Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4842, United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4842, UNITED STATES-MOROCCO FREE TRADE AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 22, 2004)

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Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I support this rule. However, I want to make it clear that we do not want this as a precedent that on trade agreements only 2 hours of debate always are allowed. In this case I think 2 hours will be satisfactory. That will not always be true.

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There are good reasons to support this FTA, and I do so. There is the historical relationship between our two countries, as mentioned. There are the present realities in our relationship, Morocco's important role in its area and beyond that. Also, there are some important provisions in this agreement; for example, relating to manufacturing goods outside of the textile area. Ninety-five percent of them will become duty-free. There are strong services commitments, strong IPR commitments. So there are good reasons to be supportive of this.

I do want to put in perspective, though, several issues that have come up in our discussion, and these issues really were raised by us on the minority side. The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) likes to talk about raising issues as if it is a reflection of economic isolationism. That is the rubric, the mantra, the propaganda of the majority. They try to pin it on Democrats, including John Kerry. It is absurd. We raised several issues because they were legitimate ones, not because we opposed expanded trade, but because we want expanded trade to work for everybody. We want expanded trade to be shaped. We do not think it is some magic bullet that we simply have to shoot and everything will work out. We do not think trade policy should be on automatic pilot. We do not think that what is necessarily appropriate in one trade agreement is appropriate in another. These cookie cutter approaches of this administration are wrong, and surely we do not support this agreement because we think that the economic record of this administration is worthy of support by anybody in this country.

So we raised a couple of issues. And the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) referred to the prescription medicine provision, and I want to talk about it. Before I do that, a brief word and we will have more discussion during the 2 hours about the core labor standard provisions. The gentleman from California said we should not impose U.S. wages, identical laws on other countries. That is not what we are talking about. That again is propaganda from the majority side. What we are talking about are basic core international standards, and countries, including ours, have signed on to a declaration that says that people should have the right to associate, to bargain, to be free from discrimination, there should be no child or forced labor. That is what we are talking about when we say they should be incorporated into free trade agreements.

We asked the question, an important one, where is Morocco? Where is Morocco today in terms of their laws and their enforcement of these core labor standards? And the majority, because of their view that trade always works out for the best, it is always win-win, did not raise any questions about that. In fact, as to the reforms of 2003 in Morocco, there was not even within our government an English translation of these laws. And we asked for one and we looked at them. We talked to the Moroccan government about these laws, and I am pleased to say that we had a very useful discussion, which we initiated and the Moroccan government responded to, regarding the status of these core labor standards in Moroccan law and in Moroccan practice.

The reforms that were inaugurated last year were a major step forward. The Moroccan society has some history of some freedom for workers, and the independent union in Morocco supports this agreement, I think, as a result. But there were issues raised as to the ability of people to associate, to bargain, and to strike, and so we asked the Moroccan government to give us in writing the status, and I want to quote from their letter and I will place that letter in the RECORD. The letter read this way:

"The government of Morocco is committed to protecting the right to strike in conformance with ILO, International Labor Organization's core principles. In particular, the government will not use Article 288 of our penal code against lawful strikers."

So I very much disagree with the administration's approach in general. They have in the agreements enforce their own laws. They put these in the agreements regardless of whether the laws incorporate the standards and whether there is implementation of them. And when we have a chance, when we take over, that will change. But in the meanwhile, the question is, is there conformance, is there conformance basically in Morocco with the core labor standards? And I think the realities as we were able to dig them out indicate that they are basically in conformance with the core labor standards.

Now a few words about prescription medicines. Why did we inquire? First of all, there is the same provision here as there is in the previous agreement, including Australia, the general patent provision that could be applied to reimportation of prescription medicines. It turns out in the case of Morocco that that provision is not going to have any potential effect. All of the legislation that has been introduced regarding reimportation does not include Morocco. They have a very small pharmaceutical industry. So I do not think, though I do not like this provision as a general rule, that we should vote against Morocco because of it, but we should make clear that we do not believe these provisions or this provision should be in trade agreements.

Now what about the impact of these provisions not on our important health needs but the important health needs of the people of Morocco? And we were concerned about that. The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) talked about AIDS. Look, if we are really concerned, and I think we all are, we need to look at these agreements to see what is the potential impact on the availability of medicines to people in Morocco who are suffering from AIDS and where there is in other cases as well some kind of a health emergency? And there were several provisions in this agreement that raised questions about the accessibility of the people of Morocco in these cases to necessary pharmaceuticals and the ability of the government of Morocco to take the steps necessary to make these drugs available. And these are fairly technical provisions, but they relate to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. One relates to so-called parallel imports and the other to test data protections.

So I will make a long story short, and, if necessary, we can talk more about this when we have the debate of 2 hours. We entered into discussions with USTR. We on the Democratic side sent a letter to USTR, and they responded. And I include those two letters in the RECORD. And we said, in a few words, would the provisions in these two cases prevent accessibility to necessary drugs in a real case of emergency or necessity? And essentially what USTR has said: The agreement in the side letters, when read together, would not prohibit action by the Moroccan government to provide access to these drugs. And these side letters do have effect. The USTR has told us the following, and I want to read them so there is clarity. This is from page 8 of the mentioned letter to me:

"As stated in the side letter, the letter constitutes a formal agreement between the parties. It is thus a significant part of the interpretive context for this agreement and not merely rhetorical." And they also then earlier have said: "Therefore, if circumstances ever arise in which a drug is produced under compulsory license," meaning the government of Morocco has given that license to make these drugs available, "and it is necessary to approve that drug to protect public health or effectively utilize the TRIPS/health solution, the data protection provisions in the FTA would not stand in the way." And they say the same as to the parallel import issue.

So I just finish by saying this to make it very clear: We were concerned. There is an AIDS epidemic. There are other health issues of serious import for the lives of children and other citizens of Morocco, and we took the initiative to be sure that this agreement would not prevent the availability of medicines in these circumstances. The Declaration, the language that was worked out in Doha, made it clear as to WTO that countries could protect themselves and their citizens when there was an overriding health need, and we wanted to make sure that nothing in this FTA would override that ability. And I am satisfied because of the exchange of letters. I am satisfied because of what was written to us by USTR. I am now satisfied by their categorical statement at our hearing just a few days ago that there would be nothing that would prevent access to these medicines in the circumstances I mentioned because of the FTA.

For all of those reasons, I believe that the issue for Morocco has been addressed. But I want to make it very clear that when we negotiate these agreements in the first place, as is true for core labor standards, as is true for health needs, as is true for anything else, we should be sensitive to what the possible impact would be. We should not be using cookie cutter approaches when the lives and the livelihoods of people in our country and in other countries are involved.

So I support this agreement. I urge passage of the rule. But I think this has been a healthy process, and I think we have both clarified the meaning of this agreement, and also I think what we have done is to serve notice as to how these agreements should be negotiated in the future.

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