[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 158 (Thursday, October 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15087-S15088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE TRADE DEFICIT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, actually I was here before the Senator 
from Ohio rose, but I was waiting to speak on the issue of the 
President of Mexico visiting Washington, DC, and the news reports about 
that. I want to talk just a bit about it, because here is what is 
happening.
  President Zedillo, of Mexico, visits Washington, DC. There is a state 
dinner at the White House for the President. I am sure the President of 
Mexico is a wonderful person. He and President Clinton are talking 
about trade between our two countries; they are dining together and 
talking about our mutual interests.
  Then we have press stories. This is yesterday's press story. It says, 
Mexico, in fact, has made a $700 million payment toward the $12.5 
billion debt that it owes this country from the loans we gave Mexico. 
In fact, they made the $700 million payment early, and is that not a 
wonderful thing, that Mexico paid early?
  That is a nice thing. I am pleased about that. But I would like to 
ask a question of both President Clinton and the President of Mexico. 
And I will ask a question, because President Clinton and senior trade 
officials in the administration say that NAFTA, the trade agreement 
with Mexico, ``has created 340,000 jobs in the United States.'' This 
says, ``The senior U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said 
NAFTA, the trade agreement with Mexico, has created 340,000 jobs in the 
United States.''
  I can understand why this person did not want to be identified. I can 
understand why somebody who puts out this kind of nonsense does not 
want to be identified. But let me remind those who have dinner together 
and talk about the United States-Mexico relationship, that the year 
before we had a free trade agreement with Mexico we had nearly a $2 
billion trade surplus. In fact, the year before that it was a nearly $6 
billion trade surplus with Mexico. When we had NAFTA up for 
consideration here in the U.S. Senate, the surplus was nearly a $2 
billion.
  Guess what? This year that nearly $2 billion surplus with Mexico is 
going to go to a $15 billion--some estimates say $18 billion--trade 
deficit. We pass NAFTA with Mexico, we have a $2 billion trade surplus, 
and 2 years later we have a $15 to $18 billion trade deficit with 
Mexico. Then we are told this creates jobs. Are people drinking from 
the wrong jug someplace? You create jobs when you have an $18 billion 
deficit? Of course you do not create jobs. You lose jobs.
  Here is what we lost. The promise by these economists who flail their 
arms around was that we would have 220,000 new jobs if we just pass 
NAFTA--exactly the opposite has happened. We have lost about 220,000 
jobs as a result of that trade agreement. So, I say to President 
Clinton and President Zedillo and others, that when we talk about these 
trade relationships, let us get the facts straight.
  Why does it matter? It matters because this relates to jobs, 
opportunity, and growth in our country. It is not just Mexico. It is 
Japan. It is China. It is a whole series of problems we have in trade. 
We have a $65 billion trade deficit with Japan. It is an outrage. 
American jobs are moving overseas wholesale. American corporations, as 
all of us know, have decided we are going to allow our marketplace to 
be a sponge for Japanese goods and Chinese goods and, yes, Mexican 
goods.
  When these American companies produce to sell elsewhere, they decide 
to produce in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and China and Indonesia. Why? 
Because you can hire cheap labor in those places. So an American 
company shuts down an American plant, moves the jobs overseas, produces 
something for pennies an hour--often hiring kids to do it--and then 
ships the product back to Pittsburgh or Fargo or Denver, and says, 
``Isn't this wonderful? Our profits are up.''
  Yes, your profits are up--and our jobs are gone. Then we measure all 
this. The Nation's leaders measure all this with a thing called gross 
domestic product, GDP.
  It has been a big year for GDP, I tell all these economists. Do you 
know why its been a big year for GDP? Because we have had all these 
hurricanes. Do you know, when you have hurricanes, the GDP increases? I 
bet nobody knows that. Only those folks in the Federal Reserve Board, 
with thick glasses, who live in concrete bunkers and count all the 
beans know that. They know you 

[[Page S 15088]]
count economic growth by hurricanes. Hurricane Andrew--remember the one 
that leveled Florida--guess what? All the economists counted that as 
one-half of 1 percent of economic growth for our country in that year.
  Why? Because these economists do not count the damage. They just 
count the repair. Car accidents are progress; heart attacks, a big 
deal, at least for economists who count the gross domestic product.
  My point is this. Take a look at our economic strategy for trade, and 
how it relates to jobs leaving America. Take a look at our economic 
strategy, how we measure economic progress, how we measure growth with 
the GDP that does not care whether people are better off, a GDP that 
does not care whether America's standard of living has increased, and 
then you understand--you have to understand--that we need to change 
gears in this country.
  We need to change the way we think. We need to care about whether an 
economic strategy works for real people. We need fundamental change in 
the way we piece together an economic strategy that creates jobs, 
expanded economic opportunity and growth.
  Frankly, our trade strategy is wrong. It is bankrupting this country. 
Our economic strategy measures the wrong things, and we are not even 
discussing the right topics. How many people in this Chamber, at a time 
when this country has the largest trade deficit in the history of 
civilization--I repeat, the largest in history--how many people have 
come to the floor of the Senate in the last 6 months to talk about the 
trade deficit?
  The trade deficit is bigger than the fiscal policy budget deficit. 
There are not three people, four people who come to the floor to talk 
about it. Those who do are called xenophobic isolationist stooges 
because either you are a free-trader or one of the nuts who does not 
understand.
  If this country needs to turn its attention to what is fair trade and 
how we recapture economic opportunity, good jobs that pay decent 
incomes here at home, responsibility and accountability for 
corporations. Corporations are the artificial people in our society. 
What is the responsibility of corporations who access our marketplace 
but move jobs elsewhere? What is their responsibility in any sense of 
economic nationalism, to care about what happens to our country?
  I promised I would be brief, but I will come later and have printed 
in the Record the first 6 months' trade information in our country that 
shows the largest merchandise trade deficit in the history of this 
country. Yes, with Mexico, just as an example, it is in electrical 
equipment and machinery. It is in vehicles, automobiles. It is in 
optical, photographic, cinematography, measuring, and so on. It is in 
high-tech goods. It is exactly the opposite of what we were promised. 
It is the opposite of what we were told was going to happen with 
Mexico.
  They said Mexico is going to produce the low-skilled goods and ship 
that in. That is not what happened. That is not where the deficit is. 
The deficit is in precisely the kind of goods that are produced through 
well-paying jobs. They were in this country but have since left because 
we have created a strategy that says, ``It is all right, you just take 
your jobs and go elsewhere. It is just fine with us.''
  It is not fine with me. We need to care something about this 
country's marketplace and working people and its standard of living. 
Our present economic strategy does not do that. With all due respect to 
this President, whom I support, in my judgment --and he has done some 
work on trade--the fact is, our trade strategy is wrong. They are wrong 
about NAFTA and they are wrong about the consequences with Mexico.
  With all due respect to a lot of folks on the other side of the aisle 
who have never seen a free-trade agreement they did not love to death 
and want to pass quickly, and with all due respect to those folks who 
are going to try to drag out something called fast track and put it on 
the floor of the Senate and the House in the reconciliation bill--you 
are dead wrong.
  You do this country a disservice when you take something that is 
fundamentally undemocratic and use it as a vehicle to try to pole vault 
trade agreements through this kind of a Chamber. These are trade 
agreements that, in my judgment, erode this country's economic base.
  I will come back at another time and speak at some greater length 
about what is the remedy for all this. However, I hope one day, one way 
or another, enough of us will become a critical mass to say these 
things matter. We need to say that these things are hurting our 
country, and are issues we must deal with aggressively to put America 
back on track.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from North 
Dakota limiting his remarks. It is a subject, and an important subject 
that he cares a great deal about.

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