(Whereupon the pledge was recited.)

CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Be seated. Okay. It is good to see everybody today. We've got a good crowd. I know there will be others arriving but we need to move along. We've got a tight schedule, so we're going to try to stick to that as best we can. It is a great pleasure of mine to introduce our host today, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, The Honorable Bob Crawford. Would you please give him a hand.

(Applause.)

MR. CRAWFORD: Thank you very much, Kevin. Let me first thank everybody for taking the time to come here. I see a lot of local people but I see a lot of people who travelled a pretty good distance to get here. We want to thank you very much for taking the time to be with us.

What I'd like to do first is keep my remarks short. Today's purpose is for our good friends from Washington, who have travelled down here, to have a chance to hear from growers and people involved in Florida agriculture and have them have a chance to express their concerns and their thoughts about trade and other issues. So I'll keep my remarks very short.

Let me just first introduce our guests who have come here and then I'll make a couple of short remarks and then introduce Ambassador Esserman first to make some remarks after I've had a chance to say a few words. So, first let me -- today we're very delighted that the United States Trade Office has selected Winter Haven and Florida to be the first stop on a number of stops around the country to hear from people in agriculture about the upcoming trade negotiations that really will be starting at the preliminary talks in Geneva in June and then November, I believe, in Seattle, Washington.

So trade is now going to be back on the front burner of American debate. Obviously, in this state we know that debate is very important. It's important that we have people engaged in those debates that understand our concerns, and I'm delighted to introduce to you today Ambassador Sue Esserman, who was recently confirmed as the Deputy Trade Representative of the United States. Sue received bipartisan support, unanimous support of confirmation, to the United States Senate in this position.

Prior to that she served as the general counsel at the Department of Commerce where I first got to know her good work when we were engaged in our tomato suit. Behind the scenes, Sue Esserman was there helping us get to where we needed to get to on the final resolution of the tomato dumping action. The resolution was very positive for our growers.

She moved from there, the general counsel, to the USTR and now, of course, is serving in the ambassador capacity as the Deputy U.S. Trade Representative. I'm also pleased to let you know that she's a Floridian, so she knows a little bit about this state. I'll tell you we couldn't be more pleased than to have Sue with us today. Let's give her a welcome.

(Applause.)