United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act--Continued

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today in the wake of another very sobering jobs report. Unemployment remains stalled at 9.1 percent; 14 million Americans are out of work; another 9 million have been forced into part-time jobs because they simply cannot find full-time employment. These challenging economic times demand that Congress and the administration put aside partisanship and work together in earnest to address the prolonged jobs crisis.

Many of the decisions that will come before Congress in the next few months will be difficult ones, including those that must be made to restore fiscal order to our Nation's books. But there are bipartisan measures that we know will create and preserve jobs now. We must work together to advance them.

One such measure before us today is the free-trade agreement with South Korea. As President Obama stated last week, this agreement ``will make it easier for American companies to sell their products in South Korea and provide a major boost to our exports.''

South Korea is our country's seventh largest trading partner. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that implementation of this agreement would increase our gross domestic product by $10 billion to $12 billion, and annual merchandise exports by $10 billion. The ITC further estimates that the agreement will reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Korea by between $3 billion and $4 billion.

An analysis of the Korean agreement conducted by the staff of the ITC at the request of the Senate Finance Committee concludes that the agreement could create up to 280,000 American jobs, including more than 650 jobs in my home State of Maine. Just this week there were announcements of 130 jobs lost at a paper mill in Maine and 65 jobs eliminated at a call center. So these new jobs, potentially 650 new jobs, would be welcome indeed.

South Korea is the fifth largest international market for Maine's products. Last year, the value of Maine exports to South Korea reached nearly $100 million, including $31 million in chemical products, $29 million in wood pulp, $15 million in civilian aircraft and engine parts, $7 million in electrical machinery, and $5 million in coated paper and paperboard.

Upon implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, more than 95 percent of Maine's exports to South Korea would be duty free. Let me repeat that. More than 95 percent of our exports from Maine to South Korea would be duty free. That means the elimination of these barriers to Maine's exports would expand markets for Maine's manufacturers and agricultural producers, and that translates into saving jobs and creating jobs.

Korea is the fourth largest and fastest growing market for American frozen potatoes, a major industry in my State. In 2009, the U.S. share of the Korean market was 81 percent, compared to 2 percent market share for the European Union. But with the implementation of the European Union-Korea Trade Agreement this past July, the European Union frozen potatoes now enter the Korean market duty free. That obviously gives European Union growers a significant competitive advantage over American exporters, who face an 18-percent tariff for shipping their products into Korea. The U.S.-Korea agreement would eliminate this tariff immediately, leveling the playing field for our producers.

According to the Maine Potato Board, which has endorsed this agreement, passage of this free-trade agreement is expected to translate into a $35 million annual increase in U.S. frozen potatoes exports to Korea. More important, in the long term it will allow American potatoes to be the product of choice in the Korean market because, as the Presiding Officer well knows, Maine potatoes taste better than those grown by the European Union countries.

In all seriousness, we do need to eliminate these discrepancies in tariffs that give our competitors an advantage over our American producers. Exports are essential to a strong industrial manufacturing base throughout our country and in the State of Maine.

I want to read an excerpt from a letter I recently received from the plant manager of the General Electric Energy Plant in Bangor, ME. The plant manager had this to say about the potential impact if this free-trade agreement were approved:

He wrote as follows:

GE's continuing ability to pursue expanding international opportunities for our aviation, energy and financial services exports is critical to our more than 700 workers in the State of Maine. In fact, 100 percent of the new steam turbine units coming out of our Bangor facility this year and next will be exported.

That just shows how critical that export market is to maintaining those 700 jobs in Maine.

The Bangor plant has, in addition, recently started producing components for gas turbines. To this end, we have invested roughly $30 million in Bangor, to expand capacity. These gas turbines [under current law] face tariffs of 8 percent in Korea. .....

If the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement is passed, the GE plant manager in Bangor told me the tariff on the gas turbines produced at the Bangor plant would drop from 8 percent to 0, and that obviously would make those GE products and GE's employees in Maine all that much more competitive.

For Maine's wood pulp producers, Korea is already the second largest international market they have. Exports to Korea account for nearly 17 percent of the total production coming out of the pulp mill in Woodland, ME. In an e-mail to my office, Burt Martin, a director of the pulp mill in Washington County, had this to say about the importance of the Korean market to his business operation in Maine. He wrote:

Free trade with Asian countries means that we have an operating pulp facility in Woodland, ME. ..... Koreans are good paying customers--high revenue--and they are an important part of our markets.

Maine's blueberry growers also will benefit from the phaseout of tariffs on wild blueberry products. While I would have preferred to see the tariffs on blueberries eliminated immediately, the way they are on many other products I mentioned, the tariff reductions that would come about as a result of this agreement will help our blueberry growers compete in an increasingly important market.

An agreement will also unlock new market opportunities for Maine's iconic lobster industry. Live lobster exports to Korea currently face a 20-percent tariff. Under the agreement, this tariff would be phased out over 5 years, making it far easier for Maine to compete in the marketplace in Korea.

Fairchild Semiconductor in Portland, ME, is another strong supporter of this agreement. The manager of Fairchild cites the benefits of ``tariff elimination, regulatory improvement, stronger intellectual property protection and simplified trade clearance procedures, measures that help streamline customs procedures and help U.S. companies cut down on the costs of doing business'' as advantages that would be brought about by this agreement.

The bottom line is, exports to Korea support Maine jobs. Passage of this agreement is critical to ensuring not only that we can expand export opportunities, but also that we do not lose market share in one of the world's largest economies because our foreign competitors are more aggressive in their pursuit of trade liberalization agreements.

On balance, I believe the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement is good for America and good for the State of Maine, and I will vote for it. I am convinced the elimination of tariffs will create jobs and help us save jobs at this critical time in our economy.

I also plan to vote for the agreement with Panama, a country with which the United States had a $5.7 billion trade surplus last year. But I cannot support the free-trade agreement with Colombia. This was a difficult decision for me to reach, and I have given it considerable study and thought. But, unfortunately, the violence against labor unions continues at an unacceptably high rate in that country.

I do appreciate and recognize that the Colombian Government has taken steps to improve in this area, but I think it is simply too soon to declare the Labor Action Plan a success. I think more time is needed to assess progress in this area, and I wish the President had brought forth the two agreements I can support--those with South Korea and Panama--and held back on the Colombian agreement until we have a better sense of the direction of the country and where we are going in making progress with the Labor Action Plan.

The benefits of free trade are not spread evenly over all sectors. With any trade agreement there is a potential that some U.S. workers and industries may be harmed. That is why I have looked at each agreement individually over the years. I have supported some, and I have opposed others. Frankly, the criteria I apply is whether the agreements benefit the people of my State and the workers of this country. It is also why I have been such a strong supporter of a robust trade adjustment assistance program, and I have also strongly supported tough enforcement of trade laws to protect U.S. workers against unfair trade practices. I have testified before the ITC in cases involving the paper industry where there has been illegal dumping. I have also been a cosponsor of the bill we just passed yesterday to crack down on currency manipulation by the Chinese Government.

But if the United States does not adopt policies to expand trade opportunities in a fair way, we will lose out on market opportunities, and that means we will lose out on the creation of jobs. The jobs that would be created or sustained at home will, instead, be created and sustained in other countries that are aggressively pursuing trade agreements.

With nearly 95 percent of the world's customers living outside of our borders, we simply must seize opportunities to expand our exports, to look for new markets for our products. Our competitors in Europe, Canada, and other nations are actively working to tear down barriers to trade and promote their exports. We must do the same for our industries and for our workers.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source