has been determined for all but 41. . . .
Moreover, with respect to freedom of emigration--the underlying purpose of the Jackson-Vanik provisions--the President recently reported:
Overall, Vietnam's emigration policy has liberalized considerably in the last decade and a half. Vietnam has a solid record of cooperation with the United States to permit Vietnamese emigration.
Over 500,000 Vietnamese have emigrated as refugees or immigrants to the United States . . . and only a small number of refugee applicants remain to be processed.
In light of this substantial progress in our relationship with Vietnam, the next logical step is to begin normalizing our commercial ties. The trade agreement concluded last year will do that.
That said, I and most of my colleagues have serious concerns about Vietnam's human rights record. It is not good. The State Department's most recent report describes the record as ``poor.'' It notes that
``although there was some measurable improvement in a few areas, serious problems remain.'' These include: arbitrary arrests and detentions, denials of fair and speedy trials to criminal defendants, significant restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, severe limitations on freedom of religion, denial of worker rights, and discrimination against ethnic minorities.
Making improvements in these and other areas ought to be a top priority of the United States in our relationship with Vietnam. But establishing a normal commercial relationship with Vietnam does not hinder that goal. Indeed, it complements our human rights efforts.
As our experience in countries such as China demonstrates, engagement works. Engagement without illusions works. By interacting with countries commercially, we bring them into closer contact with our democratic values. We generate demand for those values.
This does not mean that we can simply let trade begin to flow with Vietnam and then sit back and watch; rather, we have to engage Vietnam and work actively with them to improve human rights in that country. This process has already begun; and it needs to continue.
Our efforts include an annual high-level dialog with Vietnam on human rights. That exercise has had some success. While much work remains to be done, former Ambassador Peterson reported toward the end of his 6-
year tenure that the Vietnamese Government has grown increasingly tolerant of public dissent.
The Government has also released key religious and political prisoners and loosened restrictions on religious practices.
Additionally, Vietnam recently allowed the International Labor Organization to open an office in Hanoi. Supported by the U.S. Department of Labor, the ILO is providing technical assistance in areas ranging from social safety nets, to workplace safety, to collective bargaining.
Further, it is likely that in the near future we will negotiate a textiles agreement with Vietnam, as we did 2 years ago with Cambodia.
Such an agreement would set quotas on imports of Vietnamese textile and apparel products into the United States. As we did with Cambodia, we should tie quota increases under such an agreement to improvements in worker rights.
Much work remains to be done to improve human rights in Vietnam, but engagement has gotten us off to a good start. And that is important. It is important to get off to a good start, get things moving in the right direction.
Moreover, it is important to remember that by approving the trade agreement with Vietnam, we are not giving it so-called PNTR; that is, permanent normal trade relations. We are not doing that. We are not doing for Vietnam what we did for China last year, in preparation for China's accession into the World Trade Organization.
The step we are taking with Vietnam is much more modest. Vietnam currently has a disfavored trade status, one in which exports to the United States are subject to prohibitive tariffs. This agreement moves Vietnam to a normal but probationary trade status.
Under the Jackson-Vanik provisions of the Trade Act, the President and Congress will still conduct annual reviews of Vietnam's trade status. These reviews will be an additional source of leverage in seeking improvement of human rights in Vietnam.
I would like to turn now to the substance of the agreement and the benefits that we will gain from it.
At its core, the agreement will enable us to decrease tariffs on Vietnamese imports to tariff levels applied to imports from most other countries. Vietnam, in return, will apply to U.S. goods the same tariff rates it applies to other countries.
But this agreement goes well beyond a reciprocal lowering of tariffs. It requires Vietnam, among other things, to lower tariffs on over 250 categories of goods; to phase in import, export, and distribution rights for U.S.-owned companies; to adhere to intellectual property rights standards which, in some cases, exceed WTO standards; and to liberalize opportunities for U.S. companies to operate in key service sectors, including banking, insurance, and telecommunications.
This agreement should provide a sound foundation for a mutually beneficial commercial relationship. It will build upon the increasingly stronger ties between the United States and Vietnam.
Indeed, I hope the efforts Vietnam makes to implement the agreement will put it well along the way to eventual membership in the WTO.
Make no mistake, there still will be a lot of work to be done, even after the agreement is approved. We will have to work with Vietnam to ensure that its obligations on paper translate into actual practice. We will also have to monitor operation of the agreement very carefully. But I am confident that this agreement does get us off to a very good start. That is critical.
I am pleased to support the resolution extending normal trade relations status to Vietnam.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, my colleague from Montana mentioned human rights violations. Yet in spite of the fact that the House voted 410-1 to cite those violations, we cannot have a similar vote in the Senate today, either before or after voting on normal trade relations with Vietnam. That is my issue and my concern, and it is why I did request unanimous consent to proceed to that bill.
For the life of me, I don't know why we choose to ignore these violations. Everyone knows where the votes are on normal trade relations. I know my view does not carry in this Chamber. But I don't understand why we can't at least vote on the human rights violations.
We should not approve the U.S.-Vietnam trade agreement without at least addressing these human rights violations in Vietnam. I don't understand why we can't address them. What is the fear? That somehow we are going to antagonize the Vietnamese? I am going to be giving you some information very shortly that makes one wonder why we would not want to antagonize the Vietnamese. We will talk about that.
Let me first ask, what does this human rights act do that we are not allowed to pass it in the Senate because somebody is holding it up with a secret hold? Well, it prevents the United States from providing nonhumanitarian assistance to the Government of Vietnam above 2001 levels unless the President certifies that the Government of Vietnam has made substantial progress toward releasing political and religious prisoners it holds; secondly, that the Government of Vietnam has made substantial progress toward respecting the right to freedom of religion, which it does not; thirdly, that the Government of Vietnam has made substantial progress toward respecting human rights, which it does not do; and the Government of Vietnam is not involved in trafficking persons. They do that, too.
We are going to ignore all that. We are going to ignore that, and we can't possibly have a vote today to cite the Vietnamese for those human rights violations because somehow we are going to offend them.
We don't take that position against other nations that have human rights violations. The President has the ultimate waiver authority under this legislation. If the continuation of assistance is deemed in the national interest, if he thinks it is in the national interest, he can waive these issues. He can waive the certification process, if he believes it is necessary. It is no big deal. There is no harm done if the Senate would pass this resolution.
This resolution authorizes appropriations of up to $2 million to NGOs, nongovernment organizations, that promote human rights and nonviolent democratic change. It states: It is the policy of the U.S. Government to overcome the jamming of Radio Free Asia by the Vietnamese. It authorizes $10 million over 2 years for that effort. It helps Vietnamese refugees settle in the United States, especially those who were prevented from doing so by actions of the Vietnamese, such as bribes and government interference. Yes, that goes on, too. We are going to ignore it, but it does go on.
It requires an annual report to Congress on the above-mentioned issues. As you can see, this is a very reasonable piece of legislation. It doesn't tie the hands of the President. It only involves nonhumanitarian aid. It only concerns increases in nonhumanitarian aid above the 2001 levels.
My personal belief is we should not approve normal trade relations with Vietnam. I know where the votes are. I know this legislation will pass.
I am particularly disgusted by a press report which contained an excerpt from the Vietnamese People's Army Daily commenting on the recent terrorist attacks. I want my colleagues to hear what the official organ of the Vietnamese Army thinks. And remember, they will profit handsomely from this trade agreement with the United States.
As I display the quote, I want to put everything in perspective. We had a terrorist attack, the worst ever in the history of America. This is what the Vietnamese official People's Army Daily said about it. In spite of that, we are not even allowed in the Senate to pass a resolution criticizing them for their human rights violations before we give them normal trade status.
I heard the President of the United States very clearly state and articulate over and over again, you are either with us or you are against us. It is not gray. It is either black or white. You are on our side in the fight against terrorism or you are not. Let's read what they said:
. . . it's obvious that through this incident, Americans should take another look at themselves. If Americans had not pursued isolationism and chauvinism, and if they had not insisted on imposing their values on others in their own subjective manner, then perhaps the twin towers would still be standing together in the singing waves and breeze of the Atlantic.
That is what they said. But we are going to ignore all that. This is Vietnam. We now have to normalize trade relations with them, but we can't even criticize them on their human rights violations. I will withdraw any recorded vote on normal trade relations if we will just bring up by unanimous consent and vote on the human rights violations that the House passed 410-1.
Of what are we afraid? Why are we afraid of offending? Do my colleagues like that comment? How do they like that? How do they think the 6,000 families feel about that comment? That is what they said.
If we think that is bad, while it is up there, let me give a few more comments. This was 2 days after the incident:
A visit to the city's institutes of higher learning on Thursday revealed an alarming level of excitement and happiness over the recent devastating terrorist attacks in the United States.
This was in the international news section of the Deutsche Presse. Here is what one person said on the streets of Hanoi:
``Many people here consider this act of terrorism an act of heroism, because they dared confront the almighty United States,'' said one post-graduate student at Hanoi Construction University. Another student, 22-year-old class monitor Dang Quang Bao, said terrorism as a means is not ideal.
``But this helped the U.S. open its eyes, because it has blindly imposed its power on the world through embargoes and intervening in the internal affairs of other nations.
``When people heard about the attack in America,'' he added, ``many said it was legitimate.''
Privately, thousands if not millions of Vietnamese admire the U.S. for its economic power, military supremacy. . . .
But Communist-ruled Vietnam, like many Third World nations, maintains a testy relationship with the United States.
``If Bush had died, I would be happier, because he's so warlike,'' said Tran Huy Hanh, a student at the Construction University who heads his class's chapter of the youth union.
``America deserves this, because of all the suffering it has caused humankind,'' said one freshman at National Economics University.
``But they should have attacked the headquarters of the CIA, because the CIA serves America's political plots,'' he said.
This Senate won't even give us a chance to vote to condemn their human rights violations. We are not even asking you to condemn this. All we are asking you to do is condemn the human rights violations they are committing. What are we doing? What are we saying to the American people?
It is unbelievable. I am stunned.
In the cafes and barber shops--not to mention the classrooms in Hanoi--people expressed broad consensus that the U.S. reaped what it has sown. Listen to this one: ``I feel sorry for the terrorists who were very brave because they risked their lives,'' said a motorbike guard, who did not wish to be named, in Hanoi. ``I am happy,'' gloated a 70-year-old Hanoian who said he was an army officer in wars against the French and Americans. ``You see, America always boasts about its power, but what has happened proves America is not invincible.''
``The United States is king of the jungle,'' said 25-year-old Phan Huy Son. ``When the king is attacked, the other animals are happy.''
This is what we got from Hanoi. Somebody will come down here and they will read the official little cable that came in. That is what it said
``officially.'' But this is what the People's Army Daily said on September 13. It is outrageous in and of itself that they said it. But let me tell you something. We are further compounding the outrage by standing on the Senate floor and voting to normalize trade relations with them. That is bad enough. But even worse, we don't have the guts to bring up on the Senate floor and pass something that was supported 410-1. Don't tell me one Senator has a hold. I know one Senator has a hold on it. Let's go to that Senator and say take the hold off and let us vote on it, whatever the vote is.
``The towers would still be standing together in the singing waves and breeze of the Atlantic'' were it not for us imposing values on others. Does that sound like somebody who is for us? It sounds like somebody who is against us to me. It is an insult, an outrage. I didn't even hear Saddam Hussein say that. It is an outrage that that was said. It is a further outrage that we are compounding by refusing to even consider the human rights violations. I understand a resolution approving normal trade relations is going to pass. I know it will pass. But why can't we have a vote? Why can't we have a vote right now after this debate on the human rights act?
Mr. President, after showing this material and talking about it, I am going to again, since there is representation of the majority side on the floor, ask unanimous consent that following the vote on H.J. Res. 51, the extension of nondiscriminatory treatment with respect to the products of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Senate immediately proceed to and vote on final passage of H.R. 2833, the Vietnam Human Rights Act.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question before I object?
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Certainly.
Mr. BAUCUS. Has this resolution been referred to the Foreign Relations Committee?
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. The resolution passed the House 410-1. I don't know if it has been referred to the committee. I assume so.
Mr. BAUCUS. It has not. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. If it needs to be referred to the Foreign Relations Committee, it should be, and the Foreign Relations Committee should act post haste and get it up to the Senate floor before we consider the action we are now taking.
That is my point. We should not give free trade to a Communist regime that ignores basic human rights and insults us--``insult'' isn't even strong enough--by saying something like that, having those comments made on the streets of Hanoi and proudly printing it in their propaganda rags. We stand here on the Senate floor and refuse to even talk about it. That is outrageous.
It is my understanding that the bill has been held at the desk after the House sent it over, to get it straight on the record.
I know my colleague from Iowa wishes to make some remarks, and I will be happy to yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, is recognized.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for his kind yielding of the floor because I have to go to a hearing at 11 o'clock before the Senate Finance Committee when we are going to talk about a stimulus package. So I thank the Senator.
I support the joint resolution approving the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement. I commend Chairman Baucus for his leadership in helping to bring this historic agreement before the Senate today. I also think we ought to take time to thank Senators McCain and Kerry for their strong support of the agreement. These two Senators just named are people who have been, for a long time, active in trying to work out trade relations between the United States and Vietnam. Many times before now, I have opposed them in those efforts. Many times in the past, I have supported the Senator from New Hampshire in some of his efforts. I served with him for a long period of time on the Select Committee on POW/MIAs during the beginning of the last decade to work things out.
The reason I am for this trade agreement, as opposed to positions I have taken in the past, is because I think that trade--for business men and women--between the United States and another country can probably do more to promote human rights, market economic principles, and political freedom and political democracy, much more than we can as political leaders or diplomats working between two countries. I see a very beneficial impact over the long haul--not maybe the short haul--to changing a lot of things in Vietnam. The Senator from New Hampshire has raised issues about it, and legitimately so.
It is a fact that our Nation's healing process over Vietnam is not yet complete, nor may it ever be. But passage of this historic agreement, I believe, will aid us in the healing process. Approving the agreement will have other profound consequences for both nations and benefit to our Nation as well because I look at international trade as not benefiting the country that we are having the agreement with but benefiting the United States. If it doesn't benefit us, there is no point in our doing it.
When you look at the purpose of our trade arrangements, they are obviously to help our consumers; but more importantly, they are to enhance entrepreneurship within our country, expand our economy, and in the process, create jobs. If we don't create jobs, there is no point in our having the sort of trade arrangements that we have. We do create jobs when we have enhanced international trade. A lot of statistics show thousands and thousands of jobs are created with trade, and not only are jobs created, but jobs that pay 15 percent above the national average.
First, as far as this agreement is concerned, having consequences that are good, approval of the resolution will further strengthen our relations with Vietnam, a process that began under President George Bush in the early 1990s. President Clinton, putting our national interests first, diligently pursued the same policy started by the elder Bush.
President George W. Bush took another historic step on the road to better and more prosperous relations by sending this Vietnam bilateral trade agreement to Congress for approval on July 8 of this year.
Second, approval of this resolution will enable workers and farmers to take advantage of a sweeping bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam.
This agreement covers virtually every aspect of trade with Vietnam, from trade in services to intellectual property rights and investment.
The agreement includes specific commitments by Vietnam to reduce tariffs on approximately 250 products, about four-fifths of which are agricultural goods, and U.S. investors, in addition, will have specific legal protections unavailable to those same investors today.
Government procurement will become more open and transparent. Vietnam will be required to adhere to a number of multilateral disciplines on customs procedures, import licensing and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, which are so important to making sure that we do not have nontariff trade barriers in agricultural products.
There is no doubt that implementation of the United States-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement will open new markets for U.S. manufactured goods, services, and our farm products.
It is a win for American workers, but it is also going to benefit the Vietnamese people.
Continued engagement through open trade will help the country prosper. Adherence to the rule of law, or rule-based trading systems, will also further establish the rule of law in Vietnam. It is truly a win-win for both nations.
Finally, it is my sincere hope that passage of this joint resolution will help pave the way for even greater trade accomplishments yet this year. One of the most important things we can do for our Nation before we adjourn is to pass what is now called trade promotion authority which gives the President of the United States authority to negotiate in the manner that we have negotiated down trade barriers and tariffs since 1947, originally under the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trades and now under the World Trade Organization regime.
Our President must have all the tools we can offer, particularly at this time of economic uncertainty which happened as a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11. In my mind, there would be no more important tool at this time of economic uncertainty than trade promotion authority.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the Finance Committee the other day that terror causes people to pull back; in other words, to lose confidence, to not do normal economic activity, the normal spending and investment. That is what September 11 was all about. We see it in our economy today.
According to Chairman Greenspan, trade promotion authority is a vital tool encountering the tendency of people and nations to pull back and then lower their confidence in their own economy which affects the world economy collectively.
Most important, Alan Greenspan told us that Congress giving the President trade promotion authority will say to terrorists: You will not stop the global economic cooperation that has brought so much good and prosperity to the world just because of terrorist attacks that we have had in this country.
I think Chairman Greenspan has it absolutely right. Passing trade promotion authority will enable the President to help jump-start the world economy through trade. Passing trade promotion authority and launching a new round of WTO trade negotiations this November at the ministerial meeting in Qatar is a vital step toward economic recovery and restoring the long-term economic growth that benefits workers and farmers everywhere.
As I conclude this comment on the Vietnam bilateral trade agreement, let me say, as important as it is, and that is an important step toward finishing our trade agenda, so is the trade promotion authority for the President.
The Vietnam agreement then is just one step. Our trade agenda is not done. Let's do the right thing for the President and for the American people and follow Chairman Greenspan's advice. Let's work together to finish our trade agenda and pass trade promotion authority this year.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the resolution before us. First I commend the Senator from Iowa for his leadership on trade issues, his leadership on economic issues, and I certainly associate myself with his remarks regarding trade promotion authority and the need for the President to have that authority.
I also commend the Senator from New Hampshire for his remarks regarding the human rights situation in Vietnam. I agree. We should have the opportunity to vote on a resolution condemning the human rights record in Vietnam. It would only be appropriate to follow the precedent of the House in, while passing normal trade relations with Vietnam, also passing by an overwhelming margin a resolution condemning the human rights record.
The Senator from Iowa mentioned that trade benefits us. It should benefit us, and that should be the standard by which we engage these kinds of agreements. I ask the question: Will this agreement really do that?
He also mentions the fact that it should create jobs. Certainly trade, if it is fair and free trade, will create jobs.
The American consumer today is being purposefully confused, and our domestic farm-raised catfish industries are on the brink of bankruptcy in this country primarily due in large part to the massive exports from Vietnam of a product called basa fish. If this were any other product--
if it were steel, for instance--it would be called dumping.
We have seen an incredible increase in the exports of basa fish to the United States and having it labeled within our country as being catfish. That blatant mislabeling is causing confusion among the American people and is absolutely destroying our domestic catfish industry.
The States of Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana produce 95 percent of the Nation's catfish. These catfish are grain-fed and farm-raised catfish produced under strict health and environmental regulations. Today, with the passage of this resolution, we are helping Vietnam while we are doing absolutely nothing to help United States aquaculture, United States catfish farmers who are on the brink of bankruptcy.
Arkansas ranks second in the amount of catfish produced nationally, but it is an industry that has grown and thrived in one of the poorest areas of our country, the Mississippi Delta, an area that has sometimes been referred to as the Appalachia of the nineties. It is an area that faces incredible economic challenges. Despite the strong work ethic, despite the strong spirit of the delta region, economic opportunities have been few and far between.
I ask my colleagues who are thinking about improving the economy of Vietnam, let's first think about what, with our current trade practice, we are doing to the aquaculture industry in the United States which has been one of the few shining success stories in this deprived, poor region of our Nation.
At a time when fears of unemployment and the realities of an economic downturn in the wake of the September 11 attacks are weighing heavily on the minds of the American people, it is not acceptable--it should not be acceptable--to sit back and watch an important industry that employs thousands of Americans, thousands of my constituents in the State of Arkansas, and see their industry crushed by inferior imports because of a glitch in our regulatory system.
Vietnamese basa is being confused by the American public as catfish due to labeling that allows them to be called basa catfish. These Vietnamese basa are being imported at record levels. Let me explain.
In June of this year, 648,000 pounds were imported into the United States. For the past 7 months, imports have averaged 382,000 pounds per month. To put that in perspective, in all of 1997, there were only 500,000 pounds of Vietnamese basa imported. We are almost doing that every month now. It is predicted that nearly 20 million pounds could be imported this year. That is an incredible 4,000-percent increase in 4 years.
I want my colleagues to think about an industry in their State that could survive--could it survive?--imports that had increased at the level of 4,000 percent in a 4-year period of time under mislabeling, confusing regulations.
The Vietnamese penetration into this market in the last year alone has more than tripled. Market penetration has risen from 7 percent to 23 percent of the total market. Four years ago, the Vietnamese basa, wrongly labeled ``catfish,'' comprised less than 10 percent--to be exact, 7 percent--of the catfish market in the United States. Today it is almost one-quarter of the catfish market in the United States.
They have been able to achieve such remarkable market penetration by using the label of ``catfish'' on the packaging while selling this different species of fish for $1.25 a pound cheaper. It is a different species and is $1.25 a pound cheaper. It is being sold as what is produced in the United States, true channel catfish.
For those who argue this is the result of a competitive market, I offer a few facts. When the fish were labeled and marketed as Vietnamese basa or just plain basa, sales in this country were almost nonexistent. Some importers even tried to label basa as white grouper, believing that was going to lead to greater sales. Still no success.
However, by adding the name ``catfish'' to the label, these fish have seen sales skyrocket. Although the Food and Drug Administration issued an order on September 19 stating the correct labeling of Vietnamese basa be a high priority, the FDA is allowing these fish to retain the label of ``catfish'' in the title. I do not know whether it is by budget constraints or whether it is a lack of personnel at the FDA, but it is obvious that inspections have been lacking in the past and the inclusion of the term of ``catfish'' in the title serves to promote that confusion.
This illustration shows how Vietnamese companies and rogue U.S. importers are trying to confuse the American people. Names such as
``cajun delight,'' ``delta fresh,'' and ``farm select'' lead consumers to believe the product is something that it is not.
In fact, the brand ``delta fresh'' is one of the most misleading because it implies in the very title ``delta fresh catfish'' that it is being grown in the delta of the Mississippi, in Arkansas and Mississippi.
The reality is, it is fish from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, which has unhealthy, environmentally unsafe conditions, being sold to the American consumer as channel-grown, farm-grown catfish.
The total impact of the catfish industry on the U.S. economy is estimated to exceed $4 billion annually. Approximately 12,000 people are employed by this industry. I have been told by the catfish association that as many as 25 percent of the catfish farmers in Arkansas will be forced out of business if this problem is not corrected soon.
Now let me remind my colleagues, this is the poorest region of the United States. It is poorer than what the Appalachian region was when we went in with massive national support. Yet this region, which has had very few bright spots in its economy in the last decade, has seen aquaculture as perhaps being the salvation of the economy in the delta of Arkansas. Twenty-five percent of these catfish farmers could be gone in the next year if we do not correct this problem.
Catfish farmers in this country have invested millions of dollars educating the American public about the nutritional attributes of catfish. Through their efforts, American consumers have an expectation of what a catfish is and how it is raised. They have an expectation that what they purchase is indeed a catfish and that it has been raised and farmed in a clean and environmentally safe environment.
All of the investment that the American catfish industry has made in order to educate the American people is being kidnapped by Vietnamese basa growers and rogue importers who are bringing this product in and pretending that it is that same product, and it is not.
This next poster shows an official list of both scientific names and market common names from the Food and Drug Administration. Almost all of these fish can contain the word ``catfish'' in their names under current FDA rules. We can see all of the very scientific names, and yet all of these various scientific names are allowed to use ``catfish'' in their market or common names creating incredible confusion among the consuming public, understandably.
Most people look, they see the word ``catfish,'' and they do not pay any attention to the rest of that package labeling. When the average Arkansan hears the word ``catfish,'' the idea of a typical channel catfish is what comes to mind. When they sit down at a restaurant and order a plate of fried catfish, that same channel catfish is what they expect to be eating.
The channel catfish, as we can see, there is a whole list of other varieties that are now being allowed to usurp that name.
One cannot blame the restaurateur who is offered ``catfish for a dollar less a pound'' for buying it. It is basa. It is not catfish. However, in many cases they do not realize that what they are really buying is not American-grown channel catfish but Vietnamese basa, that it is not subject to health and safety standards, not grown in clean ponds, not fed as American catfish are fed.
The third poster shows the relationship between these fish, and you will notice they are in different families and--only in the same order but totally separate families. The FDA claims since the fish are the same order, they can have the word ``catfish'' in their market or common name, even though they are not in the same family, they are not in the same genus, and they are not in the same species. By this standard, cats and cattle could be labeled the same.
In addition, it is important to note the conditions in which these fish are raised. U.S. catfish producers raise catfish in pristine ponds that are closely monitored. These ponds are carefully aerated and the fish are fed granulated pellets consisting of grains composed of soybean, corn, and cotton seed, all in strict compliance with Federal, State, and local health and safety laws.
What we are asking those catfish growers to compete with is Vietnamese basa which now composes almost a quarter of the domestic market. These other species, basa, are raised in cages in the Mekong Delta, one of the most polluted watersheds in the world. It has been reported that these fish are exposed to many unhealthy elements, including raw sewage.
I say to my colleagues, they would not allow the United States Food and Drug Administration to permit medicine to come in from such unhealthy, environmentally unsafe conditions. Yet we are allowing the American consuming public to eat basa labeled as catfish, grown in unhealthy environments, and not know the reality of what they are getting.
It is obvious the use of the label ``catfish'' is being used to mislead consumers and is unfairly harming our domestic industry. I think it is odd we continue to look for new and more open trade policies to provide other nations access to our markets when we continually fail to enforce meaningful fairness provisions.
As we sit on the brink of allowing another trade bill to pass this Congress, I want to reiterate a phrase that I have heard over and over: Free trade only works if it is fair trade.
This is not fair. Our regulatory agencies must recognize their responsibilities and act on them.
I realize this trade bill is not the answer to this problem. I understand this is a labeling issue, a regulatory issue, but I could not allow us to pass a trade bill that is going to benefit Vietnam at a time that we are so lax in our regulatory environment we are allowing a domestic industry to be gutted while we approve trade relations with a country that is destroying this domestic industry.
I urge all of my colleagues to support me and the congressional delegations of Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama as we move forward in trying to resolve this pressing issue, be it through regulatory changes or be it through legislative mandate. I thank my colleagues for their willingness to allow me to make my case on this important issue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the time until 2 p.m. today be equally divided as provided under the statute governing consideration of H.J. Res. 51, and that at 2 p.m. today, the joint resolution be read a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the joint resolution, with rule 12, paragraph 4 being waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. It is the intention of the majority leader, after the vote--this is not in the form of a unanimous consent request but, in a sense, an advisory one--as it was announced early today it is the majority leader's intention to go to the airport security legislation immediately after that vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise to support the resolution, but I want to urge the Senate to take up the issue of airport security. Senator Hollings, Senator McCain, and I have introduced legislation, together with other colleagues, that we believe is absolutely critical to the restoration of the confidence of the American people with respect to flying.
I have been on any number of flights, as have my colleagues. We have been flying since September 11 many times, many of us, but obviously the American people remain uncertain and they want the highest level of safety, not simply be told it is safe. The highest level of safety is going to come when we have the highest standards that are enforceable, fully enforceable, with the kind of professional training and accountability that will do that. I hope this afternoon our colleagues will recognize the importance of this.
I met this morning with a person from a travel agency who does most of the reservations for the airlines. They went from selling 20,000 tickets a day to 2 in one day. Now they are back up around 10,000 or so, but 50 percent in a business with a margin of 1 percent is not sufficient. We clearly need to do everything possible in order to restore the confidence, and not just the confidence, but provide a level of security that Americans have a right to expect--not just tomorrow, not just for a few months, not as a matter of confidence-
building in the aftermath of what happened, but for all of time out in the future. We can do that, and we need to do it rapidly.
I listened carefully to the Senator from Arkansas, and indeed he negated his entire argument at the end by saying: I recognize this is regulatory. In point of fact, what he is complaining about has nothing to do with the resolution we are passing today because all you have to do is label the fish differently. You can put ``Arkansas grown,'' you can put ``American grown,'' you can label any other kind of fish any way you want. If people are concerned about it, then, by gosh, they ought to turn to the FDA.
This trade agreement with Vietnam benefits both countries. Vietnam gets lower tariffs on its goods entering the United States, but Vietnamese tariffs on American goods will also be reduced. That will be a boon to the American exporter.
This agreement is another major step in the process of normalizing relations with Vietnam--a long, painstaking process which began with President Reagan, moved to President Bush, was continued by President Clinton, and now this administration supports it. This is an agreement the administration supports and with which they believe we should move forward.
None of us diminishes the importance of human rights, the importance of change in a country that remains authoritarian in its government. We object to that. I have said that many times. My hope in the long haul will be that we will celebrate one day the full measure of democracy in Vietnam through the rest of Asia. The question is, How do you get there? What is the best way to promote change? What is the best way to try to succeed in moving down a road of measured cooperation that allows people to accomplish a whole series of goals that are important to us as a country?
I know Senator McCain and Senator Hagel join me. As former combat servicemen in Vietnam, both very strongly believe that this particular approach of engaging Vietnam is the way in which we will best continue the process of change that we have witnessed already significantly in the country of Vietnam. We believe this trade agreement is another major step in the process of normalizing those relations and in moving forward in a way that benefits the United States as we do it.
This is the most sweeping and detailed agreement the United States has ever negotiated with a so-called Jackson-Vanik country. It focuses on four core areas: Trade in goods, intellectual property rights, trade in services, and investment. But it also includes important chapters on business facilitation and transparency. It is a win-win for the United States and for Vietnam in the way in which it will engage Vietnam and bring it further along the road to transparency, accountability, the adoption of business practices that are globally accepted and ultimately the changes that come through the natural process of that kind of engagement, to a recognition of a different kind of value system and practice.
The Government of Vietnam has agreed to undertake a wide range of steps to open its markets to foreign trade and investment, including decreasing tariffs on key American goods; eliminating non-tariff and tariff barriers on the import of agricultural and industrial goods; reducing barriers and opening its markets to United States services, particularly in the key sectors of banking and distribution, insurance and telecommunications; protecting intellectual property rights pursuant to international standards; increasing market access for American investments and eliminating investment-distorting policies; and adopting measures to promote commercial transparency.
These commitments, some of which are phased in over a reasonable schedule of time in the next few years, will improve the climate for American investors and, most importantly, give American farmers, manufacturers, producers of software, music, and movies, and American service providers access to Vietnam's growing market.
Vietnam is a marketplace of 80 million people. Only 5 percent of the population of Vietnam is over the age of 65; 40 percent, maybe more, of the population of Vietnam is under the age of 30. If 40 percent of the country is under the age of 30, that means they were born at the end of the war and since the war, and their knowledge is of a very different world. It is important to remember that and to continue to bring Vietnam into the world community and into a different set of practices.
For Vietnam, this agreement provides access to the largest market in the world on normal trade relations status (NTR) at a time when economic growth in this country has slowed. Equally important, it signals that the United States is committed to expanded economic ties and further normalization of the bilateral relationship.
This agreement was signed over 1 year ago. The Bush Administration sent it to Congress June 8. The House of Representatives approved it by a voice vote on September 6--an indication of the strong bipartisan support that exists for it. We can now complete a major step in moving forward by approving it in the Senate.
In closing, on the subject of human rights, I believe we are making progress. Many of the American nongovernmental organizations working in Vietnam and even some of our veterans groups--Vietnam Veterans of America and the VFW--support the notion that we should continue to move down the road in the way we have been with respect to the relationship and our related efforts to promote human rights. We need to maintain accountability. We should never turn our backs on American values. But there are different tools. Sometimes the tools can be overly blunt and counterproductive, and sometimes the tools achieve their goals in ways that advance the interests of all parties concerned.
In my judgment, passing this trade agreement separately on its own, is the way to continue to advance the interests of the United States both in terms of human rights, as well as our larger economic interests simultaneously. I urge my colleagues to adopt this resolution of approval.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business when the Senator from Massachusetts concludes his remarks.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Wyden are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to express my concerns with the United States-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement and the problems that have been associated with Vietnamese fish that are displacing the American catfish industry.
Just two days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's official, state-run media ran a story that stated,
It's obvious that through this incident, Americans should take another look at themselves. If Americans had not pursued isolationism and chauvinism, and if they had not insisted on imposing their values on others in their own subjective manner, then perhaps the twin towers would still be standing together in the singing waves and breeze of the Atlantic.
I think that is indicative of the fact that the Vietnamese Government does not have a friendly view of the United States. We aren't imposing our views on people around the world. They are trying to impose their views on us. We have been attacked for it. I am offended by that. I think the American people ought to know that. The President said these nations ought to choose whether they are for us or against us with regard to eliminating terrorism. I wasn't pleased with that comment from Vietnam.
I want to make the note that they are apparently attempting to move in some direction toward a market economy, which I celebrate. Although we had a long and bitter and difficult war with them, I certainly believe that we can move beyond that conflict and that we can work together in the future. But comments such as the one I just read are not a way to build bridges between our nations. A nation that considers itself responsible should not make a statement like that at the very same time they are asking for trade benefits with this country.
We know what this will amount to. It will amount to the fact that they will sell a lot more in the United States than they will buy from us.
That is the way it works on these trade agreements. I am sure we have that today with China. We find that for every one dollar China buys from us, the United States buys four dollars from them. But I want to talk about this specific issue. It is frustrating to me.
Since 1997, the import volume of frozen fish filets from Vietnam that are imported and sold as ``catfish'' has increased at incredibly high rates. The volume has risen from less than 500,000 pounds to over 7 million pounds per year in the previous three years. The trend has continued this year-the-Vietnamese penetration into the U.S. catfish filet market alone has tripled in the last year from about 7 percent of the market to 23 percent.
The Vietnamese are selling their product in the U.S. for $1.25 less than U.S. processors. Because of this, the prices that U.S. processors pay U.S. catfish farmers has dropped, causing significant losses and threatening farmers, processors, supplying feed mills, employees and communities dependent on the industry.
U.S. catfish farm production, which occurs mainly in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, accounts for 68 percent of the pounds of fish sold and 50 percent of the total value of all U.S. aquaculture, or fish farming, production.
That is a remarkable figure. Sixty-eight percent of the poundage of fish produced by aquaculture are catfish produced mainly in my State and others in the region.
The area where most of our catfish production comes from is an area of the State in which I was raised. That is, indeed, the poorest area of Alabama. We have very few cash-producing sources of income in that area of the State. Much of it has been lost. But there has been a bright spot in catfish--both in production of ponds, the scientific research, the feed mills and the processing of it. It produces quite a little spurt of positive economic growth in this very poor industry.
Seventy-five percent of the employees--I have been told--at these processing plants are single mothers. That is where many of them get their first job.
Catfish farming is a significant industry for many areas of our country. The problem is this: The fish that the Vietnamese are importing which are displacing U.S.-raised catfish are not catfish at all. They are basa fish, which are not even of the same family, genus, or species of North American channel catfish. They do not even look like North American channel catfish. These basa fish are being shipped into the United States and labeled as catfish. These labels claim that the frozen fish filets are Cajun catfish, implying they are from the Mississippi Delta or from Louisiana. In fact, they are from the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. As a result, American consumers believe they are purchasing and eating United States farm-raised catfish when they are, in fact, eating Vietnamese basa.
Indeed, for some American people, who are not used to catfish, there has been an odd reluctance--I guess I can understand it--to eating catfish. The name of it makes them a bit uneasy. They wonder about eating catfish. But the American catfish industry has gradually, over a period of years, been able to wear down that image and show that catfish is one of the absolutely finest fish you can eat. It is a delight. And more and more people are eating it.
The American catfish industry has invested a long time in creating a market for which no market ever existed before. And now we have the Vietnamese shipping in a substantial amount--and it is continuing to grow at record levels--of what is not even catfish, and marketing it under the name of American catfish, a product that has been improved and has gained support throughout our country. So it really is a fraudulent deal.
Also, the Vietnamese basa fish are raised in conditions that are substantially different from the way that United States catfish are raised and processed.
I remember, as a young person, the Ezell Catfish House on the Tombigbee River. The fish were caught out of the river and sold there. Really the Ezell family was key to the beginning of catfish popularity. But people felt better about pond-raised catfish because the water is cleaner and there is less likelihood there would be the pollutants that would be in the river. So when you buy American catfish in a restaurant, overwhelmingly, 99 percent is pond-raised catfish. It is clean and well managed, according to high American standards.
That is not true of Vietnamese basa fish. These fish come out of the Mekong River. Most of these fish in Vietnam are grown in floating cages, under the fishermen's homes, along the Mekong River. They are able to produce fish at a low cost because of cheap labor, loose environmental regulations, and other regulations. I understand that the workers in Vietnamese processing plants are paid one dollar a day. And unlike other imported fish, such as tilapia or orange roughy, these fish are imported as an intended substitute for American farm-raised catfish.
A group of Alabama catfish farmers visited Vietnam last November and toured a number of the basa farms and processing plants. They witnessed the use of chemicals that have been banned in the United States for over 20 years, the use of human and animal waste as feed, and temperatures in processing plants too warm to ensure the freshness of the fish being processed there. These fish, of questionable quality, are being sent in record numbers to the United States and are fraudulently labeled as catfish.
If the Vietnamese were raising North American channel catfish of good quality and importing them into the United States, I could understand that. That would be fair trade. But fair trade is not importing basa fish, labeling them as catfish, and passing them off to American consumers as a quality pond-raised and processed catfish.
But there are some things our Federal Government can do to enforce and clarify our existing laws. So I am pleased today to join with Senator Hutchinson and Senator Lincoln, and others, to introduce legislation that will eliminate the use of the word ``catfish'' with any species that are not North American catfish. This small step will help clarify FDA regulations and lessen consumer confusion.
In addition, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal agency charged with protecting the safety of the American food supply, can begin inspecting more packages as they come into the United States to ensure that they are labeled in a legal manner. The FDA, the Customs Service, and the Justice Department need to vigorously pursue criminal violations in this regard, if appropriate.
Currently, the FDA allows at least five violations before they will take any enforcement action beyond a letter of reprimand to the company importing the mislabeled fish. That does not make good sense to me. The FDA allows an astounding number of violations before they do anything. So I encourage the FDA, the Customs Service, and the Justice Department to take every step they can in these matters.
I am disappointed there are no provisions in this trade agreement to address the problems of the catfish industry. While this trade agreement is not amendable--and I understand that--I want to take the opportunity while the Senate is considering this agreement to express my concerns for the way the Vietnamese fish industry is confusing American consumers and causing economic hardship in my State and others.
For these reasons, I expect, Mr. President, to vote against this agreement.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me say to my colleague, I certainly have respect for and appreciate his concern about a local industry, but I think, as I said to Senator Hutchinson, this is a matter of labeling, it is a matter of regulatory process. It is not a question of whether or not you improve the overall agreement. I also say to my colleague--
he may not be aware of it--obviously, the People's Army Daily, the Army, are the hardliners. And there is a struggle going on in Vietnam between the reformers and the hardliners, as there are in many countries that are trying to deal with this kind of process of change. That statement by the Army colonel is not representative of the Government.
I would like to share with all my colleagues that the President of Vietnam, the very next day after the terrorist attack, sent this message to the United States:
The government and people of Vietnam were shocked by the tragedy that happened on the morning of 11 September 2001. We would like to convey to the government and people of the United States, especially the victims' families, our profound condolences. Consistently, Vietnam protests against terrorist acts that bring deaths and sufferings to civilians.
This is the comment I received from the Foreign Minister:
Your Excellency Mr. Senator,
I was extremely shocked and deeply moved by the tragedy happening in the United States on the 11 September 2001 morning. I would like to extend to you, and through you, to the families of the victims, my deepest condolences. I am confident that the U.S. Government and people will soon overcome this difficult moment. We strongly condemn the terrorist attack and are willing to work closely with the United States and other countries in the fight against terrorist acts.
This is a media report from the German press, Deutsche Presse. This is from Hanoi:
American businesspeople, aid workers, and embassy officials said Wednesday they have been overwhelmed with the amount of support and sympathy offered by Vietnamese over last week's devastating terrorist attacks in the United States.
While Vietnam's normally reserved state media has confined its expressions of sorrow to an announcement by President Duc Luong, personal reactions by Vietnamese have been deep and heartfelt.
``There has been a real outpouring of sympathy,'' said a spokesman at the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh city, the former Saigon. Bouquets of flowers were left at the building's entrance, while locals and expatriates lined up last week to sign a condolence book.
Similar acts were played out at the embassy in Hanoi where senior Vietnamese officials and contacts paid their respects.
There have been reports of some U.S. firms receiving donations from Vietnamese for families of the victims in the United States.
So I really think we have to recognize that the transition for the military is obviously slower and far more complicated, as it is with the People's Liberation Army in China, versus what the leadership is trying to do as they bring their own country along. I really think we need to take recognition of these facts.
The fact is, there is participation in religious activities in Vietnam that continues to grow. Churches are full. I have been to church in Vietnam. They are full on days of worship and days of remembrance. Is it more controlled than we would like it? Yes. Has it changed. Yes? Is it continuing to change? Yes.
I think we should also recognize that last year some 500 cases were adjudicated by labor courts. And there were 72 strikes last year, and more than 450 strikes in Vietnam since 1993. So even within the labor movement there has been an increasing empowerment of workers, and there has been change.
Are things in Vietnam as we would want them to be tomorrow? The answer is no. But have they made progress well beyond other countries with whom we trade? You bet they have. Is their human rights record even better than the Chinese? Yes, it is. We need to take cognizance of these things.
Let me correct one statement of the Senator from New Hampshire. I am not alone in objecting to this particular attempt to try to bring the human rights bill to the floor in conjunction with action on the trade agreement. I am for having a human rights statement at the appropriate time. This is not the appropriate time. There are Senators on both sides of the aisle and a broad-based group of Senators who believe this is not the moment and the place for this particular separate piece of legislation. At some point in the future, we would be happy to consider it under the normal legislative process.
I respect the comments of the Senator, but I hope we will take notice of the official recognition that has come from Vietnam with respect to the terrorist attacks on the United States.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. KERRY. I will yield for a question. I need to move off the floor.
Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate the hard work of the Senator. Having served his country with great distinction in Vietnam, he certainly has the honor and the authority to lead us in a new relationship with that country. I hope it will succeed. I tend to believe that is one of the great characteristics of America, that we can move past conflicts. It is with some reluctance that I believe, because of this trade issue, that I ought to vote against it.
Mr. KERRY. I understand and respect that very much from the Senator, and I thank him for his generous comments. I also remind colleagues that we are not relinquishing our right to continue to monitor, as we should, human rights in Vietnam or in any country. This is not permanent trade relations status. This is annual trade relations. What we are granting is normal trade relations status that must be reviewed annually as required by the Jackson-Vanik amendment. This annual review will allow us to continue to monitor Vietnam's human rights performance.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Clinton). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, we are now debating the trade agreement with Vietnam which not only provides normal trade relations status with that country but also includes with it a bilateral trade agreement that we have negotiated with Vietnam.
Normal trade relations, which used to be called most-favored-nation status but has since been changed, are relations we have with almost every country in the world. I believe there are only five countries with which we do not have normal trade relations. This bill bestows normal trade relations with respect to Vietnam but does it on a yearly basis so the Congress will review it year by year.
Vietnam is a Communist country; it has a Communist government. It has an economic system that is moving towards a market-based economy. I, along with several of my colleagues, Senator Daschle, Senator Leahy, John Glenn, and a couple others, visited Vietnam a few years ago. It was a fascinating visit to see the embryo of a marketed-based system.
I don't think a market-based economy is at all in concert with a Communist government. But nonetheless, just as is the case in China, Vietnam is attempting to create a market-based economy under the aegis of a Communist government.
A market-based economy means having private property, being able to establish a storefront and sell goods. It was fascinating, after being behind the curtain for so long, to see these folks in Vietnam being able to open a shop or find a piece of space on a sidewalk someplace and sell something. It was their piece of private enterprise. It was their approach to making a living in the private sector. So what we have is a country that has a Communist government but the emergence of a market economy.
It is interesting to watch. I have no idea how it will end up. But recognizing that things have changed in Vietnam in many ways, this country has proposed a trade agreement and normal trade relations with the country of Vietnam.
I am going to be supportive of that today. But I must say, once again, as I did about the free trade agreement with the country of Jordan, I don't think this is a particularly good way to do trade agreements. This comes to us under an expedited set of procedures. It comes to us in a manner that prevents amendments.
Amendments are prohibited because of Jackson-Vanik provisions in the trade act of 1974. These provisions would apply to a trade agreement we had negotiated with a country having similar economic characteristics to Vietnam.
What I want to say about this subject is something I have said before, but it bears repeating. And frankly, even if I didn't, I would say it because I believe I need to say it when we talk about international trade.
I am going to support this trade agreement. I hope it helps our country. I hope it helps the country of Vietnam. I hope it helps our country in providing some stimulus to our economy. Vietnam is a very small country with whom we have a very small amount of international trade. But I hope the net effect of this is beneficial to this country.
Trade agreements ought to be mutually beneficial. I hope it helps Vietnam because I hope that Vietnam eventually can escape the yoke of Communism. Certainly one way to do that is to encourage the market system they are now beginning to see in their country.
I hope this trade agreement is mutually beneficial. I do not, however, believe that trade agreements, by and large, should be brought to the floor of the Senate under expedited procedures.
I will vote for this agreement, but I want there to be no dispute about the question of so-called fast track procedures. Fast-track is a process by which trade agreements are negotiated and then brought to the floor of the Senate and the Senate is told: You may not offer amendments. No amendments will be in order to these trade agreements.
The reason I come to say this is because of recent statements made by our trade ambassador since the September 11 acts of terrorism in this country. He has indicated that, because of those events, it is all the more reason to provide trade promotion authority, or so-called fast track, to the President in order to negotiate new trade agreements. I didn't support giving that authority to President Clinton. I do not support giving that authority to this President. I will explain why.
First of all, the Constitution is quite clear about international trade. Article I, section 8 says:
The Congress shall have Power . . . To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.
That is not equivocal. It doesn't say the President shall have the power, or the trade ambassador shall have the power, or some unnamed trade negotiator shall have the power, but that Congress shall have the power. Only Congress shall have the power under the U.S. Constitution.
We have had experience with so-called fast track and international trade. Fast track has meant that succeeding administrations, Republican and Democrat, have gone off to foreign lands and negotiated trade agreements--agreements like the Free Trade Agreement with Canada, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The list is fairly long. After negotiating trade agreements using fast track, the administrations would bring a product back to the Senate and say, here is a trade agreement we have negotiated with Canada, Mexico, and with other countries. We want you to consider it, Senators, under this restriction: You have no right under any condition or any set of circumstances to change it. So the Senate, with that set of handcuffs, considers a trade agreement with no ability to amend it, and then votes up or down, yes or no. It has approved these trade agreements. I have not supported them. I thought all of them were bad agreements. I will explain why in a moment. Nonetheless, they represent the agreements that have been approved by the Senate.
Let's take a look at how good these agreements have been. This chart represents the ballooning trade deficit in our country. It is growing at an alarming rate. Last year, the merchandise trade deficit in America was $452 billion. That means that every single day, 7 days a week, almost $1.5 billion more is brought into this country in the form of U.S. imports than is sold outside this country in the form of U.S. exports.
Does that mean we owe somebody some money? We sure do. These deficits mean that we are in hock. We owe money to those from whom we are buying imports in excess of what we are exporting. That means we are incurring very substantial debt.
You can look at the trade agreements we have negotiated with Canada, Mexico, and GATT and evaluate what happened as a result. Mexico: We had a small trade surplus with Mexico. Good for us. Then we negotiate a trade agreement with them and we turned a small surplus into a huge and growing deficit. Was that a good agreement? Not where I come from.
Canada: We had a modest trade deficit with Canada and we quickly doubled it after the trade agreement with Canada.
How about China? We now have a bilateral agreement with China. Let me just describe one of the insidious things that represents that bilateral agreement--automobiles. Our country negotiated an agreement with China that said if we have trade in automobiles between the U.S. and China, here is the way we will agree to allow it to occur: On American cars, U.S. cars being sold in China, after a long phase-in, we will agree that China can impose a 25-percent tariff on American cars being sold in China. On Chinese cars being sold in the United States, we will agree that we will impose only a 2.5-percent tariff. In other words, our negotiators negotiated an agreement that said, with respect to auto trade between the United States and China, we will allow you to impose a tariff 10 times higher than the tariff in the United States.
I don't know for whom these folks were negotiating, or for whom they thought they were working, and I don't know where they left their thinking caps when they negotiated these agreements, but they sure are not representing the interests of this country when they say to a country such as China, we will allow you to impose a tariff that is 10 times higher on U.S. automobiles going to China than on Chinese automobiles sold in the United States. That makes no sense.
My point is, our trade deficit with China has grown to well over $80 billion a year at this point--the merchandise trade deficit. We have the same thing with Japan. Every year for as far as you can see we have had a huge and growing trade deficit with the country of Japan. It doesn't make sense to continue doing that.
I can give you a lot of examples with respect to Japan. Beef is one good example. We send T-bone steaks to Tokyo. They need more beef. Beef costs a lot of money in Tokyo, so we send T-bone steaks. Twelve years after our beef agreement with Japan, every pound of American beef going to Japan has a 38.5-percent tariff on it. So we send T-bone steaks to Tokyo--not enough of them. Why? Because we have agreed with Japan that they can allow a 38.5-percent tariff still 12 years after a beef agreement that our trade negotiators had a big feast about because they thought they had won.
Another example of absurdities in trade is motor vehicles and Korea. Last year, we had 570,000 Korean vehicles come into the United States of America. Our consumers buy them. Korea ships their cars to the United States to be sold in our marketplace. Do you know how many vehicles we sold in Korea? We shipped about 1,700. So there were 570,000 coming this way, and 1,700 going that way. Why? Try to buy a Ford in Korea. You would be surprised by its cost due to tariffs and taxes. Korea doesn't want our cars in their country. They say: We are sorry, you are not welcome to send your cars to our marketplace.
If you don't like to talk about cars in international trade, talk about potato flakes. This product is found in many snack foods. Try to send potato flakes to Korea. You will find a 300-percent tariff. Does that anger the potato farmers? Of course it does. Do they think it is fair? Of course not. We have huge deficits with China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and nobody seems to give a rip. Nobody cares. This trade deficit is growing, and it represents a deficit that is a burden on this economy. Someday, unlike the budget deficits we have had in the past, trade deficits must be and will be repaid with a lower standard of living in this country. That is inevitable. So we had better worry about these issues.
We have this growing trade deficit our friends in Canada--they are our friends, and we share a long common border. But we still have trade problems like stuffed molasses. You see, Brazilian sugar comes into Canada. They load it on liquid molasses, and it becomes stuffed molasses. Then it is sent into Michigan, and they unload it every day. So we have molasses loaded with sugar as a way to abridge our trade agreement. It is called stuffed molasses. Most people would not be familiar with that. It is not a candy. It is cheating on international trade.
I can spend an hour talking about these issues with respect to China, Japan, Europe, Canada, and Mexico. I won't do that, although I am tempted, I must say. My only point in coming to the floor when we talk about a trade agreement is to say this: There are those of us in the Senate that have had it right up to our chins with trade negotiators who seem to lose the minute they begin negotiating.
Will Rogers once said, ``The U.S. has never lost a war and never won a conference.'' He surely must have been talking about our trade negotiators. I and a number of colleagues in this body will do everything we can to prevent the passage of fast-track trade authority. I felt that way about the previous administration, who asked for it; and I feel that way about this administration. We cannot any longer allow trade negotiators to go out and negotiate bad agreements that undercut this country's economic strength and vitality.
My message is I am going to vote for this trade agreement which establishes normal trade relations with the country of Vietnam. It is a small country with which we have a relatively small amount of bilateral trade.
I wish Vietnam well. I hope this trade agreement represents our mutual self-interest. I hope it is mutually beneficial to Vietnam and the United States, but I want there to be no dispute and no misunderstanding about what this means in the context of the larger debate we will have later on the issue of fast-track trade authority.
Fast-track trade authority has undermined this country's economic strength, and I and a group of others in the Senate will do everything we can--everything we can--to stop those who want to run a fast-track authority bill through the Congress. Ambassador Zoellick said in light of the tragedies that occurred in this country, it is very important for the administration to have this fast-track authority. I disagree.
What we need is to provide a lift to the American economy. How do we do that? Lift is all about confidence. It is all about the American people having confidence in the future. It is very hard to have confidence in the future of this economy when the American people understand that we have a trade deficit that is ballooning. It is a lodestone on the American economy that must be addressed, and the sooner the better.
I have a lot to say on trade. I will not burden the Senate with it further today, only to say this: Those who wish to talk about this economy and the events of September 11 in the context of granting fast-
track trade authority to this administration will find a very aggressive and willing opponent, at least at this desk in the Senate. Having visited with a number of my colleagues, I will not be standing alone. We intend in every way to prevent fast-track trade authority.
Incidentally, one can negotiate all kinds of trade agreements without fast-track authority. One does not need fast-track trade authority to negotiate a trade agreement. The previous administration negotiated and completed several hundred trade agreements without fast-track authority.
Giving fast-track authority to trade negotiators is essentially putting handcuffs on every Senator. With fast-track, it is not our business with respect to details in negotiated trade agreements, it is only our business to vote yes or no. We have no right to suggest changes. Had we had that right with the U.S.-Canada agreement and the NAFTA agreement, I guarantee the grain trade and other trade problems we have had with both countries would be a whole lot different.
I have gone on longer than I intended.
Again, because we are talking about Vietnam, I wish Vietnam well, and I wish our country well. I want this to be a mutually beneficial trade agreement. With respect to future trade agreements and fast track, I will not be in the Chamber of the Senate approving those who would handcuff the Senate in giving their opinion and offering their advice on trade, only because the U.S. Constitution is not equivocal. The U.S. Constitution says in article I, section 8: The Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mrs. LINCOLN. Madam President, I yield time to the Senator from Nebraska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. HAGEL. I thank the Chair.
Madam President, I appreciate very much the time of my friend and colleague from Arkansas. I rise this afternoon to speak in support of the Vietnam bilateral trade agreement, and I support this agreement with much enthusiasm.
It was 2 years ago in August that my brother Tom and I returned to Vietnam after 31 years. I left Vietnam in December of 1968 as a U.S. Army infantryman. My brother Tom left 1 month after I did in January 1969. We went to Hanoi, Saigon, which is now Ho Chi Minh City. We went to the Mekong Delta. We went to areas where we had served together as infantry squad leaders with the 9th Infantry Division.
What we observed during that time 2 years ago was something rather remarkable. Each of us had no preconditions put upon our return trip as to what we might see or hear. We were there at the invitation of Ambassador Peterson to cut the ribbon to open our new consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.
What we saw was a thriving, industrious nation. We saw a nation of over 70 million people, the great majority of those people born after 1975. That is when the United States quite unceremoniously left Vietnam.
The reason that is important is because that is a generation that was born after the war that harbors no ill will toward the United States. That is a developing generation of leadership that is completely different from the Communist totalitarian leadership that has presided in Vietnam.
I believe I am clear eyed in this business of foreign relations and who represents America's friends and allies and who does not. This business is imperfect, this business is imprecise--this business being foreign relations. Trade is very much a part of foreign relations.
Why is that? Because it is part of our relations with another nation. It is part of our role in a region of the world that strategically, geopolitically, and economically is important to us. Trade is part of foreign relations because it is a dynamic that represents stability and security, and when nations are stable, when there is security, when there is an organized effort to improve economies, open up a society, develop into a democracy. That is not always easy.
It was not easy for this country. I remind us all that 80 years ago the Presiding Officer of the Senate today could not vote in this country. We should be a bit careful as we lecture and moralize across the globe as to standards for America 2001 or standards for America 1900, the point being that trade is a very integral part of our relationships with other nations.
I suspect that if there ever was a time in the history of this young nation called America when our relationships with other nations are rather critical, it is right now.
Should we pass a trade agreement with a country based on what happened in this Nation on September 11? No.
Should we overstate the trade dynamic as the President continues to work with the Congress to develop an international coalition to take on and defeat global terrorism? No.
Should we be clear eyed in our trade relationships, evaluate them, pass them, and implement them on the basis of what is good for our country? Yes.
If a trade agreement is good for our country, should it be good for the other country? Yes.
Will this trade agreement be good for Vietnam? Yes.
Why is that good for us? It is good for us, first of all, because it breaks down trade barriers and allows our goods and our services an opportunity to compete in this new market called Vietnam. Will it be enlightening, dynamic, and change overnight, and I will therefore see much Nebraska beef and wheat move right into Vietnam within 12 months? No, of course not. That is not how the world works.
Every trade agreement into which this country has entered, as flawed, imperfect, and imprecise as they are--and they all are--what is the alternative? Whom do we isolate when we do not trade? How do we further stability in a region of the world? How do we further our own interests, the interests of peace and stability and prosperity in the world? Let us not forget that the breeding ground for terrorism is always in the nations with no hope, always in the nations that have been bogged down in the dark abyss of poverty and hunger. That discontent, that conflict, is where the evil begins.
I say these things because I think they are important as we debate this Vietnam trade agreement because they are connected to the bigger issues we are facing in the country.
I do not stand in this Chamber and say it because of this great challenge we face today and we will face tomorrow and we will face years into the horizon, but I say it because it is good for this country. That part of the world, Southeast Asia, where China is on the north of Vietnam and at the tip of Southeast Asia, is in great conflict today.
Indonesia needs the kind of stability and trade relationships that we can help build. It is in the interest of our country, our future, and the world.
Just as this body did last week when we passed the Jordanian bilateral trade agreement, so should this body pass the Vietnam bilateral trade agreement.
I hope after we have completed that act today, we will soon move to the next level of trade, which is the largest, most comprehensive, and probably most important, and that is to once again give the President of the United States trade promotion authority. It has been known as fast-track authority.
Every President in this country, in the history of our country since 1974, has been granted that authority. Why is that? In 1974, a Republican President was granted that fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements and bring them back before the Congress, by a Democratic Congress, which was clearly in the best interest of this country, and it still is.
Unfortunately, since 1994 the President of the United States, including the last President, President Clinton, and this new President, President Bush, has been without trade promotion authority. What has that meant to our country? It has meant something very simple and clear. That is, the President does not have the authority to negotiate trade agreements and bring them back to the Congress for an up-or-down vote.
What does that mean in real terms as far as jobs are concerned and for the people in New York, Arkansas, and Nebraska, all the States represented in this great Chamber? It means less opportunity, fewer good jobs, better paying jobs, more opportunities to sell goods and services.
So I hope as we continue to build momentum along the trade route and on the trade agenda, somewhat magnified by the events of September 11, we will get to a trade agenda soon in this body that once again allows this body to debate trade promotion authority for the President of the United States and will grant the President that authority we have granted Presidents on a bipartisan basis since 1974.
That is the other perspective, it seems to me, that we need to reflect on as we look at this debate today.
In these historic, critical times, I close by saying I hope my colleagues take a very clear, close look at this issue and attach all the different dynamics that are attached to this particular trade bill, and therefore urge my colleagues to vote for the Vietnam bilateral trade agreement.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mrs. LINCOLN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam President, I associate myself with some of the words from our Senator from Nebraska, very well founded in his conclusion that terrorism is bred in countries with no hope, and absolutely that is something that is very pertinent today as we talk about the engagement of our Nation in a trade agreement with Vietnam.
The grasp of the evil we saw in New York, the evil acts, the hatred we saw that was exhibited there, truly came from those who had no hope, from a country that produced those individuals who had no hope. Without a doubt, we are here today to talk about engaging nations in a way where we can help in working with them, building a friendship and a working relationship which in turn gives us the ability to share some of the hopes we have in our great Nation with other nations which then can grow those hopes in a way where we can be good neighbors and we can share with one another.
As a young woman growing up in a very small rural community in east Arkansas, I learned many great lessons from my father as the daughter of a farmer. But there was no greater lesson really to have learned than that my father impressed upon me how important it was to reach beyond the fenceposts of Phillips County, AR, to be engaged with other communities across the great river of the Mississippi, to work with individuals in Tennessee and Mississippi, but also to reach across even greater barriers into other countries, recognizing that the importance of what we did as farmers in east Arkansas and the growth of the economy were inherently dependent on the bridges we built with other nations across the globe.
That is what we are talking about today, looking at options for not only free trade but, more importantly, fair trade, to establish those relationships and those working agreements with nations where we not only can build hope but we can also build a greater opportunity for economic development in our own home as well as in those countries.
I also rise today to add some of my concerns about a very important issue a few of my colleagues have already addressed in this Chamber. The issue I am talking about is catfish. Aquaculture in our Nation has been a growing industry. This country is being deluged by imports of Vietnamese fish known as a basa fish which are brought into this country and misleadingly sold as catfish to our consumers who think they are buying farm-raised catfish.
Let us remember this important point: When consumers think of catfish, when we all think of catfish, we have in mind a very specific fish we have all known. But that is not what the Vietnamese are selling. They are selling an entirely different fish and calling it a catfish. This Vietnamese fish is not even a part of the same taxonomic family as a North American channel catfish. This Vietnamese fish that is coming into our country is no closer to a catfish than a yak is to a cow. My Midwesterners will understand that.
Why are they doing it? Because the catfish market in America is growing. Americans like catfish. It is wholesome. It is healthy. It is safe. It is the best protein source you can find from grain to a meat. American-raised catfish is farm raised and grain fed, grown in specially built ponds that pass environmental inspection, cared for in closely regulated and closely scrutinized environments to ensure the safest supply of the cleanest fish that a consumer could purchase or want to get at a restaurant.
The people importing these Vietnamese fish see a growing market of which they can take advantage. It is irrelevant to them that what they are selling isn't really catfish or that their fish are raised in one of the worst environmental rivers on the globe. The hard-working catfish farmers of my State of Arkansas, as well as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, are being robbed of a hard-won market that they developed out of nothing. As we all know, rural America has been in serious decline for years. The ability of family farmers throughout the country to scrape out a living has been disappearing in front of our very eyes.
Unfortunately, our rural communities in the Mississippi Delta where much of the catfish industry is now located have shared in this devastating decline. Of course, the decline of the rural economy has many causes, but a powerful force behind this decline has been the disconnect between production agriculture in the United States and the terribly distorted and terribly unfair overseas markets these farmers face. They must compete with heavily subsidized imports that come into this country and undermine their own market. When they are able to crack open a tightly closed foreign market, U.S. farmers must compete again with heavily subsidized foreign competition.
In short, the unfair trading practices of our foreign competitors have played a very significant role in the serious damage wrought on America's farmers and has been a primary cause in the decline of rural America.
Over the past several years, rather than accept defeat to the advancing forces, farmers in our part of the country decided to fight back. They fought back by building a new market in aquaculture, recognizing the enormous percentage of aquaculture fish and shell fish that we still import into this country today. There is one thing that we can do well in the delta region; it is grow catfish. So many of these communities, these farmers, their families and related industries, invested millions and millions of dollars into building a catfish industry and a catfish market. And they have diversified. It has taken years, but they have done it and done it well. They are still doing it.
Now, just as they are seeing the fruit of their years of labor and investment, just as they are finding a light at the end of the rural economic tunnel, they find themselves facing a new and more serious form of unfair trading practices. They saw their financial return on these other traditional crops fall alongside the general decline in our rural economy by shipments of fish that is no more closely related to catfish than you and I--than a yak is to a cow. It is an unfair irony that our catfish farmers find themselves once again in the headlights of an onslaught of unfair trade from another country. But my colleagues from catfish-producing States and I are not going to stand for it.
My distinguished colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, observed earlier this is a problem that can be addressed by attacking the Vietnamese practice itself where it occurs, and that is at the labeling stages. That is exactly what I am here to do today.
Today my colleagues and I, my colleagues from the other catfish-
producing States, are introducing a bill that will stop this misleading labeling at the source. Our bill will prohibit the labeling of any fish--as catfish that is; in fact, not an actual member of the catfish family. We are not trying to stop other countries from growing catfish and selling it to our country. We simply want to make sure that if they say they are selling catfish, they are doing exactly that.
This is about truth in fairness. That is what our bill seeks to accomplish. On behalf of the catfish farmers in Arkansas and the rest of our producing States, I am proud to introduce this bill. We will pursue this bill with every ounce of fight we have. Our farmers and our rural communities deserve it. This is one way we from the Congress can address the issues we see and still maintain the good trading relationships, the good engagement with other nations to help grow that hope, to help build those friendships and relationships that we need in this ever smaller global world in which we are finding ourselves.
As we work to make those trade agreements and certainly the trade initiatives that are out there more fair, we want to continue to encourage all of the engagement of opening up freer trade with many of the nations of the world in the hope of finding that hope about which the Senator from Nebraska spoke so eloquently.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. How much time do we have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seventy-three and a half minutes.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I yield myself such time as I might consume.
Madam President, I will try to put back into perspective the issue before the Senate subsequent to some of the remarks made since I last spoke.
The issue is whether or not we want to continue to provide normal trade relations with the Vietnamese. That is the matter on which the Senate will be voting. The point I have been trying to make in my discussion is whether or not the Senate would be willing to do what the House did by a vote of 410-1 and approve the Vietnam Human Rights Act, H.R. 2833. I would like to see a favorable vote on H.R. 2833, but I am not asking for everybody to vote for it. I am simply asking for the opportunity to vote on it.
I don't understand, given all of the circumstances of the human rights violations that the Vietnamese have committed, why it is, if we are going to provide normal trade relations with them, that we cannot go on record as the House--and properly so--stating we object to those human rights violations. We do it to other countries all of the time. There is only one conclusion that can be drawn; let's be honest. We don't want to embarrass the Vietnamese. Those Members of the Senate holding up the opportunity to vote on H.R. 2833 are doing it strictly because they are afraid somehow this will embarrass the Vietnamese or somehow make it awkward for them.
As I said earlier, this is a quote from People's Army Daily which speaks for the Vietnamese Government on numerous occasions when they talked about the terrorist attack on the United States of America:
. . . It's obvious that through this incident, Americans should take another look at themselves. If Americans had not pursued isolationism and chauvinism, and if they had not insisted on imposing their values on others in their own subjective manner, then perhaps the twin towers would still be standing together in the singing waves and breeze of the Atlantic.
I don't know about you, but I am offended by that remark. I am offended by that, to put it mildly. That is not what President Bush was talking about when he said: You are with us or against us in this fight against terrorism.
I know there was read on the floor an official statement by the Vietnamese Government which contradicted that, which expressed some concern about the outrage of the terrorist attack. It is also important to understand that in the paper where that was printed, there was also printed right next to it an article decrying the ``brazen'' interference by Washington in Vietnam's human rights matters.
So you are getting a double message here. The point is, we do not want a double message from the Vietnamese Government on what happened in New York and Washington 3 weeks ago. We want one very clear message, which is what President Bush asked for: You are with us or you are not.
I don't know how you feel, but as I read that statement, that doesn't strike me as somebody who is with us and supporting us in our acts against terrorism.
But however you feel about that remark--that offends me; I think it offends most Americans--that is not the issue before us today. I wish to repeat what I am asking for, which is a vote on the human rights bill--that is all--in addition to a vote on this bill.
Unfortunately, because of holds on the human rights bill--I repeat, it passed 410-1 in the House of Representatives--we can't have that vote. All it is going to do is cite and recite--and I will have some of these in the Record now--some of the human rights violations of which the Vietnamese Government is guilty.
I do not want to normalize trade relations with them for a number of reasons--first and foremost, because they have never fully accounted for POWs and MIAs, and I don't care how many people come on the floor and say they did. They have not. It is an issue I have worked on for 17 years, and I can tell you right now they have not fully cooperated in accounting for POWs. If anyone wants to sit down with me and go through it on a case-by-case basis, I will be happy to do it.
It is false. Paul Wolfowitz said it was. The archives have not been opened. Have they been cooperative to some extent? Yes. Have they been fully cooperative? No. There are lots of families out there who have not gotten information on their loved ones that the Vietnamese could provide. They have not done it. So I don't want to hear this stuff that they are fully cooperative. They are not fully cooperative. There is a big difference between being cooperative and being fully cooperative. They are not cooperative fully. You can ask anyone who works on this issue in the Intelligence Committee--and certainly Paul Wolfowitz knows what he is talking about. He says they are not fully cooperative. So let's not stand on the floor of the Senate and say let's normalize trade with Vietnam because they have been fully cooperative when every one of us knows differently. End of story; they are not.
If you want to go beyond that, that is not the only issue. All I am asking is that the Senate, in addition to voting on this normalizing trade, would also give the Senate the opportunity to be heard on what the House did on the human rights violations. That is it.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International recently criticized the Vietnamese Government's use of closed trials to impose harsh prison terms on 14 ethnic minority Montagnards from the central highlands of Vietnam--closed trials, kangaroo courts. The Montagnards were the ones who helped us tremendously during the Vietnam war. That is a nice thank-you for what they did. Many of them gave their lives and lots of freedoms to stand up with us--stand with us during the vietnam war. Now we are having kangaroo courts, defendants charged. This is one of the charges: destabilizing security.
Why do we have to tolerate it? I understand we cannot necessarily go back into the Government of Vietnam and change their way of life. That has been said. I wish it would change. But we do not have to condone it by simply ignoring it while we give them normal trade relations. Give them the normal trade relations, if you want--I will vote no--but at the same time give us the opportunity to expose this and say on the floor of the Senate, as the House did 410-1, this is wrong. That is all I am asking.
The only reason I can't do it is because people have secret holds. I have said, and I will say it again publicly, I hate secret holds. I do not use them. When I put a hold on something, I tell people. If anybody asks me do I have a hold, I say, yes, I do, and here is the reason. If I can't take it off, I will tell you. If I can, I can work with you. I wish we did not have secret holds. I think it is wrong. I think those who have the holds should come down and say they have the holds and why. Why is it we cannot vote on the human rights accord as the House did?
I mentioned the Montagnards. I will repeat a few. But it is unbelievable, some of the things that are going on and we choose to ignore them because we do not want to offend them for fear we might not be able to sell them something.
To be candid about it, there are things more important than making a profit in America. There are about 6,500 people in New York who would love to have the opportunity to make a profit. They cannot because they have lost their freedom permanently because of what happened.
This is the insensitive, terrible comment that was made by these people in Vietnam. And there were more. I read more into the Record. I will not repeat them. Students on the street saying it is too bad it wasn't Bush and it is too bad it wasn't the CIA, on and on, comments coming out of the Vietnamese Government, and students and populace, and put in their papers, on the public record.
They can stop anything they want from being printed. They do not have a free press in Vietnam. If they don't want this stuff printed, they could say: We won't print it. But they did print it because it is a double slap. Here is the official message: We are sorry about what happened. But here is the other message. That is what bothers me.
Again, all I am asking for is the right to vote on this human rights accord and we cannot do it because we cannot get it to the floor.
The Government of Vietnam consistently pursues the policy of harassment, discrimination, intimidation, imprisonment, sometimes other forms of detention, and torture. Sometimes trading in human beings themselves--having people try to buy their freedom to get out of that place and after they pay the money they retain them anyway and will not let them out.
The recent victims of such mistreatment--it goes on and on. We could give all kinds of personal testimony to that--priests, religious leaders, Protestants, Jews, Catholics--anybody. They have all been victims of this terrible, terrible policy of this Government of Vietnam. Yet we ignore it. We refuse to even vote on it.
Everybody has to work with their own conscience. Again, however you feel about it, whether you agree or disagree with the violations, or whether you agree or disagree with normalizing trade with Vietnam, that is the issue. The issue is: Why can't we be heard? Why can't the Senate vote as the House did to point out what these terrible human rights violations are?
These are the Senate rules. I respect the Senate rules. Every Senator has a right to do that. I do not criticize the rule nor anyone's motives, other than to say I wish those who oppose voting on human rights would have the courage to come down and say why not. Why can't we say, at the same time we are giving you trade, that we are also willing to tell you it is wrong, what you are doing to people in Vietnam: torturing, slave trading, forcing people to buy their freedom and then not allowing them to get free after they pay the money, on and on--persecution of religious leaders. These things are wrong. We criticize governments all over the world for doing it, all the time. We take actions against them, sanctions and other things.
Then, on top of that, the insensitivity of this remark, and others--
that is reason enough to say OK, we are not going to interfere with the trade, we will give you the trade, but we also want to point out to you that what you are doing is wrong. What you said here is wrong. What you are doing to citizens in Vietnam is wrong, and we are going to say that in this resolution, as the House did. That is all I am asking. I know it is not going to happen. That is regrettable. I think, frankly, it is not the Senate's finest hour that we ignore that remark, ignore the human rights violations and give them trade.
Sometimes you just have to let your heart take priority in some of these matters. You know what your heart says. You know in your heart that is wrong. You know it is. I don't care how much profit we make buying or selling--whatever, grain. It doesn't matter to me what it is. Profit should not take precedence over principle. Believe me, we are letting that happen today at 2 o'clock when we vote. I am telling you we are. It is not the Senate's finest hour.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mrs. LINCOLN. Before I suggest the absence of a quorum, I might recommend to my colleague from New Hampshire, he might be interested in requesting a unanimous consent to send that bill back to committee. If it went through the process, it might have a better chance of coming up to the floor.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Madam President, if the Senator will agree that we postpone this vote until we have this bill go back to the committee where it can be heard and brought to the floor, I would be fine with that. Apparently that is not going to be the case. I think it is only fair if the Committee on Foreign Relations is going to discuss human rights violations, we should hold off the vote on this and do both at the same time. That is not going to happen.
Mrs. LINCOLN. It is just a suggestion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I have risen many times in this body over the course of the last decade to affirm my support for moving forward our relationship with Vietnam. We began carefully, over a decade ago, with cooperation in the search for our missing service personnel. That cooperation, along with Vietnam's withdrawal from Cambodia and the end of the cold war, fostered a new spirit in Southeast Asia that allowed us to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam in 1994 and normalize diplomatic relations in 1995. My friend Pete Peterson was nominated by the President to serve as our ambassador in Hanoi in 1996 and was confirmed by the Senate in 1997. We lifted Jackson-Vanik restrictions on Vietnam in 1998 and have sustained the Jackson-Vanik waiver for that country in subsequent years. In 2000, we signed a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam--one of the most comprehensive bilateral trade agreements our country has ever negotiated. We stand ready today to approve this agreement and, in doing so, complete the final step in the full normalization of our relations with Vietnam.
It need not have come this far, and would not have come this far, were it not for the support of Americans who once served in Vietnam in another time, and for another purpose--to defend freedom. The wounds of war, of lost friends and battles gone wrong, took decades to heal. It took some time for me, as it did for Pete Peterson, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and many other veterans, just as it took some time for America, to understand that while some losses in war are never recovered, the enmity and despair that we felt over those losses need not be our permanent condition.
I have memories of a place so far removed from the comforts of this blessed country that I have forgotten some of the anguish it once brought me. But that is not to say that my happiness with these last, nearly thirty years, has let me forget the friends who did not come home with me. The memory of them, of what they bore for honor and country, still causes me to look in every prospective conflict for the shadow of Vietnam. But we must not let that shadow hold us in fear from our duty, as we have been given light to see that duty.
The people we serve expect us to act in the best interests of this nation. And the nation's best interests are poorly served by perpetuating a conflict that claimed a sad chapter of our history, but ought not hold a permanent claim on our future.
I supported normalizing our relations with Vietnam for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that I could no longer see the benefit of fighting about it. America has a long, accomplished, and honorable history. We did not need to let this one mistake, terrible though it was, color our perceptions forever of our national institutions and our nation's purpose in the world.
We were a good country before Vietnam, and we are a good country after Vietnam. In all the annals of history, you cannot find a better one. Vietnam did not destroy us or our historical reputation. All these years later, I think the world has come to understanding that as well.
It was important to learn the lessons of our mistakes in Vietnam so that we can avoid repeating them. But having learned them, we had to bury our dead and move on.
But then Vietnam was not a memory shared by veterans or politicians alone. The legacy of our experiences in Vietnam influenced America profoundly. Our losses there, the loss of so many fine young Americans and the temporary loss of our national sense of purpose--stung all of us so sharply that the memory of our pain long outlasted the security and political consequences of our defeat. And for too many, for too long, Vietnam was a war that would not end.
But it is over now, a fact I believe the other body's overwhelming vote on this bilateral trade agreement, and the surprising lack of controversy it engenders, indicates. America has moved on, as has Vietnam. Our duty and our interests demand that we not allow lingering bitterness to dictate the terms of our relationships with other nations. We have found in the new, post-cold-war era, a place of friendship for an adversary from an earlier time. I am very proud of America, and of the good men and women who serve her, for that accomplishment.
We looked back in anger at Vietnam long enough. And we cannot allow any lingering resentments we incurred during our time in Vietnam to prevent us from doing what is so clearly in our duty: to help build from the losses and hopes of our tragic war in Vietnam a better peace for both the American and Vietnamese people.
This trade agreement between our nations cements the relationship with Vietnam we have been building all these years, since we decided to put the war behind us. In approving this agreement, Vietnam's leaders have gambled their nation's future on a strong relationship with us, and on freeing their people from the shackles of international isolation and the command economy they once knew.
History shows that nations exposed to our values and infused with the day-to-day freedoms of an open economy become more susceptible to the influence of our values, and increasingly expect to enjoy them themselves. In choosing to deepen their nation's relationship with the United States, Vietnam's leaders have made a wise choice that will benefit their people. In choosing to deepen America's relationship with Vietnam, we have thrown our support to the Vietnamese people, and cast our bet that freedom is contagious.
We do not reward Hanoi by voting for this trade agreement today. In doing so, we advance our interests in Vietnam even as we expose its people to the forces that will continue to change Vietnam for the better. The change its people have witnessed over the past decade has been dramatic. This trade agreement will accelerate positive change. This is a welcome development for all Vietnamese, and for all Americans.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
Mrs. LINCOLN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his wisdom and the thoughtfulness that he brings to this body. I appreciate it very much.
Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator.
Mrs. LINCOLN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I rise today in strong support of the resolution that is before us.
The first time I saw Vietnam was from a P-3 naval aircraft about 31 years ago this year. Twenty-one years would actually pass from that time before I set foot on Vietnamese soil. Many times in the early 1970s my aircrew and I flew over Vietnam, around Vietnam, and landed in bases in that region. I never set foot on Vietnamese soil until 1991.
At that time, I was a Member of the House of Representatives and led a congressional delegation that included five other United States Representatives, all of whom served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war. We went at a time when many believed that U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen were being held--after the end of the war--in prison camps. We went there to find out the truth as best we could.
What we encountered, to our surprise, was a welcoming nation. We visited not only Vietnam but Cambodia and Laos. In Vietnam, we found, to our surprise, a welcoming nation. Most of the people who live in Vietnam are people who were born since 1975, since the Government of South Vietnam fell to the North.
For the most part--not everyone--but for the most part, they like Americans, admire Americans, and want to have normal relations with our country.
Our delegation also included U.S. Congressman Pete Peterson from Florida. Our delegation took with us, to those three nations, a roadmap, a roadmap that could lead to normalized relations between the United States and, particularly, Vietnam.
Our offer was that if the Vietnamese would take certain steps, particularly with respect to providing information in allowing us access to information about our missing in action, we would reciprocate and take other steps as well.
We laid out the roadmap. We assured the Vietnamese that if they were to do certain things, we would not move the goalposts but we would reciprocate. They did those certain things, and we reciprocated. In 1994, former President Clinton lifted the trade embargo between our two countries.
Think back. It has been 50 years, this year, since the United States has had normal trade relations with Vietnam--50 years. In 1994, the embargo, which had been in place for a number of years, was lifted.
I had the opportunity to go back to Vietnam a few years ago as Governor of Delaware. I led a trade delegation to that country. What I saw in 1999 surprised me just as much as being surprised when we were welcomed in 1991.
I will never forget driving from the airport to downtown Hanoi and being struck by the number of small businesses that had cropped up on either side of the highway that we traversed. It was a fairly long drive, and everywhere we looked small businesses had popped up to provide a variety of services and goods to the people.
The Government leaders with whom we met talked about free enterprise. They talked about how the marketplace, and finding ways to use the marketplace, might allow them to better meet the needs of their citizens, how it would enable them to become a more important trading partner in that part of the world, and for them to be a nation with less poverty and with greater opportunities for their own citizens.
Vietnam today is either the 12th or 13th most populous nation in the world. Some 80 million people live there. There are a number of reasons why I believe this resolution is in our interest, and I will get into those reasons in a moment, but I want to take a moment and read the actual text of this resolution. It is not very long. It says:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That the Congress approves the extension of nondiscriminatory treatment with respect to the products of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam transmitted by the President to the Congress on June 8, 2001.
Negotiations on the bilateral trade agreement before us began in 1996 or 1997. We have been at this for almost 5 years. It was negotiated by Pete Peterson who became our Ambassador and was part of our congressional delegation 10 years ago. Pete did a wonderful job as Ambassador, and I give him a lot of credit for having hammered out the provisions of this bilateral trade agreement.
The agreement was concluded a year ago in an earlier administration and has been sent to us by President Bush for our consideration. There are a number of reasons that former President Clinton and his administration thought this was a good idea for America. There are a number of similar reasons that President Bush and his administration believe this agreement is a good one for America.
First, it acknowledges that Vietnam is a big country, a populous country, and one that is going to play an ever more important role in that part of the world and in the world. It has 80 million people, mostly under the age of 30, for the most part people who like us, admire us, who want to have a good relationship with the United States despite our very troubled relations over the last half century.
Those markets that now exist in Vietnam have not been especially open to us. Sure, we have had the ability to sell over the years more and more goods and services, including a fair amount of high-technology equipment and goods. They now sell a number of items to us. We buy those. But they have in place barriers to our exports, and we have barriers to their exports. We will create jobs in this country, and they will create jobs in their country, if we will lift the import restrictions here and there, reduce the quotas dramatically and the tariffs. This provision does that, not just for them but for us. To the extent that we can sell more goods and services there, we benefit as a nation, and we will.
A number of countries in that part of the world do not respect intellectual property rights. Vietnam is not among the worst offenders in that regard. But there are problems in this respect. This agreement will take us a lot closer to where we need to be in protecting intellectual property rights, not just of Americans but of others around the world.
On my last visit to Vietnam, in the meetings we had with their business and government leaders, we talked a lot about transparency and how difficult it was for those who would like to invest in Vietnam, do business in Vietnam, to go through their bureaucracy. Their bureaucrats make ours look like pikers. They are world class in terms of throwing up roadblocks and making things difficult for investment to occur. This agreement won't totally end that, but it will sure go a long way toward permitting the kind of investments American companies want to make and ought to be able to make in Vietnam and, similarly, to reciprocate and provide their business people, their companies, the opportunity to invest in the United States.
There is something to be said for regional stability as well. Vietnam can contribute to regional stability if their economy strengthens and they move toward a more free market system. Or they can be a contributor to destabilization. This agreement will better ensure they are a more stable country and able to promote stability within the region.
Others have raised concerns today about alleged continuing abuses in human rights and the denial of freedom of religion, insufficient progress toward democratization. There is more than a grain of truth to some of that. Religious leaders are not given the kinds of freedoms that our leaders have. The Vatican declared last year that as far as they are concerned, freedom to worship is no longer a problem in Vietnam. They open kindergartens now and they teach the catechisms as much as they are taught here in Catholic-sponsored kindergartens. When I was there in 1991, they still had reeducation camps. They no longer have those. They have been replaced for the most part by drug rehabilitation facilities.
Much has been made today of the reaction of the Vietnamese to the horrors here 22 days ago, September 11. The truth is, the Vietnamese press has been overwhelmingly sympathetic to the American people and to those who lost loved ones on September 11. Their government leaders provided, literally within days, a letter of deep condolences to our President to express their abhorrence for what happened in our Nation.
With respect to terrorism, if anything, Ambassador Peterson shares with me that they have been helpful to us in working on terrorist activities and providing not only information that is valuable to us but giving us the opportunity to reciprocate. He suggests they may have actually been a better partner at this transfer of information than we have.
Finally, the freedom to emigrate. I recall 10 years ago there were difficulties people encountered trying to emigrate to this country or other countries from Vietnam. Today, for the most part, passports are easily obtained. If a person wants to go to to Australia, to the Philippines, to the United States, if they don't have criminal records or other such problems in their portfolio, they are able to get those passports and travel.
Let me conclude with this thought: I think in my lifetime, the defining issue for my generation, certainly one of the defining issues, has been our animosity toward Vietnam, the war we fought with Vietnam, a war which tore our country apart. That war officially ended 26 years ago. A long healing process has been underway since then in Vietnam and also in this country.
We have come a long way in that relationship over the last 26 years. So have the Vietnamese. We have the potential today to take that last step in normalizing relations, and that is a step we ought to take.
Vietnam today is no true democracy. They still have their share of problems. So do we, and so does the rest of the world. But I am convinced that if we adopt this resolution and agree to this bilateral trade agreement, it will move Vietnam a lot further and a lot faster down the road to a true free enterprise system. With those economic freedoms will come, more surely and more quickly, the kind of political freedoms we value and would want for their people just as much we cherish for our people.
With those thoughts in mind, I conclude by saying to our old colleague--the Presiding Officer also served with Congressman Peterson--later the first United States Ambassador to Vietnam: I will never forget when I visited him a year or two ago on our trade mission, he and his wife Vi were good enough to host a dinner for our delegation at the residence of the Ambassador. And as we drove to the Embassy the next day, we drove by the old Hanoi Hotel. The idea that an American flier who had spent 6 and a half years as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hotel would return 25, 30 years later to be America's first Ambassador to that country in half a century, the idea that that kind of transformation could occur was moving to me then, and it is today.
There is another kind of transformation that has occurred in our relationship with Vietnam and within Vietnam as well, a good transformation, a positive transformation, one that we can reaffirm and strengthen by a positive vote today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business for up to 6 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Bingaman are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of H.J. Res. 51, the Vietnam Trade Act, which would extend normal trade relations to the nation of Vietnam. I know there is limited time available on this issue today, so I will keep my comments short and to the point.
Let me begin by clarifying what this agreement actually does. Simply put, the purpose of this trade agreement is to normalize trade relations between the United States and Vietnam. At present, Vietnam is one of only a handful of countries in the world that do not receive what is called normal trade relations status from the United States. Under this agreement, the United States will obtain a range of significant advantages in the Vietnamese market it does not have at this time, examples being; access to key sectors, including goods, services and agriculture; protection for investment and intellectual property, transparency in laws and regulations, and a lowering of tariffs on products. For the United States, this agreement translates into a unique opportunity for American companies to enter a country with significant development needs. It means sales across the board in the consumer market, sales in infrastructure development, and sales in government procurement. Importantly, it means that we will now be able to compete on equal footing with other foreign countries, all of which trade with Vietnam on ``normal'' terms and many of which already have a significant presence in that country.
For Vietnam, this agreement translates into a substantial decrease in tariffs on products it can send to the United States and a tangible opportunity for export-led economic growth now and in the future. It gives Vietnam and its people, more than half of which are under the age of 25, a very real chance to obtain the level of prosperity, security, and stability that it has desired for nearly a half a century. It means an increased standard of living, an increased exchange of ideas with the world, and an increased integration of Vietnam's institutions with the international system. Most of all, it means positive and peaceful political economic change in a country that has suffered tremendously for far too long.
Let us not lose sight of this last point, because much like the U.S.-
Jordan free trade agreement, the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement has a larger geo-political context. In 1995, after years of lingering animosity between our two countries, the United States and Vietnam made a conscious and, I think, an extremely wise decision to take a different and far more constructive path in our relations. For many, this decision was also difficult and even controversial as there was a number of critical issues that they felt remained unresolved.
These issues--the POW/MIAs, religious freedom, human rights, labor rights, and so on--are not going away quickly. I have thought about them carefully and at length as I decided whether or not I would support this legislation. I do not want to underestimate or, even worse, ignore the fact that Vietnam has a very long way to go when it comes to the rights and liberties that we in our country consider fundamental.
But I also feel that this comes down to the question of how change is going to occur. Does it occur through engagement or isolation?
Based on the evidence I have seen, both in the case of Vietnam and with other countries, I am convinced it is far more productive to integrate Vietnam into our system of norms, values, and rules--pull it into the common tent where we can talk to government officials and private citizens on a regular basis on the issues that matter to us all than leave it out. I have come to the conclusion that it is far better to create cooperative mechanisms to discuss issues like forced child labor, or environmental degradation, or trafficking in women, or international trade than to ostracize Vietnam and wonder why change is not occurring. I think it is essential that the United States interact regularly and intensively with Vietnam. Our goal should be to integrate Vietnam fully into the collective institutions of East Asia and the international community. Only through this effort will we see incremental but steady reform and progress occur.
Let me say in conclusion that Vietnam is changing in dramatic, important, and, I believe, irreversible ways. I believe this trade agreement will not only accelerate and expand that change, but it will also create a strong, mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and Vietnam. I want to thank all my colleagues who have played an integral role in drafting this legislation. I am convinced it will have a profound and lasting effect on Vietnam, on the region of East Asia as a whole, and on U.S.-Vietnam relations. Our countries have come a long way, and I am extremely encouraged to see that we have put old and counterproductive animosities aside to take a very positive step forward into the future.
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the United States-
Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement. I believe this agreement will help transform Vietnam's economy into one that is more open and transparent, expand economic freedom and opportunities for Vietnam's people and foster a more open society.
At the same time, I commend my colleague, Senator Bob Smith, for his efforts to press for consideration of the Vietnam Human Rights Act. Senator Smith is correct: These two measures should have been considered in tandem.
A constituent, and friend, of mine is Dr. Quan Nguyen. He is a respected leader of the Vietnamese community in Virginia. His brother, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, is in Vietnam and he is not free. He is the head of the Non-Violent Movement for Human Rights in Vietnam. He spent 20 years in Vietnamese prisons because he dared to believe in the concept of freedom, liberty and democracy. He has been under house arrest since 1999. He lives with two armed guards stationed outside his residence. His telephone and Internet accounts have been cut off and his mail is intercepted. Dr. Que has been labeled a common criminal because his
``anti-socialist'' ideas are a crime in Vietnam.
The struggle for freedom of conscience, economic self-sufficiency and human rights is one that has not ended with the conclusion of the Cold War. Regimes throughout the world continue in power while denying basic human rights to their citizens and unjustly imprisoning those who peacefully disagree with the government. One such place is the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
I support increased trade with Vietnam and will vote for this measure. At the same time, I urge the government of Vietnam to choose the path of enlightened nations, the path of true freedom, and true respect for all its citizens and their human rights. Vietnam waits on the cusp of history, and the choices before it are important choices between freedom and respect for human rights, or stagnation and totalitarianism.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, The bilateral trade agreement that the United States signed with Vietnam in July 2000 represents a milestone in U.S. relations with Vietnam. Building a foundation for a strong commercial relationship with Vietnam is not only in our economic interest, but it is in our security interest and our diplomatic interest. Vietnam has made comprehensive commitments, which will help open up Vietnam's market for products produced by U.S. workers, businesses and farmers. These commitments will not only help pave the way for changes in the Vietnamese economy, but in Vietnamese society as a whole.
While the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement is an important step forward in our diplomatic and commercial relationship, I am disappointed that the agreement does not address Vietnam's poor record of enforcing internationally-recognized core labor standards. The Government of Vietnam continues to deny its citizens the right of association, allows forced labor, and inadequately enforces its child labor and worker safety laws. Vietnam's poor labor conditions led President Clinton to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, with Vietnam in December 2000. This MOU, pledging U.S. technical assistance for Vietnam to improve its labor market conditions, is a start, but it does not require Vietnam to take specific steps to improve enforcement of existing laws and regulations. More is needed.
I join my colleagues who have been urging the Administration to commit to enter into a textiles and apparel agreement with Vietnam that would include positive incentives for Vietnam to improve its labor conditions, similar to the agreement the U.S. has in place with Cambodia. Such an agreement is important to maintain a consistent U.S. trade policy that recognizes the competitive impact of labor market conditions. Additionally, if the United States fails to enter into a textile and apparel agreement with Vietnam similar to the agreement with Cambodia, the agreement with Cambodia may be undermined if businesses move production to Vietnam at the expense of Cambodia.
The vote today inaugurates an annual review of whether the United States should extend normal trade relations, NTR, to Vietnam. As Congress undertakes these annual NTR reviews for Vietnam, we will closely monitor progress in reaching a textiles and apparel agreement, and Vietnam's respect for core labor rights.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of H.J. Res 51, approving the bilateral trade agreement between the United States and Vietnam. Our relationship with Vietnam has come far in 25 years. Today, Vietnam is gradually integrating into the world economy, is a member of APEC, the ASEAN Free Trade Area and has economic and trade relations with 165 Countries.
Vietnam has granted normal trade relations to the United States since 1999. At the same time, our cooperative relations with Vietnam on other matters, including POW issues, has progressed admirably. Establishing normal trade relations for Vietnam is a logical step in our trade AND foreign relations.
Negotiated over a four-year period, this trade agreement represents an important series of commitments by Vietnam to reform its economy. It provides important market access for American companies and is a crucial step in the process of normalizing relations between the United States and Vietnam.
There are those in this body who do not believe, as I do, that the United States and Vietnam are ready to end thirty-five years of violence and mistrust between our two countries. There are Senators who believe the great battle between capitalism and communism has yet to be fully won. There are Senators who believe that our goal should be to destroy the last vestiges of communism. I am one of those Senators.
I believe that communism belongs, to paraphrase the President in his remarkable joint address of Congress on September 20, ``in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.''
There are those who believe that the best way to make sure the lie of Vietnamese communism dies is to shun Vietnam, to condition interaction on a fundamental political shift in Vietnam. In other words, you change your ways, and then we will engage you. I am not one of those Senators.
I believe that trade is the best vehicle to force political change. The Vietnamese, like China before it, has gone far down a path of economic reform. They practice Capitalism and preach Communism.
I believe that capitalism is infectious. I do not believe that Capitalism and communism can co exist. I believe that the road on which Vietnam is traveling will inevitably lead to democratic change, and that its experiment with Communism will die an unlamented death.
Further delay in passing the BTA will harm will delay Vietnam on this road. The BTA is the right vehicle at the right time for our economic AND foreign policy priorities.
I urge my colleagues to pass H.J. Res. 51.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, the catfish industry in the United States is being victimized by a fish product from Vietnam that is labeled as farm-raised catfish. Since 1997, the volume of Vietnamese frozen fish filets has increased from 500,000 pounds to over 7 million pounds per year.
U.S. catfish farm production, which is located primarily in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana, accounts for 50 percent of the total value of all U.S. aquaculture production. Catfish farmers in the Mississippi Delta region have spent $50 million to establish a market for North American catfish.
The Vietnamese fish industry is penetrating the United States fish market by falsely labeling fish products to create the impression they are farm-raised catfish. The Vietnamese ``basa'' fish that are being imported from Vietnam are grown in cages along the Mekong River Delta. Unlike other imported fish, basa fish are imported as an intended substitute for U.S. farm-raised catfish, and in some instances, their product packaging imitates U.S. brands and logos. This false labeling of Vietnamese basa fish is misleading American consumers at supermarkets and restaurants.
According to a taxonomy analysis from the National Warmwater Aquaculture Center, the Vietnamese basa fish is not even of the same family or species as the North American channel catfish.
The trade agreement with Vietnam, unfortunately, will allow the Vietnamese fish industry to enhance its ability to ship more mislabeled fish products into this country, and under the procedure for consideration of this agreement it is not subject to amendment.
However, I hope the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration will review its previous decisions on this issue and take steps to ensure the trade practices of the Vietnamese fish industry are fair and do not mislead American consumers.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the resolution to approve the bilateral trade agreement signed by the United States and Vietnam on July 13, 2000. I believe this agreement is in the best interests of the United States and Vietnam and will do much to foster the political and economic ties between the two countries.
Under the terms of the agreement, the United States agrees to extend most-favored nation status to Vietnam, which would significantly reduce U.S. tariffs on most imports from Vietnam. In return, Vietnam will undertake a wide range of market-liberalization measures, including extending MFN treatment to U.S. exports, reducing tariffs, easing barriers to U.S. services, such as banking and telecommunications, committing to protect certain intellectual property rights, and providing additional inducements and protections for inward foreign direct investment.
These steps will significantly benefit U.S. companies and workers by opening a new and expanding market for increased exports and investment. Just as important for the United States, this agreement will promote economic and political freedom in Vietnam by bringing Vietnam into the global market economy, tying it to the rule of law, and increasing the wealth and prosperity of all Vietnamese.
I share the concerns many have expressed about the human rights situation in Vietnam. No doubt, there is a great deal of room for improvement. Nevertheless, I am a firm believer in the idea that as you increase trade, as you increase communication, as you increase exposure to western and democratic ideals, you increase political pluralism and respect for human rights. The more you isolate, the greater the chance for human rights abuses.
I believe the United States will continue to address this issue and use the closer ties that will come from an expanded economic and political relationship to press for significant improvement of Vietnam's human rights record. We owe the people of Vietnam no less. In addition, as I have stated above, I believe that this agreement will promote economic opportunity and the rule of law in Vietnam which will have a positive effect on that country's respect for human rights.
Mr. President, this agreement is another step in the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam that began with the lifting of the economic embargo in 1994 and the establishment of diplomatic relations the following year. Let us not take a step backwards. We have the opportunity today to ensure that this process continues and the political and economic ties will grow to the benefit of all Americans and all Vietnamese. I urge my colleagues to support the resolution to approve the United States-Vietnam trade agreement.
Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam, this trade agreement will extend normal trade relations status to Vietnam. This important legislation enjoys strong bipartisan support, it passed the House of Representatives by voice vote and implements the comprehensive trade agreement signed last year.
The United States has extended the Jackson-Vanik waiver to Vietnam for the past 3 years. This waiver is a prerequisite for Normal Trade Relations trade status and has allowed American businesses operating in Vietnam to make use of programs supporting exports and investments to Vietnam. The passage of this trade agreement completes the normalization process with Vietnam that has spanned four Presidential Administrations, and I believe it is a milestone in the strengthening of our bilateral relations.
I would like to commend our former Ambassador to Vietnam, Pete Peterson. Ambassador Peterson's tenure as Ambassador was a seminal period in United States-Vietnamese relations, and he did, by any standard, an outstanding job in representing the United States.
I believe that this trade agreement will result in significant market openings for America's companies. In particular, Oregon companies will benefit from this expansion of trade with Vietnam by having greater access to Vietnam's market of almost 80 million people, as well as lower tariffs on Oregon goods. This agreement also gives the United States greater influence over the pace of economic, political and social reforms by opening Vietnam to the West. Our goods and our democratic values will have a strong and lasting impression in that country. I believe that this agreement will help transform Vietnam into a more open and transparent society, expanding economic freedom and opportunities for the Vietnamese people.
Portland, OR is home to a strong Vietnamese-American community, most of whom left their homeland as refugees decades ago. Oregon welcomed these people with open arms and their tight-knit community have become highly sought after workers and valued American citizens. I hope that this step towards better relations will bring about true economic and social reforms to their homeland, as well as faith in their new country's ability to share western values abroad.
I applaud the Administration for its work on this trade effort and for its work in rebuilding relations between the United States and Vietnam. In particular, the work of the Department of Defense in solving unresolved MIA cases in Vietnam has been outstanding. The devotion to the goal of repatriating MIAs to the United States has provided a sense of closure to many American families who experienced a loss decades ago.
I would like to thank my colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee for the timely disposition of this trade agreement, and I look forward to working with the Vietnamese people to bring further economic and political reforms to their country.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, today, the Senate takes a significant step toward opening Vietnamese markets to America's farmers and workers, normalizing our relations with Vietnam, and reaffirming our commitment to engage, and not retreat from, the rest of the world.
H.J. Res. 51, the Vietnam Trade Act, is the result of nearly five years of negotiations. It will put into action the landmark trade agreement that was signed last summer by the United States and Vietnam.
A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Vietnam. I remember the warmth with which we were greeted by nearly everyone we met. I especially remember a girl I met one morning on a street in Hanoi. She couldn't have been more than 12 or 13 years old, and she was selling old postcards of different places all over the world.
I offered to buy the one postcard she had from America.
She shook her head and said, ``No, won't sell . . . America.'' To her, that postcard was priceless. It represented a place of freedom and opportunity.
This trade agreement will allow US goods and services to enter Vietnam. Just as important, it will allow American ideals to flow more freely into that nation. It will help that young woman, and the 60 percent of all Vietnamese who were born after the war, create a freer and more prosperous Vietnam.
Instead of holding onto that old, tattered postcard, she will be able to grasp real freedom and opportunity. That will help both of our Nations.
I want to thank the many people who made this agreement possible: Ambassador Pete Peterson and the trade negotiators in the Clinton Administration; President Bush, who has pressed for this act's completion; Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley, who have worked together to bring this bill to the floor; and, four senators whose war stories are well known, and whose service to this country is unparalleled. This trade agreement would not have been possible without the courageous leadership of John Kerry, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and Max Cleland.
This is the most comprehensive bilateral trade agreement ever negotiated by the U.S. with a Jackson-Vanik country.
It demands that Vietnam provide greater access to their markets, provide greater protection for intellectual property rights, and modernize business practices.
The result will be new markets, and new opportunities, for our companies, farmers and workers.
This trade deal is far more than just a commercial pact. It is another step in the long road toward normalizing relations between our two countries.
We all know where our countries were, and how far we have come.
For people like John McCain and John Kerry, for all of us who served during the Vietnam War era, we came of age knowing Vietnam as an adversary.
In the years since, we've been able to open lines of communication. We've worked to provide a full accounting of American prisoners of war and those missing in action, and we are cooperating on research into the health and environmental effects of Agent Orange.
Today, we take another step toward making Vietnam a partner.
In exchange for serious economic reform and increased transparency, this agreement normalizes the economic relationship between our countries.
Those reforms, in turn, will give Vietnam the opportunity to integrate into regional and global institutions. And they will give the Vietnamese people a chance to know greater freedoms and a more open society.
We are clear-eyed about Vietnam's problems. The State Department found again this year that the Vietnamese government's human rights record is poor. Religious persecution and civil rights abuses are still rampant throughout the country.
In pressing forward today, we are not condoning this behavior. To the contrary, we are calling on the Vietnam government to fulfill its commitments for greater freedom.
And we are pledging to hold them to that commitment.
Finally, the Vietnam Trade Act is also a reaffirmation of America's continued international leadership.
Last spring, when this resolution was introduced in the Senate, I said that its passage would send a signal to the world that the United States is committed to engaging with countries around the globe by using our mutual interests as a foundation for working through our differences.
In the wake of September 11, this engagement is more important than ever, and since that time we have: overwhelmingly approved the Jordan Free Trade Act, the first ever U.S. free trade agreement with an Arab country; taken another step to make right our dues at the United Nations; and, begun building an unprecedented international coalition against terrorism.
Final passage of this agreement will send an additional message to the global community that the United States cannot, and will not, be scared into its borders.
We will not close up shop.
And to that young girl in Hanoi, and all who share her hopes, we say that we will not be content to defend our freedoms solely within our borders. We will continue to be a light to all who look to us for hope.
We will not retreat from the world. We will lead it.
This is a good resolution. And it allows us to begin implementing a good agreement. I urge my colleagues to support it.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement. This agreement paves the way for improved relations between the United States and Vietnam, and will improve overall economic and political conditions in both countries. I would like to say a few words about a man who was an integral part of negotiating this agreement, Ambassador Douglas ``Pete'' Peterson. Many people in Florida are familiar with the heroic deeds and leadership of Pete Peterson. It is fitting and proper that we, in this body, recognize his exemplary service to our country.
Pete Peterson was a young Air Force pilot when he was shot down, captured, and held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam where he remained for 6\1/2\ years. He was regularly interrogated, isolated, and tortured. Very few POWs were held longer. His example of perseverance under the most horrible conditions and circumstances is one that cannot be easily comprehended, but is one that we must regard with immense gratitude.
Pete Peterson was not deterred by his horrific experience in Hanoi and continued his service in the Air Force. He went on to complete 26 years of service, retiring as a colonel. He distinguished himself as a leader in Florida, and was elected to represent the second congressional district of Florida in 1990.
After serving three terms in the U.S. Congress, Pete became the U.S. first post-war Ambassador to Vietnam. I have known Pete for many years, and he made a comment about his tour as Ambassador to Vietnam, which I believe, is indicative of his commitment to service, ``How often does one have the chance to return to a place where you suffered and try to make things right?''
Pete Peterson made things right. One step toward doing so was the Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement. This was Pete's top trade priority, but it was much more. It was an important part of normalizing relations with Vietnam, including political and economic reform, as well as working to improve human rights. Only someone of Pete Peterson's caliber could have successfully represented the United States during the challenging period of normalizing relations and healing between our nations. Only someone of his patriotism, honor, and integrity could have played such a prominent role in achieving this trade agreement. This agreement will increase market access for American products and improve economic conditions in Vietnam as well as the climate for investors in Vietnam
Now we still have some work to do. I know the Commission on International Religious Freedom has been critical of Vietnam, and I was disappointed to see some of the comments that came out of Hanoi in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11. However, only through engagement and cooperative efforts can we most effectively press Vietnam to continue to respect human rights and continue political and economic reform. That is why Pete Peterson should be recognized and thanked here today. I yield the floor.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, what is the parliamentary position?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. H.J. Res. 51 is pending.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, is there an agreement when a vote will occur?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. A vote will occur at 2 p.m.
Mr. BAUCUS. Seeing a vote is about to occur, I will be with you very briefly.
fast track legislation
Mr. BAUCUS. I am encouraged by the beginnings of bipartisan action from the House on fast-track legislation, otherwise known as trade promotion authority. We have a little ways to go, but I am very encouraged by the beginnings of a bipartisan agreement in the other body. It is my hope there can be more bipartisan agreement than there has been thus far.
We want a bill to pass the House with as many votes as possible. Obviously, granting fast-track authority, granting trade promotion to the President by the Congress, if it passes by an extraordinarily large margin, will be helpful in negotiating the SALT trade agreement with other countries.
If the House does pass this bill, the Senate Finance Committee will take up the bill and hopefully bring the bill to the floor and get it passed. The key is in the spirit of the bipartisanship and cooperation, which has been tremendous, that has occurred since September 11. There is an opportunity for continued bipartisan agreement in the trade bill.
I am very pleased to say there has been such cooperation in Washington, DC--both Houses, both political parties, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. There is an opportunity here for that same spirit of cooperation to continue on the trade bill. If it does, we will get it passed earlier rather than later.
I see 2 o'clock has arrived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The joint resolution was ordered to a third reading and was read the third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bayh). The joint resolution having been read the third time, the question is, shall the joint resolution pass? The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 88, nays 12, as follows:
YEAS--88
AkakaAllardAllenBaucusBayhBennettBidenBingamanBondBoxerBreauxBrownbackBurnsCantwellCarnahanCarperChafeeClelandClintonCollinsConradCorzineCraigCrapoDaschleDaytonDeWineDoddDomeniciDorganDurbinEdwardsEnsignEnziFeinsteinFitzgeraldFristGrahamGrammGrassleyGreggHagelHarkinHollingsHutchinsonInhofeInouyeJeffordsJohnsonKennedyKerryKohlKylLandrieuLeahyLevinLiebermanLincolnLugarMcCainMcConnellMikulskiMillerMurkowskiMurrayNelson (FL)Nelson (NE)NicklesReedReidRobertsRockefellerSantorumSarbanesSchumerShelbySmith (OR)SnoweSpecterStabenowStevensThomasThompsonTorricelliVoinovichWarnerWellstoneWyden
NAYS--12
BunningByrdCampbellCochranFeingoldHatchHelmsHutchisonLottSessionsSmith (NH)Thurmond
The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 51) was passed.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. LOTT. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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