Opening Statement of the Hon. Jim Ramstad, M.C., Minnesota

Hearing on Free Trade Deals:  Is the United States Losing Ground
as its Trading Partners Move Ahead?

March 29, 2001

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this important hearing on the free trade agreements being negotiated around the world.

It is truly alarming that the U.S. is a party to only two of the 130 free trade agreements currently in force around the world. This means that U.S. companies are disadvantaged in their efforts to sell products overseas. Worse, it means that free trade rules are being written without U.S. input, harming our countries into the future.

Last year, I think most of us on the Committee would agree, was a great one for trade. Congress worked to expand international trade and development. Now, we need to build on that success.

How can we not? The U.S. economy is increasingly international in focus. Over 25% of our economic growth in the last decade is tied to foreign trade and 12 million Americans owe their jobs to exports. The unprecedented economic growth this country has experienced in recent years is in part a result of expanded trade between the U.S. and our trading partners.

I strongly believe the cornerstone of congressional trade action must be approval of Trade Promotion Authority for President Bush. As long as we continue to deny this fundamental power to the President, our economy and our citizens will fail to capitalize on the trade opportunities before us.

What are these opportunities? The U.S. must push aggressively to negotiate and enact the Free Trade Area of the Americas, preferably by 2003. The NAFTA agreement has been an enormous benefit to our country, and we will further benefit from expanding free trade to the rest of the hemisphere.

We should also continue to push for bilateral trade agreements with countries like Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and others. Lastly, we should continue to work with Europe to amicably settle our differences and move forward.

We have the opportunity to build on last year, and I hope that we seize that opportunity.

Thanks again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses.