56 



STATEMENT OF DEAN R. KLECKNER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN 

 FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Mr. Kleckner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am president of 

 American Farm Bureau and a corn, soybean, hog farmer from 

 northern Iowa, and I represent the Nation s largest farm and ranch 

 organization and am here in support of NAFTA. 



NAFTA will be good for American farmers and workers. It will 

 expand exports and bring about higher net farm income and a net 

 increase in U.S. jobs. Rejection of NAFTA could cause job losses 

 and actually reduce U.S. exports. 



I think the only great sucking sound heard across this country 

 if NAFTA fails will be the sound of exports going down the drain. 



With NAFTA, we have the means to improve the environment 

 and reduce illegal immigration. Without it, these problems will 

 only persist and worsen. 



Mexico is our third largest market, as we have heard today, 

 following Japan and Canada, and certain to become a better one 

 under NAFTA. Mexico's agriculture with limited resources is not 

 now keeping up with their domestic demand for food, and that is 

 why we have now a $1.5 billion agricultural trade surplus with 

 Mexico. 



With its rapidly growing population and a strong desire for im- 

 proved diets — and I have been down there, and I think, Mr. Chair- 

 man, you probably have, and they do want better diets — they are 

 going to continue to require substantial and growing levels of im- 

 ports. 



NAFTA will assure that these imports will come from the United 

 States by American farmers and ranchers. If we reject NAFTA, 

 however, other countries will no doubt take advantage of the grow- 

 ing Mexican market at our expense. 



I am a pork producer. Mexico doesn't need to buy pork from the 

 United States. It can get it from Canada or Denmark. It doesn't 

 need to buy wheat from the United States. It can get it from Can- 

 ada, France, Argentina, Australia. Mexico does not need to buy soy- 

 beans or nonfat dried milk, or dry edible beans or corn or sorghum 

 or rice or beef or poultry or apples or pears or timber, and a whole 

 host of other products from U.S. producers. It can get them else- 

 where because they are produced elsewhere in the world, and it 

 probably will if we reject NAFTA. 



Virtually all impartial studies — and I heard President Clinton 

 say a week ago today that 18 of 19 that he had seen — I think that 

 is what he said in the White House — have shown NAFTA to be a 

 net job creator for our Nation and good for our overall economy. 

 More than 280 noted U.S. economists, including all 12 living Nobel 

 Laureates — and that is from Tobin on the left and Friedman on the 

 right, and everybody in between — have told President Clinton that 

 they all agree that NAFTA will, in varying degrees, be a net posi- 

 tive for the United States in both job creation and economic 

 growth. All living former Presidents concur. As far as I know, all 

 living ex-Secretaries of Agriculture concur in this. 



NAFTA is not perfect. We heard it earlier. No trade agreement 

 can be. I thought Mickey Kantor said it perfectly. We would have 

 preferred, we in the Farm Bureau, longer transitions for some sen- 

 sitive commodities, and shorter ones for some of our key exports. 



