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While we work to conclude the NAFTA supplemental agreements 

 and the Uruguay Round, we will continue to use our trade laws 

 and the dispute settlement provisions of our trade agreements to 

 open foreign markets and break down barriers to specific United 

 States agricultural products. We have our share of current difficul- 

 ties with the EC, which I will discuss with Sir Leon Brittan when 

 we meet again later this month. We will continue to press the EC 

 to implement fully the commitments it made to us on oilseeds, com 

 gluten feed, and malt sprout pellets. I will also meet on April 2 

 with Sir Michael Wilson, the Trade Minister of Canada, to discuss 

 among other issues wheat, which I know some of the members of 

 this committee are concerned about. 



As this committee knows, we currently export over $40 billion in 

 farm products, as I noted before. That represents about 30 percent, 

 as I said, of the total value of U.S. farm production. We are not 

 a perfectly open market, of course, but because of history, practice, 

 and our concern for maximizing consumer choice, the U.S. market 

 will always be basically open. Consequently, we plan to use every 

 tool at our disposal — multilaterally where possible, bilaterally 

 where necessary — to make sure that other markets are comparably 

 open to ours. 



I want to make that clear because the President said it very 

 clearly at American University, "comparably open to ours." 



Mr. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to answer questions 

 from you and the members of your committee, and I appreciate the 

 opportunity to be here. 



[The prepared statement of Ambassador Kantor appears at the 

 conclusion of the hearing.] 



The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. Again, 

 we appreciate you being here. 



Let me say that in the context of the overall NAFTA, I appre- 

 ciate the comments you made about some of my proposals. I felt 

 that being a member of a family that lives where we live now, 

 when it was a part of Mexico, when it was a part of Texas, then 

 coming into the United States, I felt that I might have a bit more 

 personal sensitivity to the issues that we are dealing with. So I 

 very humbly made suggestions, some of which were accepted and 

 others of which were not. 



One area that I felt very strongly about was that we must have 

 a private sector dispute settlement mechanism for a variety of rea- 

 sons, particuraly since we have different commercial codes between 

 the United States and Mexico — a different legal system. 



We are still very concerned about sugar, as you will hear from 

 the members. There are also concerns with peanuts, with wheat, 

 corn, some of the horticultural produce, tropical fruits, and vegeta- 

 bles. There is still great concern on those issues and we hope that 

 you might be able to address those, to the extent possible, in par- 

 allel agreements. 



We also hope that you will very closely monitor Mexico's recent 

 dumping investigation or concerns with exports of live hogs and 

 fresh, chilled, and frozen pork and offals. 



This committee helped initiate the agreement on the trans- 

 parency and the 45-day notice. We don't want to revert to the old 

 system. The Mexican Government informed our Embassy on Tues- 



