FAST-TRACK NEGOTIATING AUTHORITY FOR TRADE

"NCBA urges the administration to include strong language in fast-
track legislation that provides for consultation with agriculture and to
focus on gaining access to international beef markets: eliminating non-
tariff trade barriers, reducing existing tariffs and negotiating sanitary
and phytosanitary agreements based on science.

     "While the U.S. has been sitting on the sidelines due to lack of
negotiating authority, Canada has negotiated trade agreements with Chile
and China; the EU has been very aggressive in developing trade agreements
in Latin America; and other competitors, including Australia and New
Zealand, have gained special trading concessions.
    
     "The international market is the future growth market for U.S.
agricultural products, especially beef.  During 1996, beef exports
accounted for more than seven percent of total U.S. production and more
than 12 percent of  beef's wholesale value.  The value of beef and beef
variety meat exports totaled $3.05 billion with a trade surplus of nearly
$1.3 billion.  As tariffs and non-tariff barriers are eliminated in other
countries, the U.S. beef industry will benefit, because it has more access
to gain than it has to give.
    
     "Without congressional approval of fast-track negotiating authority,
reducing barriers in existing markets and gaining access to new markets
will not be possible.  Fast-track negotiating authority allows the
administration to negotiate a trade agreement without congressional
modification.  Congress can either vote to approve or disapprove the
agreement once it has been negotiated -- fast track in no way guarantees
that an agreement will be approved.  Fast track simply eliminates
congressional ability to amend trade agreements and to slow their approval.
Trading partners are not willing to negotiate with the U.S. unless they are
negotiating under fast track, because without it, the negotiating partners
have no way of knowing to what they are agreeing.  NCBA supports fast-track
negotiating authority."
    
     Initiated in 1898, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association is the
marketing organization and trade association for America's one million
cattle farmers and ranchers.  With offices in Denver, Chicago and
Washington D.C., NCBA is a consumer-focused, producer-directed organization
representing the largest segment of the nation's food and fiber industry.
    
                                  -- NCBA --