U.S. Agriculture Exports

May 7, 1998

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on agriculture trade policies. I would also like to thank Secretary Glickman and Ambassador Barshefsky for testifying before us this morning.

I appreciate both of your efforts to promote U.S. agriculture exports. I recognize that this is a constant struggle of competing interests but we are clearly going in the right direction.

However, I am very concerned that in the hubbub of multilateral trade negotiations, insufficient attention has been focused on prying open access to Canadian markets for our agriculture producers.

Canada imposes massive tariffs on U.S. dairy, poultry and egg products. One of Vermont's major dairy regions is only an hour from Montreal, but that huge potential market is effectively walled off from U.S. dairy producers.

Canadian tariffs on our dairy products are 300 percent. This is effectively a ban on our exports to Canada. In contrast, industrial tariffs, in general, run only 5 to 10 percent.

You will both attend the World Trade Organization Ministerial Meeting in Geneva later this month. I strongly urge you to put the issue of dairy exports to Canada on the front burner and then turn up the heat. I implore you both to pursue a bilateral, multilateral, or whateverlateral agreement that opens up Canadian markets to American exporters. Mr. Secretary, Madame Ambassador, tear down that Canadian dairy wall.

Expanding our dairy export market will help keep our American dairy farmers in business. One study estimated that potential sales for U.S. dairy products to Canada could reach upwards of $1 billion per year. Vermont exports a lot of dairy products such as nonfat dry milk, powder and ice cream to countries all over the world, including Great Britain, Mexico and Japan. The fact that Canada is not on that list defies common sense and good agriculture policy. The decision by a NAFTA dispute panel to permit Canada's 300 percent tariffs on dairy products has all but eliminated dairy exports from the United States.

I am also concerned about another issue. I got a scare a while back when Great Britain threatened to ban Ben and Jerry's ice cream from Great Britain over trumpedup and completely invalid sanitary concerns. I am worried that countries will raise fake sanitary concerns as a way to keep our products out. I joined Senators Harkin and Daschle in a call for a recently released GAO study on the matter, which I encourage everyone to read for their insightful analysis into this problem.

Great Britain backed down quickly on Ben and Jerry's after a lot of phone calls were made, but needless time and energy were exerted. I want to make sure that procedures are in place so that trumpedup charges by foreign countries can be quickly resolved.

I have a number of other concerns regarding trade issues such as State trading enterprises, EU export subsidies and minimum access commitments which I will address in questions. Thank you.