58 



I am going to try to be very brief in the questioning given the 

 lateness of the hour, and I really greatly appreciate the patience 

 of this panel. You have been very gracious with the Senate Agri- 

 culture Committee. I hope you understand the unusual cir- 

 cumstances we were under today. 



Mr. Kleckner, I would guess you are familiar with the situation 

 we face on the northern tier with respect to the influx of Canadian 

 Durum and Canadian Spring wheat, as well as the barley problem 

 we are facing that Senator Craig of Idaho talked about and others 

 of us have talked about as well. 



I assume that you would support steps that were taken to ad- 

 dress that question; for example, Section 22 on Canada, end-use 

 certificates, other things that have been discussed today. Or what 

 is your position with respect to those problems? 



Mr. Kleckner. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I am certainly aware 

 of it. I have heard about it from the North Dakota Farm Bureau 

 and certainly from the other State farm bureaus at some length. 



I don't think there is any question that the U.S. -Canada Trade 

 Agreement could be better and should be better. But I remember 

 that there were things left out of the U.S. -Canada Trade Agree- 

 ment on purpose regarding agriculture because they were such con- 

 tentious issues, and really the agreement to not agree back then 

 really said let's wait and let the Uruguay Round of the GATT fix 

 these things because it probably will or I believe it will, the 

 thought being back then that the Uruguay Round would be over. 



Seven years ago today, Mr. Chairman, I was in Punta del Este 

 when those talks were going on. Seven years ago. I have become 

 a grandfather five times since that time. I will be a great-grand- 

 father by the time it concludes if it continues at the present rate. 



So we do need to fix in some manner the U.S. -Canada Trade 

 Agreement regarding those issues. But also, it seems to me that it 

 is probably not right to assume that the problems with Canada im- 

 mediately translate over to problems with the U.S. -Mexico agree- 

 ment, because we learned from the U.S. -Canada agreement. I think 

 the U.S. -Mexico agreement is infinitely better than the U.S. -Can- 

 ada agreement. 



Senator Conrad. Can I just follow up and say to you — can you 

 see that some of us are trying to use our position with respect to 

 NAFTA' s leverage to try to get these problems with Canada fixed? 

 Because we see this is kind of our last best hope for getting some 

 of those fixed. We have had a bitter experience, I might say to you. 

 There were a whole series of things that are right in the Canadian 

 Free Trade Agreement and the implementing language that were 

 supposed to be addressed but never have been, and our suspicion 

 is never will be unless we use our leverage now. 



You may have a comment or observation on that. 



Mr. Kleckner. Real quickly, again, Mr. Chairman, I understand 

 your position, being from North Dakota, and you know, I have been 

 there and I have talked to the Durum growers, and certainly you 

 have a lot of sugar beets in your State, two contentious issues. 



I guess I feel that probably the best way to fix this, though, is 

 in the GATT, and that is coming down the pike. I think both 

 NAFTA and the GATT will be accomplished by the end of this year 

 or neither one will be accomplished. That is my feeling right now. 



