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WTO Listening Session
Newark, Delaware
July 23, 1999
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AMBASSADOR BAAS: Mr. Governor, colleagues,
ladies and gentlemen, I'm really delighted to be here in Delaware. It's my first time to
this part of the state. Like the Governor, I've spent some time at Cape Henlopen State
Park beach, which I like very much, but it's nice to see another part of the state as
well. I should tell you all up front that I'm from the state of Michigan. My mother, however, is from the state of Minnesota where she grew up on a family farm, dairy, corn, alfalfa, and my cousin is still running that farm today. So I have a farmer connection, if you will. One question I'd like to ask or like to answer that you may all have is what is the State Department doing here at this listening session? I'm sure you can all figure out fairly reasonably why USTR is here and why USDA is here. Why is the State Department here? Isn't the State Department worried about foreign policy? What are they doing here? Yes, the State Department is worried about foreign policy. And the reason we're here is because foreign trade is a very important part of our foreign policy. And foreign agricultural trade is an incredibly important part of our overall trade. What happens in trade affects our interests, affects our foreign policy in many other areas. So it's very important for us to be here. We have embassies in about 150 countries around the world. They are your embassies. They're there to represent you. And what do they do in regard to these negotiations that are coming up? On the one hand, they talk to foreign governments about our policies and about our goals for the trade negotiations. They talk to foreign governments about difficulties we might be having in getting our exports into the country. They try to resolve those problems. They try to convince foreign governments that our positions are the right positions. At the same time, our embassies listen to foreign governments. They find out what their interests are, what their concerns are, what they need out of the upcoming negotiations. Therefore, we hope our negotiators will be better able to approach a foreign government and say, look, we're really interested in export subsidies. We understand that you're interested in widgets. Maybe we can do a deal. However, in order to do our job, we need to know what the United States farmer thinks. And that's why I'm here today. I'm here to listen and that's what I'm going to do. Thank you very much. |
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