Susan C. Schwab to be United States Trade Representative

SUSAN C. SCHWAB TO BE UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I strongly support the nomination of Susan Schwab to serve as U.S. Trade Representative.

It is almost 7 months to the day since the Senate unanimously confirmed Ambassador Schwab to be Deputy U.S. Trade Representative.

During her service in that position, Ambassador Schwab has amply demonstrated her qualifications to take over as our next trade representative.

She successfully concluded negotiations of trade agreements with Peru and Columbia and has been actively engaged in the ongoing negotiations of the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organization.

Given her strong background in trade policy, it is not surprising, then, that Ambassador Schwab has served so well in her current position.

Ambassador Schwab formally served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service. That is an agency within the Department of Commerce with people on the ground in foreign countries pushing for the interest of U.S. businesses.

She, herself, worked abroad to advance U.S. trade objectives while serving as a trade policy officer in the U.S. embassy in Tokyo.

Her first job in Washington was as an agricultural trade negotiator for the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. Ambassador Schwab thus knows full well the importance and the challenge of advancing the trade interests of U.S. family farmers.

Ambassador Schwab also has extensive experience working for the Congress of the United States, the very committee that I chair. She spent 8 years during the 1980s as a trade policy specialist and then as legislative director for then-Senator Danforth at a time when he chaired the trade subcommittee of this Committee on Finance.

Ambassador Schwab is well aware of the important role Congress plays in U.S. trade policy. I look forward to working closely with her in advancing U.S. trade objectives.

In addition, Ambassador Schwab has experience working on trade issues also in the private sector. At one point, she was director of corporate business development for Motorola. In that position, she engaged in strategic planning on behalf of Motorola in the continent of Asia.

More recently, she served as dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. That was from 1995 through the year 2003, and then as president and CEO of the University System of the Maryland Foundation, as well as serving as vice chancellor for advancement.

Her academic and private-sector experiences complement her strong background in Government service. She is well rounded, in other words. Given the major challenges we face in advancing a robust trade agenda, it is especially important we have someone of Ambassador Schwab's caliber serving as U.S. Trade Representative dealing with 149 countries that are members of the World Trade Organization.

We need to achieve substantial progress in Doha Round negotiations, and soon, if we are going to succeed in getting an agreement before trade promotion authority for the President of the United States expires next year. We still have a long way to go on those negotiations to reach an ambitious outcome that would be acceptable to me as chairman of the committee, but I think I can speak for the entire Congress on that point.

We are also in the process of negotiating free trade agreements with a number of important trading partners, including South Korea and Malaysia. These are going to represent terrific challenges. These are going to represent yet new challenges for her, particularly in addressing regulatory and other nontariff barriers to trade.

It is essential our bilateral negotiations with South Korea, Malaysia, and other nations conclude in time to be considered under trade promotion authority which expires July next year.

In addition, it is important our next trade representative continue to encourage meaningful regulatory reform in other major trading partners, especially Japan and China.

I expect Ambassador Schwab to continue to push our trading partners to come into compliance with their existing trade obligations such as and not limited to these: Mexico's obligation under NAFTA and the World Trade Organization regarding the importation of U.S. agricultural products and China's obligations to protect intellectual property rights.

Separately, I expect any bilateral agreement on Russia's access to the World Trade Organization will be concluded on strong, commercially meaningful terms and will not be rushed to meet some artificial deadline. Russia must demonstrate its willingness, its ability, and its commitment to abide by World Trade Organization rules.

It is important we remind ourselves of the tremendous benefits we derive from open international trade because too often we hear criticism of our trading regimes. As an example, on average, over the past decade, our economy has created a net of 2 million jobs each year. In 2005, our unemployment rate dropped to 4.7 percent, which is well below the averages of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

An important part of our economic success is due to our trade. During the last decades, our exports have accounted for about one-quarter of U.S. economic growth. Jobs created by exports are estimated to pay 13 to 18 percent more on average compared to jobs unrelated to exports.

With respect to agriculture, approximately one-third of the acres planted in the United States are exported. Our service sector, which accounts for almost 70 percent of the U.S. economy, is anxious to break down barriers to our exports of services around the world.

Today our services exports account for a little more than a quarter of the total U.S. exports of goods and services, so breaking down barriers to our services exports would go a long way toward helping us improve our trade deficit.

Therefore, we in the Congress need to recommit ourselves to securing improved market access for our exporters, both in the Doha Round negotiations and by means of bilateral and regional trade agreements.

I am confident Ambassador Schwab will effectively meet each of the many challenges she will face as our next trade representative. Her experience and her skills make it quite evident she is the right person for the job. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting her nomination. Once confirmed, I look forward to working with her to advance an ambitious trade agenda and would expect her to consult under the law trade promotion authority with our committees when we ask her to and when she thinks it is necessary for her to make advances to us on that sort of communication because consultation between us prior to a negotiation being signed is the basis for the success and the opportunity to get such an agreement through the Congress.

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