We are now beginning to set a specific agenda for agriculture. Broadly speaking, we expect to address issues such as reducing tariffs and other barriers to our products that we ship overseas, promoting fair trade by eliminating foreign export subsidies and reducing trade distorted supports, insuring greater transparency and fairness in state trading, and insuring that American producers have the right to effective remedies against dumping subsidies and import surges.

We are here to listen to you as producers, experts, and people who are involved in the food and agriculture industry. We want to hear your priorities and understand your first-hand problems that you see in international trade, and your solutions to those problems as well. The role of the USTR is primarily one to provide the government leadership in putting forth negotiating positions and doing the actual negotiations in the WTO. We work hand in hand with the Department of Agriculture on agricultural trade issues, we are partners together. But we have a broader role as we look at all sectors of the American economy as well.

With that, I'd like to close and turn it over to Susan.