Prior to the Bush Administration, the momentum for trade liberalization had clearly slowed. Thankfully, the Congress re-approved the Executive Authority for trade agreements and with the leadership of President Bush, the Administration has made International Trade a high priority for the health and well-being of the American economy.

We have acted to strengthen the President’s ability to eliminate trade barriers with other countries, and the first steps have been taken towards a new era of trade liberalization. At the end of 2002, the Bush Administration completed Free Trade Agreement negotiations with Chile and Singapore first begun by the Clinton Administration in 2000. These FTA’s with Chile and Singapore entered into force on January 1, 2004. In 2004, the agreements with Australia and Morocco were signed and approved by Congress, and the Australia agreement recently came into force this January. These agreements have made a strong statement about the United States’ commitment to international trade, and CAFTA continues the trend of reaching bilateral trade agreements in our own hemisphere, and further abroad.

CAFTA The countries entering into the CAFTA are among the developing countries that already enjoy duty free access to the U.S. market for the majority of their exports. While these developing countries have high tariff and non-tariff barriers to U.S. exports and impose restrictions on U.S. businesses, the agreement will liberalize trade in goods, services, government procurement, intellectual property, investment, and addresses important labor and environmental issues.

Trade between the United States and the CAFTA countries totaled over $33 billion alone last year. The United States exported almost $16 billion in goods to the five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic in 2004, more than all exports to Russia, India, and Saudi Arabia combined.

This agreement will create the second-largest U.S. export market in Latin America ($16 billion), behind only Mexico, and the 14th largest U.S. export market in the world. The market access and trade disciplines provided by the CAFTA offer an opportunity to expand U.S. exports to a region that is already seeing high export growth rates. In fact, from 2000 to 2004, export shipments to CAFTA destinations grew by almost 16 percent, compared with less than 5 percent for overall U.S. exports.

CAFTA also helps to move the current trading relationship from one-way preferences to a more reciprocal partnership. Currently about 80 percent of the region’s exports enter the United States duty-free, while U.S. goods exported to the CAFTA countries face significant tariffs. However with this agreement in place, CAFTA will boost opportunities for exporters throughout the country, providing new market access for these producers.

Specific to my home state’s interest, CAFTA immediately eliminates tariffs on 80% of U.S. exports and eliminates all tariffs within 10 years, including the up-to-15% tariffs on Colorado’s exports of machinery manufactured products and transportation equipment. The information technology producers will also gain from the elimination of distribution barriers, the elimination of information technology tariffs, as well as the opening up of key information technology services, including telecommunications, and will also protect intellectual property rights.

For Colorado’s farmers and ranchers, CAFTA will eliminate tariffs on 50% of U.S. exports immediately, and most remaining duties within 15 years, benefiting:

• Beef and pork products with the immediate elimination of tariffs over 15 years; • Dairy products with duty-free tariff rate quotas that will expand from over 10,000 tons in year one and out-of-quota tariffs eliminated over 20 years; • And finally corn, wheat and grain products with the immediate binding at zero of tariffs on wheat, barley, oats and rye, as well as for corn in Costa Rica and sorghum in the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. All remaining tariffs on feed grains will be eliminated over 15 years.

Clearly this agreement greatly benefits Colorado and the nation as a whole and I am pleased to stand behind the agreement reached by former United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, and our current USTR, Rob Portman.

NON ECONOMIC IMPACTS I have always said that even if we were to set aside all of the economic benefits for continuing liberalization of international trade, like CAFTA, there are still many other reasons–most notably humanitarian reasons. History has shown that it is the isolated, closed societies that are the most brutal and repressed. International contact brought about by increased trade, with businessmen, foreign goods, exchanges, corporate presence and marketing serves to increase access to a higher standard of living and a better quality of life.

International trade also requires important reforms of the domestic legal and business environment that are key to encouraging business development and investment. Such reforms include providing greater transparency for government to strengthen the rule of law, improving the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

In closing, we must always remember that America’s number one export is democracy. Overreaction to our trade deficit, increasing tariffs, or other false barriers to trade will damage not only our bottom line, but also our national security interests and we cannot allow that to happen.

Mr. President, I urge for my colleagues to support this agreement, and yield the floor.