TO EXPORT DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL & AG ATTACHES Release No 0239.97 Remarks OF SECRETARY DAN GLICKMAN TO EXPORT DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL & AG ATTACHES ALEXANDRIA, VA -- JULY 17, 1997 INTRODUCTION Thank you. It's good to be here. I'd like to thank the Export Development Council for having me, and for inviting USDA's attaches. We're glad to have them here. It's a useful exercise for them and for the USDA folks here, and I'm pleased that they get to spend some time with members of Congress and our cooperators. It's good to see the faces that are making American agriculture a household presence around the world. You know, I've been doing a lot of traveling lately ... London for the International Grains Council ... Johannesburg with Vice President Gore ... Mexico City with the President ... Rome for the World Food Summit. It often seems that I get more attention when I'm abroad. Although, I'm not sure it's always the right kind of attention. When I was in Rome, I gave a speech on the importance of biotechnology. Afterwards, during my press conference, protesters threw genetically modified soybeans at me, took off all their clothes, and had things written on their bodies like the naked truth' and no gene bean' ... at least that's what my staff who looked tell me. I can't say for sure. Just to give you a contrast, last weekend I attended the wedding of Vice President Gore's eldest daughter here at the National Cathedral. As I was walking out, there was all the paparazzi. I smiled for the cameras, and a reporter asks me, lot of politicians at this wedding, did you talk politics?' I said, No, it was a beautiful family wedding,' and started to walk away. Then, the reporter yells, wait, wait, wait.' I stop and turn around, and he says, Who are you?' I guess whether you're Secretary of Agriculture or a practitioner of agriculture, you're not in this for the glory, although there certainly are good reasons to be in agriculture these days. A lot of it's due to the hard work of the people here in this room. You know, I talk a lot about trade to folks around the country and the world, but standing up here in front of all of you, I feel a bit silly. It sort of reminds me of the Chicago Bulls rookie years ago ... I can't remember his name now, but that's sort of the story. His career never really took off. His one claim to fame was that he scored his first professional point the same night his teammate -- Michael Jordan -- scored a record 69. Asked later by a reporter what he thought about all this, the rookie smiled and said, I'll always remember this as the night Michael Jordan and I combined for 70 points.' That's sort of how I feel right now. Whether you're an attache or one of our cooperators, you go to work every day. You don't get a lot of headlines or public accolades. But you make trade work for the American farmer and the world. TRADE HISTORY You're leaders, and you're carrying on an important American legacy. Just last month, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. It started out as America's effort to feed our war-torn European allies and ended up a constructive effort which had as its heart the reestablishment of trade between farmers and the cities. This Marshall called the basis of modern civilization.' He's right. Where food flows freely, strong, peaceful relations usually flourish. 1997 also marks the 50th birthday of GATT ... another critical step away from isolationism and toward a more open, stable and prosperous world ... another sign of America's leadership. Soon after, we added freedom to that spot on the horizon we were navigating toward. We started PL480 -- Food for Peace -- from which our cooperator programs were born. This was an effort to warm relations, free trade and eventually the world. We've come a long way. Today, Russia has gone from being the evil empire' to a strong, democratic ally, a recipient of Food for Peace assistance, and a growing market for U.S. goods. From South Africa to South America we're seeing freer markets and freer people marching hand in hand. So much so that we've shifted our focus from emerging democracies, to emerging markets, understanding that the 2 go hand in hand. Now, we're reaching out beyond established markets. In the past 2 years, we've opened trade offices for Indonesia and the Caribbean. We've established a USDA presence in Vietnam. Later this summer, we'll open offices in Moscow and on the Mexican border. We're shifting more attention, resources and people to places like Latin America and Asia where income, population growth, and increasingly Western palates hold out huge opportunities for U.S. farmers and ranchers ... if we choose to take them. MAJOR CHALLENGES By that I mean more than the fact that we need fast-track authority to stay on a level playing field in our own backyard. We do, and President Clinton's going to push hard for a vote by September. I mean more than the fact that we need to lay solid groundwork for the 1999 Uruguay Round negotiations. There are countries -- like Japan and in the EU -- that want to put the brakes on freer agricultural trade. They say that trade in food is different. I agree. Trade in food is the most important commerce we do. For the benefit of our farmers, it should be fair, and for all our people, it should move more freely. When I talk about choosing today, I mean even more than encouraging China to become a responsible member of our community of nations. We just finished a very passionate debate about continuing Most Favored Nation trading status. But we know that the real battle is yet ahead: How and when will China join the World Trade Organization? 1 in 5 people on this earth live in China. The latest estimate says that if China plays by the same rules as everyone else in the WTO, it would mean a $2.2 billion increase in U.S. ag exports -- everything from apples to beef to the now-infamous chicken feet. On President Clinton's watch, China will not enter the WTO until it shows serious, sustained good faith in making free market reforms, including in its agriculture sector which is very heavily controlled by the government. We have seen progress. China, for example, has agreed to let foreign grain traders deal directly with private importers once they're in the WTO. That's a start. We need to encourage more progress, so we can see a timely accession. But even that is not what I refer to when I ask: Are we ready to choose? TRADE & THE HEARTLAND I'm talking about an even more important frontier in our trade battles. I'm talking about the battle for America's own heart. I see this all the time when I go out and talk to farmers. I talk about strong farm incomes. Everyone's happy. I tell a joke about a 3-legged chicken. Everyone laughs. I talk about the safety net, and conservation, and risk management. They nod their heads ... then I get to trade, and -- as often as not -- folks get quiet. They start shifting in their seats and looking down at the ground. They don't buy it. Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Seib calls this the bookend' theory of economics. He notes that in the United States, trade tends to be wildly popular along the coasts while middle America and the South are wary. Mr. Seib cited a poll that shows that while the coasts are excited about their place in the global economy of the next 30 years, if the heartland had it their way, they'd just assume take the economy of the last 3 decades. From one side, I look at that, recall the farm slump of the 80s, and scratch my head. But from the other side, it makes sense. Farmers do the riskiest business known to man. They're newly vulnerable to the volatility of the markets thanks to Freedom to Farm. They're cautious by nature. They're skeptical. They're not going to be persuaded by rhetoric. Their motto? Show me. We can do that. The facts are most certainly on our side. Fact: It's no coincidence that farm incomes and exports are both near record highs. Fact: Agriculture is a leading positive contributor to the U.S. trade balance -- more than cars, more than computers. Fact: Ag exports have increased 50% in the past 5 years. Fact: Farm exports support 1 million good-paying U.S. jobs. Fact: Agriculture is twice as dependent as your average U.S. industry on exports, and that number will only go up in the future. Fact: 95% of our potential customer base lives in a foreign land. Fact: Thanks to our aggressive free-trade agenda, there are more doors to more U.S. food and fiber products open around the world than at any other time in modern history. Simple fact: The world is going global. The world is the key to America's future farm prosperity I know that you could lay all this out just as easily as I can. I know that I'm preaching to the choir, but my point is: Maybe the choir needs to sing a little louder. Spreading the gospel of free trade around the world is important. But if we cannot sell it here at home, we will not get the progress we need to complete our work and secure the long-term strength of U.S. agriculture. We're in the business of farming. We of all people should not forget to tend the grass roots. CHALLENGES Part of the challenge is to make sure that when we talk about the disputes we're working through, we take care to make clear that free trade overall is a winner for agriculture. We're just working through the kinks. As much as we talk about the Phillipine pork dispute and the need for a TCK protocol with China on wheat, we need to talk about Washington apples now sold in China, and cherries going into Mexico. We can talk about our willingness to be aggressive in challenging unfair trade barriers, of going to the WTO to fight on the merits of sound science. But we should also point out that we are winning those disputes: The ruling on hormone-treated beef was a critical victory. We also need to get more folks exporting. There are 164,000 food processors in the United States. You know how many export? 3%. We should try and make that 30%. The more farmers we get exporting, the more farmers we have understanding the importance of exports, and the more farm stability we have. Absent new government controls on supply and demand, expanding trade opportunities are what's going to get our producers through the peaks and valleys of market volatility. I recently read a letter from a wood processor who'd seen his exports rise to six times their levels in the late 80s. He gave a lot of credit to market development funds for getting him started. Today, he said, exports are the engine that pulls the train.' Without them, he said, he would not be in business. We're on the right track. We must continue aggressively developing markets. You won a critical victory in court recently. I'm glad (and not just because I was the defendant). We're in this together ... pressing forward on freer trade ... staying on top of all the bilateral issues ... and insisting on sound science as the final arbiter of our disputes. I can't stress enough how critical that is. Sound science won't guarantee we win every fight, but it will help guarantee a fair fight, and that's all our folks need to succeed. BIOTECHNOLOGY Freer trade and sound science are critical to the world's economy, stability, environment and hunger. It's important that we see and talk about this big picture. Take biotechnology. It's shaping up to be the first battle royale of 21st century world agriculture. For me, the issue's fairly simple. The first question we must ask is: Are these products safe? Some of the best science in the world has determined yes. We must continue to insist on arms-length reviews. But given these assurances, what is our responsibility? Well, we have a world population that in the next century is expected to grow at the rate of a New York City every month, a Mexico every year, perhaps even a China every decade. How do we feed all these people? We could continue ripping up fragile land and forests, and pump more pesticides into the ground. Or we could embrace the future -- technology that allows us to dramatically increase yields ... using less water and less pesticides ... crops that can grow under harsh weather extremes. When I was down in Mexico with the President, I broke off one day to go visit CYMMET -- the international wheat and corn research center that launched the Green Revolution. There's a display there for Norin-10 -- the dwarfing gene for wheat -- over it, the message reads: A single gene ... has saved 100 million lives' ... think about that for a moment. In subsaharan Africa -- where hunger is most epidemic -- it is estimated that a doubling of the projected increase in grain yields over the next 10 years could cut the region's hungry by half -- making a 25% dent in total world food aid needs. How can we turn our backs on the science that could achieve that? The United States very firm view is: We can't. We will lead this fight. Our position is: As long as these products prove safe, we will not tolerate their segregation. We will not allow passion to trump reason on this one. The stakes for the world are simply too high. We will fight this in the WTO and elsewhere if we have to. But if we are to overcome people's skepticism, we have to not approach this as a cookie-cutter trade issue. We have to educate folks, demystify biotechnology, talk about the importance of sound science, and emphasize the promise these products hold out for the world. CONCLUSION The same can be said of trade. People are skeptical. We shouldn't simply tisk-tisk' them, but engage their minds. That's what Marshall did 50 years ago. He stood on the Harvard campus, and told his countrymen and women, whether we like it or not, we find ourselves, our nation, in a world position of vast responsibility. We can act for our own good by acting for the world's good.' Standing here talking to all of you, those words ring true still today. These are exciting, challenging times. American agriculture is taking its place in the world, and we are helping to build a better world -- a peaceful, prosperous community of nations. Our legacy can be a great one. Thank you all for the contributions you make every day to agriculture, our nation and the world. Thank you. # NOTE: USDA news releases and media advisories are available on the Internet. Access the USDA Home Page on the World Wide Web at http://www.usda.gov