THE TRADE EXPANSION ACT OF 1962 FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 1962 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D.C. The committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in the main committee room, New House Office Building. Hon. Wilbur D. Mills (chairman of the committee) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. Mr. KEOGH. In lieu of a personal appearance I have been requested by officials of the American Fur Merchants' Association in New York to submit for insertion at the appropriate place in the record a short statement of that association on the pending bill. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the material will be inserted in the record at an appropriate place. (The statement referred to will be found on p. 4145.) The CHAIRMAN. Our first witness this morning is the Secretary of Agriculture, the Honorable Orville L. Freeman. STATEMENT OF HON. ORVILLE L. FREEMAN, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE; ACCOMPANIED BY A. R. DeFELICE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, FOREIGN AGRICULTURE SERVICE, AND RAYMOND A. IOANES, ADMINISTRATOR, FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, we appreciate so much your taking the time from your very busy schedule to discuss the legislation before the committee with the committee this morning. You are recognized, sir. Secretary FREEMAN. Thank you, sir, very much. It is certainly a privilege to appear here, and I am very grateful to you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for this opportunity. I would like to approach this discussion of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 within the framework of the tremendous investment our Nation has made during the past two decades-in dollars and in blood-to insure the perpetuation, the independence, the growth of the free world. Over these two decades we have won a war, we have fed and clothed our foreign friends, we have supplied equipment, we have loaned money, we have granted funds-all at great cost and all in the interest of guaranteeing for us and our children a form of human relationship that we know is good and that we actively defend and maintain. The bill we are considering is not something alien or unrelated to the many constructive programs that our people willingly have undertaken. It represents an effort to build our future upon this base that we have established-to reap some of the earnings from our great investment. Today we continue to spend billions of dollars for defense. The major part of every tax dollar goes for such purpose, and our taxpayers, though realizing the necessity, also feel the burden of these expenditures. In this bill we have opportunity to strengthen the free world in ways that, instead of costing us money, actually will add to the net production and incomes of the people of our Nation, as well as of our friends abroad. We, in Agriculture, therefore, emphasize our support of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 because it will both enhance the security of the United States and promote the best economic interest of this Nation as a whole. The farmers of this country are citizens first and farmers second; and an opportunity to "strike a blow for freedom," as the President described this bill, is of as great importance to the farmers as it is to all other citizens. Therefore, we affirm our support of the Trade Expansion Act as a measure essential to the future security, prosperity and leadership of the United States of America. We also have a particular interest in this bill. Aside from our desire to help protect the Nation's investment in our way of life we have two other special concerns. We see in it an opportunity to help maintain and expand our agricultural markets abroad, an opportunity that I will discuss further later in this statement. We also see in the expanding economy that will be stimulated by this act new economic and employment opportunities for the millions of underemployed people in our rural areas who now make only limited contributions to our output of food and fiber. Our Nation's farm problems, and my responsibilities in seeking solutions, are not concerned merely with excess wheat in bins or other products in warehouses-but more importantly with people and their problems of making a living. This legislation is trade expansive in its concept. It will be business stimulative in its execution. It will assist us materially in finding solutions to some of the basic problems of American agriculture. We welcome this opportunity to express our strong support. There is no segment of our economy that will benefit more from this act than agriculture, because export markets are of vital importance to American farmers and this legislation would give us an effective kit of bargaining tools to expand these export markets. The importance of agriculture in foreign trade can be demonstratedS XP by a few statistics. One-fourth of our total exports are agricultural, $5 billion out of $20 billion. The $3.5 billion of these agricultural exports that are sold for dollars make an indispensable contribution to dealing with our difficult balance-of-payments problem. While the maintenance and expansion of these exports is of critical importance to the whole Nation, they are of greater direct importance to the American farmer. It would be easy enough, I think, to convince anyone that American farmers have a tremendous stake in foreign agricultural trade if we could heap all the farm products we exported last year on a giant scale. If we could do this, the scale would balance at 41 million long tons about four times the combined weight of every man, woman, and child in the United States. These products would fill 4,000 cargo ships, or more than a million freight cars. Production from 1 out of every 6 harvested acres goes into export (% channels. American farmers are exporting about 15 percent of their production, as compared to 8 percent of our Nation's nonagricultural production. Farm product exports in fiscal year 1961 amounted to $5 billion out of a total farm marketing of $34 billion. For producers of some commodities, the importance of exports is especially great. If you will refer to the two charts at the end of this printed testimony, they illustrate the point I would make, I think rather well. One is a bar graph, listing the percentage of various commodities that go into export channels, and the other will point out how our domestic consumption has risen relatively small amounts, while our agricultural exports have gone up very sharply in recent years. (The charts referred to follow :) for XP |