[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H10695]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE ENDLESS GROWTH OF OUR NATIONAL TRADE DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I am here today because I think it is 
absolutely imperative that a proper amount of attention be given to the 
disturbing facts about the seemingly endless growth of the U.S. 
international trade deficit, and the impact of that growth on the 
American economy and American jobs.
  In the first two quarters of 1995, the U.S. international trade 
deficit was over $64 billion, compared to $50 billion last year for the 
same period, and the second quarter's deficit of $33.8 billion was the 
largest since 1987.
  What these numbers signify is a growing assault on American jobs as 
foreign goods and services pour into the United States at a pace that 
far exceeds the exit of American exports. When one stops to consider 
these facts, Mr. Speaker, it becomes quite clear that the incessant 
push to enter into free trade agreements without first stopping to 
insure they include fair trade safeguards is, pure and simple, 
reckless.

  Perhaps there is no better example to illustrate this point than the 
recently broken-down negotiations between Congress and the 
Administration over the reauthorization of fast-track trading 
authority, and the relation of those negotiations to the runaway 
momentum in both the Congress and the executive branch to expand NAFTA.
  The debate over fast-track's reauthorization has centered on the 
Administration's position that U.S. trade negotiators should continue 
to be allowed to address labor and environmental concerns and the 
Republicans' drive to revoke that authority. In my opinion this 
difference represents a flawed point on which to base negotiations as 
it begs the very fundamental question of whether fast-track should be 
reauthorized at all.
  While the Administration's position is imminently better than the 
Republicans', it is not a good alternative. It is, rather, the lesser 
of two evils. For even under a fast-track program that safeguards the 
right of U.S. trade negotiators to address both labor and environmental 
concerns, Congress would still have to agree in advance of seeing a 
trade agreement.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is tragically wrong for Congress to agree to 
stifle itself and surrender its constitutionally granted authority when 
considering trade pacts that will have far reaching effects on American 
jobs. Those pacts should, on the contrary, be scrutinized from top to 
bottom in order to prevent the type of disaster that is currently going 
on as a result of the NAFTA pact.
  Indeed, those who would see fast-track reauthorized and subsequently 
support the use of that tool to expand NAFTA must be living under 
rocks. As the last 20 months have shown, the impact of NAFTA on the 
American economy has been anything but what its proponents promised. To 
push for expanding that ill-conceived trade pact represents nothing 
short of a callous disrespect for the notion of protecting American 
jobs.
  Consider, for instance, the claim made often by NAFTA's strongest 
supporters before the NAFTA agreement was approved by Congress that the 
trade pact would create 200,000 jobs by 1995. That claim was made by 
using the calculation that every billion dollars of net exports creates 
20,000 jobs. It is with no pleasure, and I assure you with no pleasure 
on my part, that I point out that in the first 6 months of 1995 the 
United States recorded an $8.3 billion trade deficit with Mexico, 
where-as last year during the same period the U.S. had recorded a 
surplus of $1.1 billion.
  In order to reach the goal of 200,000 new NAFTA jobs, the United 
States would have to run a yearly trade surplus with Mexico exceeding 
$8.6 billion. Thus what is clear is that the reality of the situation 
is drastically different from what NAFTA's champions promised the 
American people; with a projected $15 billion 1995 trade deficit with 
Mexico, and the situation with Canada not being much better, by the 
year's end, instead of creating 200,000 new employment opportunities, 
NAFTA probably will have eliminated some 800,000 American jobs.

  What is, moreover, as equally disturbing is the Labor Department's 
recent report that as of September 30 it had certified 42,221 citizens 
as eligible for NAFTA-related trade adjustment assistance.
  In light of these facts, the push to expand NAFTA is not just bad 
policy, it is shockingly bad policy. Congress need to get its 
priorities in order. Before we worry about expanding a trade agreement 
that has done nothing yet but consume American jobs, I would suggest 
that we first attempt to both offer better help to those Americans who 
have already lost their jobs and stop further hemorrhaging.
  For the immediate future this means ensuring that fast track will 
indeed, as reports now indicate, be kept out of the reconciliation 
bill, killing the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which proposes to grant 
one-way NAFTA privileges to 23 Latin American countries without any 
reciprocal benefits for the U.S., and opposing the inclusion of Chile 
in NAFTA. For the long term this means working to implement policies 
that have the effect of actually creating jobs in a fair and equitable 
manner.

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. Speaker, I feel very strongly about this. I think that NAFTA has 
hurt the United States, hurt our economy, and I do not want to see it 
expanded.

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