Passage of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act conference agreement by the Senate would send to the President the first significant trade legislation to pass both Houses of Congress since 1988, other than legislation implementing trade agreements under special procedures.
If I could characterize this conference agreement with one word, it would be opportunity.
First, this conference agreement provides people in Sub-Saharan Africa with the opportunity and promise for a better life. In many cases, these countries are not able to sustain their own people. They lack even the simplest, most basic infrastructure. This prevents them from meeting necessary agriculture, education, transportation, and healthcare needs. By giving these countries new tools to develop a textile and apparel industry, they will have new opportunity to participate in the global trade flows, and the increased prosperity that have largely by-passed the majority of Africa's people.
I want to stress that what this bill provides is opportunity. Not a guarantee. Not a panacea. But an opportunity that, up until now, has been missing.
What this legislation will give these countries is the opportunity to build the essential capital that struggling economies need to increase their investment in their own people. And we will create this opportunity for these struggling economies without jeopardizing United States employment.
Some 30 Sub-Saharan countries have begun dynamic economic reform programs. They are liberalizing exchange rates, privatizing state-owned enterprises, reducing harmful barriers to trade and investment, and ending costly, trade-distorting subsidies. They are doing all the right things. This legislation will create greater opportunities for new partnerships with these African nations based on economic directions they have already begun to take.
The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act is designed to complement the economic reform policies African nations have already decided to pursue by offering increased access to United States markets for non-import sensitive goods and textiles, while creating enhanced opportunities to deepen our bilateral trade relationships.
And speaking of opportunity, we will open up for American goods and services a market of 700 million potential new consumers, more than in Japan and all the ASEAN nations combined, if we approve this conference agreement.
Both the United States and the African nations recognize this legislation for the win-win opportunity that it is. The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act has been endorsed by every African Ambassador in Washington. We don't see unanimous agreement on many things in this city these days. But we do here. All of the 48 nations of Sub-Saharan Africa are united in support of this legislation.
The conference agreement is also a win-win opportunity for the countries of the Caribbean Basin region and the United States.
The conference report grants duty-free, quota-free benefits to apparel made in the CBI countries from United States yarn, and United States fabric. The Caribbean Basin nations will now have an opportunity to compete with Mexico and other developing countries in Asia in a way that will permit them to more fully participate in the global economy.
Additionally, the conference report provides benefits for apparel made with regional fabric under clearly specified conditions. This will encourage additional United States exports of cotton and yarn, and United States investment in the region, while also helping create desperately needed jobs for Caribbean workers.
In fact, I can't think of a time when this legislation was needed more. We have to act now to help rebuild the shattered Caribbean economies, and the ruined lives, of those whose nations were devastated by Hurricanes Georges and Mitch in 1998. It is hard for us to imagine the destruction these storms inflicted. In the worst hit Caribbean countries, virtually all sectors of the economy were affected. Houses by the hundreds were washed away. Roads and bridges disappeared under tons of water. Hotels were wrecked. Beach erosion demolished tourism.
Both the Administration and the Congress deserve credit for joint efforts to enact a disaster assistance package of close to $1 billion to aid in the reconstruction of the most basic elements of infrastructure, roads, bridges, and sewage systems. But even this investment will fall far short of what is needed. The Caribbean nations hit by these disasters have seen the basic pillars of their economies, agriculture and tourism, almost completely ruined.
I have spoken to many of the ambassadors from the Caribbean nations about this. In my view, based on these discussions, comprehensive reconstruction will not be possible without an effective trade and investment component.
The ambassadors tell me, and regional leaders and United States officials all agree, it will take years for the hardest-hit countries to recover. These countries are more than just our friends. They are our neighbors. Almost in our backyard. We must put in place a program to help them rebuild and sustain growth during the long road back to economic prosperity.
We can do this without threatening jobs in our own country. The Caribbean Basin is one of the few regions in the world where the United States consistently maintains a trade surplus. In fact, close to 70 cents of every dollar spent in the region is returned in the form of increased exports from the United States. In 1999, United States exports to Caribbean Basin countries exceeded $19 billion, making this group the sixth largest export market of United States goods that year.
We will see other long-term benefits to the United States if we approve this conference agreement and help our Caribbean neighbors help themselves. We will contribute to United states national security by helping democratic countries build and maintain political and economic stability.
In closing, I want to say a word about the significance of our work here. United States leadership in trade policy has suffered serious setbacks in the past few years. One obvious setback has been the repeated failure to renew the President's fast-track trade negotiating authority. Another setback has been the failure of the negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
And the most serious blow to United States leadership in global trade policy is the failure last December of the Seattle Ministerial Conference Meeting of the World Trade Organization.
Mr. President, the entire world is watching what we do here today. It is vitally important to not just approve this conference agreement, but to do so in a resounding way. If we do that, we can send a message to the rest of the world that American leadership in trade policy is alive and well. For many in the international community, that leadership is in quite serious doubt. It is especially important to approve this conference agreement after the profoundly disappointing failure of the Seattle WTO negotiations.
We are only now beginning to pick up the pieces, with the start of new agriculture and services trade negotiations in Geneva. I have been watching these negotiations very closely. They are both difficult and delicate. We are trying to rebuild confidence, both in the WTO, and in the United States. After Seattle, this is necessary, and vitally important. It is not an exaggeration to say that failure to approve this conference agreement, or even a tepid approval, would send a shockwave through these negotiations. It would undermine our negotiators, jeopardize any progress we might make in Geneva, and do great harm to our long-term international trade interests.
By the same token, a strong Senate endorsement of the conference report would say to the world that the Senate is engaged and committed. It would say to the world we are ready to reaffirm the historic leadership role that has characterized United States trade policy for the last 50 years.
Finally, Mr. President, I want to salute the hard work of the Majority Leader, Senator Lott, as well as that of my distinguished colleagues Senator Roth, and Senator Moynihan. Without their vision, their effort and perseverance, we would not be here today.
Sub-Saharan Africa currently supplies less than one percent of the total value of apparel imports to the United States. Under the most optimistic circumstances, a recent analysis by the non-partisan International Trade Commission shows that passage of this legislation would increase apparel imports to this country from Sub-Saharan Africa by about three percent. Most, if not all, of this increase would come at the expense of Far Eastern suppliers, not United States manufacturers.
And the legislation in the conference report establishes a mechanism under which domestic producers can petition for relief from import surges that threaten serious injury. Under those provisions, tariffs could be reimposed in limited instances in which a domestic producer could establish a meritorious case.