Industrial targeting should be subject to multilateral rules and remedies. Until that happens, the U.S. must rely on bilateral negotiations and national measures to offset the effect of these campaigns.

Anticompetitive practices

Dumping, and in some cases market exclusion, is caused not by government action but by the toleration of anticompetitive and exclusionary practices of private industry by government. In some cases, government exerts pressure on private parties to engage in such behaviors.

Chairman GIBBONS. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's hearings. We resume tomorrow in this room at 9:30. Thank you very much.

[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Friday, November 5, 1993.]

URUGUAY ROUND OF MULTILATERAL TRADE

NEGOTIATIONS

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1993

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRADE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in room B-318, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Sam M. Gibbons (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Chairman GIBBONS. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, this is a continuation of the hearings we began yesterday on the Uruguay round.

In looking over the witnesses, I think I know all of you or I have met with all of you at one time or another during my career here. Because of a change in schedule in the Congress, it looks like I will be the only one here today. As all of you know, my office is always open for you to come in and see me and talk to me about a problem you have.

I wish you would try to summarize your statements as best you can. Let's get down to the meat of the substance. I am familiar with a lot of the issues you intend to raise. We will try to get right down to business here.

In any case, all statements, prepared statements will be included in the record in full. I appreciate your coming. I appreciate your talking with me about these items of importance that I know are very important to you and they are important to me. So let's get right down to it.

Mr. Feeney, Mr. Fitch, and Mr. Howlett, just come forward, please. Pipe and Tube Imports, Ethanol, and Fair Lumber Imports. Glad to see you. Let's go right to you, Mr. Feeney.

STATEMENT OF JAMES E. FEENEY, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON PIPE AND TUBE IMPORTS, AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF WHEATLAND TUBE CO., WHEATLAND, PA.

Mr. FEENEY. Good morning, Chairman Gibbons and members of the Trade Subcommittee. My name is James Feeney. I am senior vice president of Wheatland Tube Company, located in Wheatland, Pa. My company is 116 years old and has manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, and we employ 1,100 workers.

I appear before the committee today on behalf of our company and as chairman of the Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports, an association comprised of domestic steel pipe tube manufacturers (151)

who share an interest in promoting fair trade policies that will enable U.S. industries to remain competitive.

I am here today to speak about the GATT Uruguay round and specifically to highlight our views about the Dunkel draft and the future of our trade laws.

Our company and indeed our industry would not be in existence today without the foundation of the U.S. unfair trade laws. In the early 1980s, pipe and tube imports had grown to 60 percent of the U.S. market. This decimated the industry, causing a dozen plants to close down and the loss of thousands of industrial jobs.

The surviving industry realized it had to challenge the unfairly traded imports, and therefore in 1984 began utilizing the trade laws. Wheatland alone has been involved in 25 cases, and our industry has been involved in over 50 cases which challenge dumping and subsidy practices of numerous foreign countries.

Fortunately, almost all of those cases were successful. In fact, in late 1992, the industry won cases against five countries who accounted for 70 percent of the U.S. imports of standard pipe.

Without the strength of the trade laws and our ability to have access to this recourse, our company would have continued to be injured by unfair trade.

I echo the sentiments of other U.S. manufacturers who are disturbed by the current text of the Dunkel draft. Our primary concern is that the Dunkel draft and subsidy codes are unacceptable and they restrict U.S. industry access to the trade laws and weaken those laws. We cannot and Congress and the Clinton administration should not accept the draft in its current form.

Our written testimony details our specific concerns as to standing, cumulation, sunset, averaging, regional subsidies, and dispute settlement. The Dunkel draft was not a negotiated text, but was instead imposed by the GATT secretariat. Today, 22 years after the draft was tabled, our U.S. negotiators are cautioning U.S. industry about their inability to change the draft.

To that message we have only one response: If the appropriate changes cannot be obtained, then forego the adoption of the dumping and subsidy codes and keep the current code in place. Simply put, we believe that the current code is more acceptable than the adoption of the Dunkel draft.

A good example of our industry's experience with the trade laws and enforcement of the law has been our recent work on challenging the circumvention of standard pipe duties were placed on imports in November 1992. Earlier this year we learned that minor product alterations allowed producers from Mexico, Korea and Brazil to avoid duties. We immediately utilized the circumvention provisions in U.S. trade law to challenge this practice and are working with the Commerce Department to ensure that the problem is resolved. Yet, even in the area of circumvention, the Dunkel text undermines the 1988 circumvention provisions passed by Congress.

Overall we support the negotiating objectives that Congress adopted for the Uruguay round. We also support the elimination of tariffs through the adoption of the zero tariff initiative in the market access negotiations.