[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 140 (Thursday, October 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8813-H8817]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  FAST TRACK LEGISLATION AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICA'S TRADE AGREEMENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks on fast track 
legislation this evening, let me congratulate the Fighting Elephants in 
their victory over the Dunking Donkeys last night in the congressional 
basketball game. It is a biannual game that we have at Galaudet 
University, which is the national university for the deaf and hearing 
impaired. We raise money for that school, and we thank all those on the 
staff of the Congress and Members who came out. We had over 40 Members 
participate.
  We also thank the Speaker for his participation and for the singing 
of the National Anthem with the Capital Four. It was a wonderful part 
of the evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk today about fast track. Last spring a 
little girl from Michigan, named Lindsay Doneth, was rushed to a 
hospital with a fever of 103. Her lips were bleeding, she was nauseous 
and she had sharp pains. As Lindsay screamed in agony, her mom and dad 
sat by her hospital bed unsure whether their 10-year-old would live or 
die.
  Doctors said Lindsay had contracted hepatitis, a potentially deadly 
blood disorder. And she was not alone. Area hospitals were being 
flooded with her classmates from Madison Elementary School. 
Fortunately, Lindsay and the other students survived the outbreak. 
Today she and her classmates are back in class. As it turns out, all 
179 of them had eaten contaminated Mexican strawberries in the school 
cafeteria.
  Now, I tell this story today because it relates directly to the most 
important issue Congress is now debating: Fast track and the future of 
America's trade agreements.
  Now, some might ask, well, what is the connection here? What do 
Mexican strawberries and sick children in Michigan have to do with our 
Nation's trade policies? Absolutely everything. Every day some 10,000 
Mexican trucks line up in the sweltering heat waiting to cross into the 
United States, honking their horns as the traffic barely crawls 
forward. I have seen it down on the border.
  Overburdened customs inspectors have to wave most of them through 
because they only have time to check about 1 percent. They call this 
the wave line down there. They just send the trucks on through. So how 
many go without inspection? More than 3 million trucks a year. Three 
million.
  Unfortunately, under the NAFTA agreement that was signed into law 
almost 4 years ago, it prevents us from increasing inspections at the 
border. Under section 717 of that agreement, searching more diligently 
for pesticides, toxins, parasites and infectious disease could be 
considered a constraint, or I should say a restraint of trade.
  And it is not just tainted food that is slipping into the country. 
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, 70 percent of the cocaine 
entering the United States now rolls across the Mexican border. One 
former DEA official called NAFTA, and I quote him, a deal made in narco 
heaven.
  Now, I know that some of my colleagues are thinking to themselves and 
saying, ``There goes David Bonior again, attacking NAFTA.'' And it is 
true I have attacked NAFTA over the years, and for good reason, but my 
remarks this evening are primarily about the future and about how we 
can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
  I bring the case of Lindsay Doneth and the contaminated strawberries 
only because it raises a critical issue in this debate on fast track. 
Will the trade deals we negotiate promote rising living standards at 
home and abroad or will they lead to a downward spiral of dangerous 
food, of dirtier environment, and of lower wages and benefits?
  Let me emphasize here that I believe cultivating healthy trade 
relationships is critical to America's future. But our prosperity will 
depend not just on the quantity but the quality of that trade. That is 
why we must negotiate strong and sensible trade agreements.
  As an analogy I sometimes compare foreign trade with a wild horse. 
With a bit between its teeth, the reins in our grasp, and a firm sense 
of purpose, we can harness the power and ride it where we want it to 
go. But if we fail to assert ourselves, we run the risk of being thrown 
and trampled and left behind.
  And so I pose the following question: Will our trade deals carry us 
into the future or drag us into the past?
  At stake in this debate is nothing less than the safety of the food 
we eat, the water we drink and the air that we breathe. At stake in 
this debate is the safety of our factories, the stability of our farms 
and the economic security of working families everywhere. And at stake 
in this debate are the very values that give our economy strength and 
our democracy meaning.
  There are those who denigrate such talk. They dismiss it as mere 
idealism. Almost derisively they ask, are these issues really related 
to trade? And without a doubt, the answer is yes. The world has 
changed, and the people who would segregate health and safety and the 
environmental issues during trade negotiations fail to grasp the new 
reality of this global economy.
  Those pushing fast track see trade only in two dimensions, like the 
flat dusty pages of an accountant's ledger. Like those who scoffed at 
Columbus for claiming the Earth was round, they cling to the old 
notions that no longer apply to a modern world. With a lot of talk 
about the 21st century, they are pulling us back to 19th century 
conditions: Lower wages, weaker consumer protections, and a dirtier 
environment. I call that the past masquerading as the future.
  Four years ago, when we debated NAFTA, its supporters made some 
pretty big promises. And today, as we consider fast track negotiations 
to expand NAFTA to other countries, it is incumbent upon us to review 
the impact that that agreement has already had. So let us look at it 
for a second.

  In 1993 NAFTA supporters promised that the agreement would generate 
hundreds of thousands of new jobs. They were wrong. According to the 
Clinton administration's own assessment, NAFTA-related exports have 
generated somewhere between 90,000 and 160,000 new jobs. And they 
quietly say that the agreement has had a modest positive effect on the 
U.S. economy.
  But those figures do not account for nearly 150,000 Americans who 
lost their jobs as a direct result of the agreement. That figure comes 
from the Labor Department, and it only includes those workers who 
received health under NAFTA's narrow trade adjustment assistance 
program. Other estimates of NAFTA job-related job losses run much, much 
higher. The Economic Policy Institute issued a report last month that 
indicated NAFTA has cost nearly 395,000 American jobs.
  Whatever the exact figure may be, the Labor Department found, this is 
our own Government, they found that two-thirds of Americans who lost 
their jobs due to foreign trade end up with work that pays less than 
they earned before. Two-thirds of the people. Now, I do not call that 
progress. I call that slipping backwards.
  In 1993, NAFTA supporters promised that the agreements would generate 
higher wages on both sides of the United States-Mexican border, and 
they were wrong. Mexican wages along the border dropped from $1.00 an 
hour, as abysmal as that is, to 70 cents an hour, according to the 
International Monetary Fund. And tragically that is despite the fact of 
a 26-percent increase in Mexican productivity over the past 3 years.
  So the Mexican workers are working harder, they are producing more, 
they are more efficient, things are increasing by 26 percent, and they 
are getting paid 70 as opposed to a dollar when NAFTA was first 
established.
  All this is putting downward pressure on wages here in the United 
States, affecting our own workers. Last year a Cornell University study 
found that 62 percent of U.S. companies have used the threat of 
shutting their doors or moving abroad to hold down wages and cut back 
benefits and undermine collective bargaining here at home.
  Now, imagine that. Sixty-two percent of our companies go to the 
bargaining table with their workers and say, listen, if you do not take 
a cut in

[[Page H8814]]

wages, if you do not take a cut in benefits, we will shut the doors, or 
we are moving south to Mexico.
  One Michigan factory even loaded an entire assembly line on a flatbed 
truck, put it in front of the company with a sign that read, ``Mexico 
transfer jobs.'' The workers got the message very soon, and soon they 
dropped their push for union representation and a better contract. So 
it is intimidation, not good faith bargaining, and that apparently has 
become the coin of the realm.
  In 1993, the NAFTA supporters promised the agreement would help boost 
American exports. United States exports to Mexico have risen. But what 
NAFTA supporters will not tell us is that most of these are what we 
call revolving door exports. They come in, they come right back out. 
United States components sent to the maquiladora factories along the 
United States-Mexican border for a quick assembly by low wage workers, 
with no protections and no environmental protections, and immediately 
shipped back to the United States. They are not even there long enough 
to have a visa, if they were required to have one. They are just 
shipped, assembled and right back here.
  Dr. Harley Shaiken, an economist at the University of California at 
Berkeley, found that such exports represented more than 60 percent of 
the products we shipped to Mexico last year. That is up by half from 
1993. And our trade balance? Worse than ever. In 1993 we enjoyed a $2 
billion trades surplus with Mexico. That is right before NAFTA. Four 
years later, after it passed, that surplus has become a $16 billion 
deficit. I do not call that progress. I call that slipping backward.
  NAFTA, which was negotiated on a fast track, has been a self-
destructive trade policy. It is one that enriches the economic elites 
and leaves working families poorer on both sides of the border.
  Now, is this really, is this really the model that we want to 
replicate elsewhere in Latin America and throughout the world? Is fast 
track a process that we should repeat?
  Let us take a closer look at the food safety issue.
  Last week, and I encourage anybody who has not seen it, front page of 
the New York Times, they reported a dramatic rise in disease linked to 
imported foods, especially fruits and vegetables. Evidence suggest 
Lindsay Doneth and her Michigan classmates are but a few of the victims 
of poisoned produce.
  In 1996, thousands of Americans fell seriously ill after eating 
tainted Guatemalan raspberries. The fruit was apparently contaminated 
with a parasite living in the water used to irrigate the fields. But 
when an American inspector informed the Guatemalan growers of the 
problem, the growers got angry. They banished our inspectors and 
accused the United States of trumping up the health issue as a way to 
protect California berry growers.
  Gabriel Biguria, a leading Guatemalan exporter, called the United 
States complaint, and I quote, ``a very dangerous tool for 
protectionism.'' So when we stand on the side of making sure our kids 
do not get poisoned because they are eating contaminated vegetables or 
fruits, we are a protectionist. He said that protectionist forces find 
bugs or whatever to protect their market. It is a commercial war.
  Now, I wish I could say that Guatemalan raspberries were the only 
threat to our health, but they are not.

                              {time}  1900

  Contaminated Peruvian carrots, Mexican cantaloupes, Chinese 
mushrooms, and the list goes on and on and on. The New York Times also 
reported that while food imports into the U.S. have doubled since the 
1980's, inspections have dropped to less than half of what they were 5 
years ago. No, I do not call that progress, I call it slipping 
backward.
  As the former FDA commissioner, someone who has immense respect in 
his field in this country, and around the world, I might add, David 
Kessler said, ``We built a system back 100 years ago that served us 
very well for a world within our borders. We didn't build a system for 
the global marketplace.''
  Because crops are, by necessity, exposed to air and water, the safety 
of the our food is closely linked to the conditions of our environment. 
I say ``our environment'' because polluted air and water respect no 
international boundaries; they do not follow the dotted lines on our 
maps.
  When we debated NAFTA the last time around, its supporters promised 
environmental cleanup on a massive scale. In order to get the votes, 
they promised a $2 billion set-aside to clean up toxic sites along the 
border. Today, not even 1 percent of that fund has been spent and 
factories there continue to pollute at will.
  I have seen the pollution along the border firsthand. I visited a 
field littered with used batteries. It looked like a moonscape covered 
in white powder, and lead was leaking into the ground right across from 
the region's largest dairy farm that served literally millions and 
millions of people. The cows were grazing not 20 feet from the poisons 
that cause low IQ's and aggressive behavior in children who drink their 
milk. I have seen Mexican mothers drinking from the same ditches used 
to flush out factory waste and domestic sewage. I have seen their 
children playing and bathing in it. It is no wonder birth defects are 
common in these slums.
  The American Medical Association called the border area that I am 
describing to my colleagues right now ``a cesspool of infectious 
disease,'' and for good reason; a full 17 percent of Mexican children 
get hepatitis from contaminated drinking water.
  To paraphrase Edward R. Merrill, this is an industrial harvest of 
shame along the border, an industrial harvest of shame, people living 
in subhuman conditions, all under our sanction.
  In essence, NAFTA gives multinational corporations a financial 
incentive to relocate environmental regulations where they are the 
weakest, to locate where environmental regulations are the weakest. So 
why adhere to higher standards north of the border when they can move 
south and pollute with impunity?
  When multinationals do this, they are just following the market 
incentives NAFTA negotiators set up, and then they are passing the 
hidden cost down to us. This sets off a race to the lowest common 
denominator. While multinational corporations might be able to avoid 
pollution standards, you and I will not be able to avoid the pollution 
that they produce.
  That is because, as I mentioned earlier, polluted air and water and 
food do not stop at the dotted line on the map. We breathe it. We drink 
it. We eat it. A factory spilling filth in Juarez, Mexico, might as 
well be located in El Paso, Texas, whose residents breathe the same air 
and they pump the water from the same river as their Mexican neighbors.
  So while the economy may not yet be completely integrated, the global 
environment surely is. And that makes pollution a bona fide trade 
issue, one with real economic and human cost. Recognizing that requires 
us to think about trade in a new way and to develop our trade policy 
accordingly. Addressing these issues in the so-called side agreements, 
executive orders, and other measures will not work. That was done 
during NAFTA, and it has not worked.
  Last week the President addressed the issue of food safety by seeking 
to expand the power of the Food and Drug Administration and increase 
the number of inspectors. He proposed empowering the FDA to ban produce 
imports from countries which failed to comply with health standards.
  Well, I respect his intent, but I respectfully suggest that such 
unilateral, reactive action divorced from our trade agreements would 
not be nearly as effective as a proactive negotiation with our trading 
partners.
  By establishing a minimum standard in our trade agreements, we could 
work together to prevent potential problems from developing in the 
first place and avoid rancorous disputes down the line. We must adopt 
this proactive posture if we hope to preserve the standards of our 
parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents, the standards 
that they struggled to establish for us.
  Just to review history briefly, and I think it is important to do 
that, we do not talk about history enough and what our folks did before 
us. Just remember that, at the turn of the century, industrial 
accidents were killing 35,000 American workers each year. An additional 
500,000, a half million, were being maimed. It took a fire that

[[Page H8815]]

claimed the lives of 146 immigrant women locked inside the Triangle 
Shirt Waste Company to ignite a movement for workplace safety. And we 
got workplace safety standards.
  Today, most Americans take their right to a safe workplace for 
granted. In the fall of 1913, some 9,000 Colorado miners and their 
families went on strike for an 8-hour day. To break the strike, the 
mining companies mounted a machine gun on an armored vehicle and dubbed 
it ``Death Special'' and sent it rumbling out to intimidate the 
workers. Fighting broke out. The strikers' tent colony was burned to 
the ground. Twenty-one people were killed, including 11 children. 
Today, most Americans take an 8-hour day for granted.
  At the turn of the century, unscrupulous meat packers were selling 
carloads of rotten beef to a powerless public. It took Upton Sinclair's 
1906 novel ``The Jungle'' to expose this deadly fraud and spark a 
movement for food safety.
  And I could go on and on and on and talk about the movements, the 
sit-down strike in Detroit, Michigan, that helped create the unions 
that brought the largest and most bondable middle class in the history 
of the world in this country.
  I can talk about what happened at Homestead in Pennsylvania with the 
steelworkers. I could spend 5 hours going over example after example of 
people who came before us who established with their heart and their 
guts the standards that we enjoy today, people who bled for, were 
jailed for, were beaten for, and some died for the rights that we so 
much enjoy.
  Until recently, Americans thought they could shop at a supermarket 
without worrying about the safety of their food. They are not so sure 
anymore.
  I cite these historical examples because I think it is vital to 
remember where we come from and the sacrifices previous generations 
made so that ordinary people might enjoy a decent standard of living.
  As we approach a new century, these historic gains are being 
undermined. They are being undermined by powerful multinationals which 
have no allegiance to this country or any other, only to the bottom 
line of their quarterly earnings reports. But just as Teddy Roosevelt 
and the Progressive Movement rose up against the great industries that 
stomped like giants across America's economic landscape, we will not 
permit today's multinationals to trample our rights.

  As citizens of the United States, we have a vested interest in 
developing a trade policy that provides market incentives, responsible 
incentives, responsible behavior on the part of everybody engaged in 
international commerce.
  Fast-track supporters will argue that the United States cannot expect 
less developed countries to adhere to our standards. Well, they did not 
make that argument when they insisted on protections in NAFTA for 
intellectual property produced by major corporations like Disney and 
Microsoft. We should protect intellectual property. But we should also 
insist that Lindsey Doneth gets as much protection as Donald Duck. And 
right now, that is not the case.
  Recognizing this requires us to think about trade in a new way and to 
develop our trade policies accordingly. I am not arguing that other 
countries must establish the exact same minimum wage as we have, not at 
all. But we know, we know from our history, that the living standards 
we enjoy, the consumer protections we rely on, the freedoms that we 
cherish, the rights that we claim, they just did not happen, and if we 
are not careful, they could disappear.
  From the American Revolution, to the Civil War, to the battlefields 
of Europe, to the strawberry fields of Watson, CA, to the factories of 
Flint, MI, Americans have had to fight for opportunity and justice 
every step of the way. Nothing has been automatic. This should tell us 
something, that similar progress outside the United States will not be 
automatic either.
  Unchecked market forces alone did not generate safer food, better 
wages, or a cleaner environment here in the United States, and 
unchecked market forces alone will not generate them abroad either. 
There are brave people struggling today for basic rights throughout 
Latin America, just as our ancestors fought earlier this century for 
the rights we enjoy in the United States. Our trade policy should help 
working people get ahead in life, not keep them mired in poverty as 
NAFTA does.
  It has always taken some constructive countervailing pressure to 
ensure that free market benefits the broad majority, not just the 
economic elites. That is what the Progressive Movement at the turn of 
the century was all about.
  Today, as the United States embraces a growing international market, 
our trade policy must help to provide that countervailing pressure, 
harnessing economic growth for the benefit of many, not just the few. 
And that is why we need to negotiate tough trade agreements, trade 
deals that include strong environmental labor and consumer protections, 
trade deals that promote prosperity and reflect our commitment to 
democratic values and a decent standard of living. It is not an either/
or choice; we can do both. That choice lies in how we structure our 
trading relationships. America should be negotiating tough trade deals 
that harness the power of trade and reflect our commitment to 
democratic values.
  Global trade is here to stay. The question is, what are the rules 
going to be and who is going to benefit? If we do not stand firm 
against the international tug of lower standards and lower wages and 
lower benefits and a dirtier environment, then nobody will. If we do 
not stand firm, all of us will pay the price and so will generations to 
come.
  America must stand up for what is right, just as we have so many 
times in the past. We must point the way to the future. We must 
exercise what they call ``leadership.'' Those who support Fast Track 
often like to bandy that term about. ``America must be a leader,'' they 
say.
  Well, I agree. But what they are proposing is that America lead a 
retreat to the past. What they are proposing is a policy that has 
already failed. What they are proposing leads us in the wrong 
direction. America needs a trade policy that helps build a better 
future. Hammering this out with our trading partners will not be easy. 
But that is what leadership is all about, convincing people of a better 
direction, not just following the comfortable ruts of the past. 
Leadership is about standing up for what is right, not about caving in 
to what is easy.
  It would be easy to negotiate trade agreements that surrender hard-
fought gains of this century, but that would be wrong. It would be easy 
to set aside the toughest trade issues for the sake of a quick 
agreement, but that would be sowing the seeds of our own decline.
  Fast Track supporters claim that this process is necessary to land 
important new trade deals. But the administration has already 
negotiated more than 200 such deals without Fast Track.
  Fast Track supporters claim that that process is essential if the 
United States hopes to boost trade with South America. But in the past 
year alone, our trade surplus with South America has doubled to $3.6 
billion, far outstripping all of our rivals.
  Fast Track supporters claim that this is a philosophical struggle, 
and they label me and my friends wrongly as protectionists. Well, to 
them I say, the old argument between protectionism and free trade, that 
died a long time ago. Ours is the debate about America's capacity to 
shape the future.
  But I will tell them, and I will tell them with pride, that I do 
believe in protecting the air we breathe, I do believe in protecting 
the water that we drink, I do believe in protecting Lindsey Doneth and 
the children of America from unsafe food, and I do believe in 
protecting the American values that endowed our democracy with 
direction and purpose and spirit and with meaning.
  So, as we approach the 21st century, I refuse to trade these away, on 
a fast track or any other track. America can do better, and we must do 
better. With a new progressive approach to foreign trade, one built on 
our democratic values, we can both honor our history and embrace our 
future.
  Mr. Speaker, it is now my distinct honor to recognize and yield to 
the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pascrell], my distinguished 
colleague,

[[Page H8816]]

who has been a real champion on this issue and has been here late into 
the evening talking about this, educating our colleagues.
  The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pascrell] has been a wonderful 
inspiration. We are just so honored and delighted to have him in the 
Congress. At this point, I would yield to him.
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to discuss a matter of 
great importance to my district and to the Nation as a whole, the issue 
of the renewal of fast-track trade negotiating authority. This is first 
a consumer issue, second a jobs issue, and third a wage issue.

                              {time}  1915

  The previous speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Bonior], has clearly defined the parameters of this debate very 
differently than the administration.
  As the debate moves forward, and as supporters and detractors of the 
measure voice their positions, I rise tonight for the purpose of 
clarification and to share the conclusions that I have come to 
regarding this important issue.
  The President's measure seeks to extend fast track authority for 8 
years. As such, it sets our national trade policy as we approach and 
then enter the 21st century.
  No one doubts the fact that we do live in a global economy and that 
nations are more interconnected than ever before. No one doubts that if 
we are to retain our preeminent position in the world, we must lead 
from strength, both economically and morally.
  For me, global leadership in the area of international trade means 
that fair trade should not be subordinated to the notion of free trade. 
We must trade with other nations on an equal footing and not sacrifice 
American jobs to those earning a lower wage, particularly when that 
nation has not yet achieved our level of social, economic and 
environmental development.
  The proponents of fast track argue that the administration deserves 
this ability based on what they perceive as a successful NAFTA policy. 
They point to the creation of 311,000 new jobs. I take exception, and 
many take exception, to this figure and cite an alternative one 
documented which states that 600,000 jobs have been lost during NAFTA's 
first 34 months. In northern New Jersey alone where I live, statistics 
show that approximately 15,000 jobs have been lost since 1993. Many 
companies in my district, small machinery, apparel, textile, foot wear, 
specifically point to NAFTA as the proximate cause of the reduction in 
their business.
  This leads me to my next point. Fast track is about jobs, but just as 
importantly, it is about consumer safety in areas like imported food; 
it is about the environment and environmental degradation; about labor 
rights and the viability of small businesses; and finally, it is about 
the consumers paying a reasonable price for goods. We should not lower 
our standards and sacrifice consumer safety and environmental 
protections and labor rights simply because we subscribe to the notion 
of free trade, which has proven to be a myth in the last 4 years.
  Trade policy needs to be inclusive regarding these important 
elements, not exclusive. Labor and environmental provisions need to be 
in the core agreements, not in unenforceable side agreements which put 
our workers and our jobs at risk and in jeopardy. If we do not lead 
from the high ground, we will relinquish all that we have accomplished 
in our long process to achieve the society that we now live in, the 
greatest democracy in the world.
  The argument that this fast track legislation represents forward 
progress rings hollow to my ears and to many of my colleagues. The 
facts and figures and anecdotes we are about to discuss will bear this 
out. We need a forward-looking trade policy, not one that looks 
backward.
  Mr. Speaker, in the very short period of the last 3 years, the 
consumer in this country is now in a position never before, never 
before experienced, and that is, imported apparel to the United States 
of America is now 2.2 percent higher than domestic apparel.
  Yet, when we look at these charts, we see that in imported apparel to 
the United States of America there is a retail market of 55 percent, 
compared to 50 percent in those domestic goods made here. Yet, when we 
look down lower to imported goods, only 1 percent of the total picture 
goes to manufacturing labor. In our chart to my far right, the domestic 
apparel takes up 15 percent for labor.
  How can our workers compete against these figures? And yet, at the 
same time, our wives and our loved ones go into stores and pay much 
more for goods that are being paid for and manufactured for literally 
bowls of rice in certain parts of this world. This is not an open 
market, this is constriction. This is not helping the American 
consumer, this is hurting the American consumer. This is not creating 
jobs, this is hurting jobs in America. We need to stop exporting those 
jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior].
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes a wonderful point here. 
What he is saying is that the wage being paid to workers in other 
countries to manufacture this apparel is one-fifteenth, if I am 
correct, of what was being paid to American workers to manufacture the 
apparel here.
  Mr. PASCRELL. That is exactly what I am saying.
  Mr. BONIOR. And yet, Mr. Speaker, those products when they come here 
have a price tag on them comparable to what the prices are here, or 
even more, so someone is doing very, very well.
  Mr. PASCRELL. Very well.
  Mr. BONIOR. It is not the worker here, because they are losing their 
jobs to people who are getting paid less there. It is not the worker 
there, in Mexico. As I pointed out, their wages have gone from $1 an 
hour to 70 cents an hour, despite the fact that they are producing 26 
percent more. It is not the consumer that is getting the benefit, 
because the rates they are charging for this apparel are the same or 
even more when they come in here, so what is going on here?
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman asked the question, and I 
think everyone knows the answer: Who is making the money? It is 
certainly not Main Street, it is Wall Street.
  The gentleman and I certainly disagree on several issues, but I think 
people understand, throughout their districts across America, who is 
making the profits. It is very, very obvious that it is a quick kill, 
it is a quick buck. And regrettably we have too many people in this 
Chamber on both sides of the aisle, and in this administration and in 
past administrations, that are so concerned about their friends on Wall 
Street, so concerned about some businesses that might make a quick 
buck, that they forget all of the people that are getting crushed in 
the meantime.
  It is something that concerns me greatly. It concerns me when we have 
the debate over China MFN, it concerns me when we talk about other 
countries. It seems to me that in this day and age, everybody is open 
to the highest bidder.
  In a fireside chat F.D.R. made in 1938, he said at the end of his 
speech, and in the deepest, darkest time of the Depression, he said, 
``My fellow Americans, things are bad, but at least we are having a 
financial crisis and not a spiritual one.''
  I would say when we turn our jobs over to the lowest bidder across 
the world, be it in Mexico or China, or now in the areas that we are 
talking about going into, that we are having a crisis of the American 
spirit that F.D.R. warned about 50, 60 years ago. And despite our 
disagreements on other issues, I thank the gentleman for bringing this 
very important issue up.

  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his contribution. I 
think he has hit it right on the head.
  The regrettable part of all this, of course, is that people look at 
the economy and the unemployment rates today and they say gosh, 
unemployment rates are down. But as we illustrated in our discussion 
just this evening, those 395,000 Americans who lost their jobs in the 
last less than 4 years as a result of NAFTA, according to the Economic 
Policy Institute, almost 400,000 people, what they did, they found 
other jobs, most of them, but two-thirds of them found jobs that paid 
less.

[[Page H8817]]

  That is what we mean when we talk about downward pressure on wages, 
downward pressure. Because of the leverage that the multinationals hold 
over workers, the leverage because they can go to places like Mexico or 
Malaysia or other places and they do not have to adhere to these 
environmental standards; they do not have to adhere to any wage and 
safety laws; all of the things, as I said earlier, our parents and 
grandparents and great grandparents fought for and that we take for 
granted today.
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to my colleagues, I just 
wanted to bring out something that both of my colleagues have 
mentioned, and that is in terms of wages. Just today in the papers in 
New Jersey, and that is in 1990, if one was making in the area of 
$44,000 to $45,000 a year, since that time, in that 5- or 6-year period 
that we have the statistics for, one's wages increased $104 in those 5 
years. Anything below that, anything below that, and that means a lot 
of folks in my district, the Eighth District in New Jersey, the losses 
can be anywhere from $800 to $2,000. Those are astonishing numbers.
  Now, we want and believe in trade, but we want our workers and our 
businesses to benefit. We have redefined the debate very significantly, 
because this is not labor versus business. Many of those who oppose 
fast track in my district own businesses and are very conservative, 
austere business people who are being hurt, and they understand what is 
going on very well.
  So to define this as this against that, we are not going to accept 
that this time, are we?
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. And if the gentleman will yield again, the numbers, 
there is such a difference between those two numbers, and I think it 
illustrates very vividly that we can seek middle ground. I am a 
conservative, laissez-faire free trader, and yet, that does not mean we 
have to be dumb.
  We can fight for fair trade, but for some reason, if we engage in 
this debate and say, ``Hey, wait a second, let us just make sure, maybe 
we will not have a level playing field with Mexico, let us just make 
sure we can at least get in the game,'' then all of a sudden we are 
attacked for being an isolationist or a protectionist or having our 
head in the sand and not understanding the realities of global 
economics in the 21st century.
  I think they are setting up false choices and I think the numbers 
that the gentleman points out illustrate that vividly. We can find 
middle ground on an issue like this, but this certainly is not middle 
ground, this is extremism on the side of just blatantly unfair trade.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Scarborough] for his comments, and I thank the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Pascrell].

                          ____________________