HONORABLE ENI F. H. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. Chairman:

I want to commend you for holding a hearing on an overview of U.S. policy towards the Western Hemisphere.  This hearing is of critical importance given the concerns we have about drug production in the region.  Given that more than 16 million Americans use drugs monthly, I am pleased that President Bush has announced a new National Drug Control Strategy which includes, in part, $731 million for the Andean Counter-drug Initiative in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

       I’ll tell you why I support this Andean Counter-drug Initiative, Mr. Chairman.  As you are aware, I represent the people of American Samoa.  American Samoa’s economy is more than 80% dependent, either directly or indirectly, on the U.S. tuna fishing and processing industries.  You might say we are a single industry economy.

       Last year, some of my Republican counterparts proposed to grant the Andean countries the same trade privileges as the U.S. Territory of American Samoa.  Put another way, members of both the House and the Senate proposed to grant preferential duty-free treatment to certain products imported from the Andean countries, including canned tuna.  As a side note, I might add that textiles were also included in the Andean Trade Preference Act, or ATPA.

       What bothered me about expanding the ATPA was that this was all done in the name of curbing drug production.  From the outset, I wish to say that I am all for curbing drug production but I take issue with placing American workers at a disadvantage simply because the districts that we represent have no past or present affiliation with drug production.

       Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Chairman, but to my knowledge, the good state of North Carolina is not known for growing cocoa.  Rather, North Carolina is known for producing textiles and, regretfully, I might add, Congress voted last year to disadvantage the good people of North Carolina by granting duty-free treatment for textiles exported from the Andean countries.  Fortunately, for American Samoa, we were able to save our canned tuna industry.  However, we were not able to prevent Congress from granting duty-free treatment for tuna packed in pouches.

       I raise this as an issue because the United States does more than $200 billion in trade with Latin America.  I won’t go into a country by country analysis but Ecuador, for example, exports nearly $6 billion to the United States, including duty-free textiles and now tuna packed in pouches.  And yet if the U.S. wanted to export tuna or other products to Ecuador or Mexico we would have to pay a duty, or tariff rate, of some 20% or more.

       In my book, this is not fair trade.  This is not fair for workers in North Carolina or American Samoa or anywhere else in the U.S.  Yet in the name of curbing drug production, Congress voted to support one-way preferential trade for the Andean countries.  

       Mr. Chairman, I do not believe one-way preferential trade agreements can or should be used to counter drug production particularly when we already allocate billions of taxpayers’ dollars to sustain programs like the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.  On the other hand, I do commend the President for taking aggressive steps to directly confront drug production and drug use by proposing $2.1 billion to disrupt the market through interdiction programs.  I am also pleased that he has specifically earmarked $731 million for the Andean Counter-drug Initiative.  

        Finally, like my colleagues, I also have deep concerns about the rise of terrorist activities in the Western Hemisphere and I look forward to hearing what our witnesses have to say about these recent developments.