Since 1994 when the last such agreement expired, President Bill Clinton and then President George W. Bush sought this authority.  The Senate has overwhelmingly supported the bill each session, but the House has not.  The recent passage by the House means that the Trade Promotion Authority will become the law of the land once again. 

Some agricultural groups are for it, some are opposed.  Our position is well known, processed tomatoes are one of those crops that has been designated as import sensitive.  We recommend a gradual elimination of tariffs over a reasonable period of time.

California produces 40 percent of the world's processed tomatoes and we welcome the opportunity to compete on a level playing field and sell our high quality products to all corners of the globe.  Most importantly, we urge the President and his trade representatives to study previous agreements and their impacts before they craft any new ones.  The promises of the North American Free Trade Agreement have yet to be met.  In the first ten years of NAFTA, agricultural imports from Mexico and Canada have increased, in absolute dollar terms, MORE than the U.S. exports to those countries.  However, processing tomatoes have fared somewhat better.  While the percentage of imports were greater than exports, the dollar value of our increased exports was greater than the imports from Canada and Mexico.

The U.S. remains the premier world market and foreign producers are only too eager to do what they can to earn strong U.S. dollars.  We urge the President to study the shortcomings of past trade agreements and learn from them.  Free trade is a good catch phrase, but fair trade is what we support.

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