[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 156 (Saturday, November 8, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12077-S12078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FAST-TRACK LEGISLATION

  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, today's economic reality is that 
trade is global. Whether we enter into new international trade 
agreements or not, we cannot turn back the clock on the pace of 
globalization of our economy.
  Nor should we want to. In open and free trade lies the potential of 
increased trade, and with increased trade and constructive interaction 
among the peoples of the world, the prospect of job creation, and an 
improved standard of living worldwide is created.
  Americans, who have enjoyed the highest standard of living in the 
world, need not fear our ability to compete and win in this new global 
economy. To the contrary, we have every interest in preparing ourselves 
to meet and master the challenges of this new era.
  Economic growth through trade can produce better jobs, increased 
prosperity, and a continuation of the high standard of living and 
opportunity that define the American dream. In the last 4 years, 
exports have accounted for one out of every three jobs created in the 
U.S. economy. Moreover, the strength of our economy is reflected in the 
fact that the United States is the No. 1 exporting nation in the world.
  Our trade competitors, in recognition of the trends already evident 
in this new global economy, have formed regional trading alliances and 
relations to meet U.S. competition in world markets. Europe is 
beginning to trade as a European Community; an agreement among the 
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, augments Asian 
competition; and the United States entered into the NAFTA, in order to 
begin the formation of a regional trading arrangement in our 
hemisphere.
  I believe that trade liberalization can have positive effects for our 
American economy. I do not believe, however, that it is advisable at 
this time to resort to the fast-track procedure to get there.
  At the outset, I want to remind my colleagues and the public at large 
that what is at issue with this debate is not whether we will embrace 
trade liberalization, but how we will do so, and under what conditions. 
For constitutional, policy, and practical reasons I cannot support S. 
1269, given the current lack of consensus in this Congress on trade 
policy objectives. I believe that this legislative proposal, as 
currently constituted, leaves too many questions unanswered regarding 
the balance that needs to be struck in the interest of American 
business and the American people.
  Section 8 of article 1 of the Constitution gives to Congress the 
commercial power: ``Congress shall have the power to . . . regulate 
commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, . . . and 
to lay and collect duties, imports and excises'' The Framers of the 
Constitution very clearly made it our responsibility to make commercial 
agreements, to set tariff levels, and to pass the laws necessary to 
implement legislation for trade agreements that are not self-executing. 
This power was put into the hands of the Congress, after no small 
amount of debate, as a check and balance on the President's authority 
to make treaties and to conduct foreign policy.
  The concept of checks and balances lies at the heart of our 
constitutional system of government. The separation of powers, and the 
checks and balances it provides, was, and is, a defense against the 
tyranny that concentration of power invites. In fact, some of the 
Framers of the Constitution argued that the powers vested in one branch 
of the Government could only be exercised by that branch. In 1789, 
James Madison proposed an amendment to our Constitution which 
explicitly stated as much: ``the legislative, executive and judiciary 
powers vested by the Constitution in the respective branches of the 
government of the United States shall be exercised according to the 
distribution therein made, so that neither of said branches shall 
assume or exercise any of the powers peculiar to either of the other 
branches.'' (The House adopted Madison's proposed amendment, while the 
Senate, for reasons lost to history, rejected it.)
  While it is still a matter of scholarly debate to what extent the 
separation of powers exists as a doctrine or as a concept within our 
Constitution, the fact that we are engaging in this debate at all is 
witness to the fact that this bill calls upon the legislature to 
transfer a good part of its constitutional authority, in regards to 
commercial treaties, to the Executive.
  That is not to suggest that the fast-track authority has been a 
failure, or that the Executive should never be entrusted to assume such 
authority as the Constitution makes our responsibility. An early 
Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, speaking to those instances 
in which ``shared'' authority might be appropriate, noted that, ``it is 
evident that where the Constitution has lodged the power, there exists 
the right of acting, and the right of direction''. . . . but he went on 
to address the accommodation that might be appropriate between the 
branches of government in this regard: ``the opinion of the executive, 
and where he has a partial power, the application of that power to a 
certain object will ever operate as a powerful motive upon our 
deliberations. I wish it to have its full weight, but I feel averse to 
a doctrine which would place us under the sole control of a single 
force impelling us in a certain direction, to the exclusion of all the 
other motives of action which should also influence us.'' (Gallatin, 7 
Annals of Congress 1121-22 (1798))
  The bill before us would effectively preclude the Congress from 
informing the Executive of ``all the other motivations of action,'' and 
even limits the time for debate. No amendments to trade agreements 
negotiated under the fast-track authority are permitted, and only 20 
hours of debate are allowed. Given the momentous changes which are 
taking place in this new and global economy, this restriction on 
congressional input seems to me unwise and unnecessary, and should not 
be allowed to become routine practice.
  Part of the lingering bitterness over the NAFTA, I suspect, arises 
from the fact that it was presented to the Congress under the same kind 
of fast-track procedures as are at issue now. Now, it is true that the 
claims on both sides of that debate, of a great ``sucking sound'' on 
the one hand, or of unprecedented job creation, on the other, did not 
materialize. What we have seen, in fact, is a mix of results, some 
better than predicted, some very much worse, but none fully realized, 
or more importantly, shared with the American people.

  My home State of Illinois, for example, is a great exporting State, 
the fifth largest in our country; 425,000 Illinois jobs are directly 
related to exports, and Illinois manufacturing exports have grown by 53 
percent since 1993. Illinois' agricultural sector has also benefited 
from increased exports of corn and soybeans.
  On the other hand, the losses of manufacturing jobs have been 
significant enough to give more credence than I would have liked to the 
dire predictions of the debate over NAFTA. Other States have had 
different experiences, and one need only reflect on the impact on wheat 
imports, for example, to conclude that we have yet to reach closure on 
the long term effects that increased liberalization will create.
  And yet, despite that history and despite the absence of a clear 
trade policy architecture that can command broad support both in 
Congress and across our Nation generally, S. 1269 would again mute the 
voice of the Congress concerning the architecture and objectives of our 
trade policy. Without the ability to amend such agreements as may be 
reached in the future, or to even enjoy normal parliamentary rights, we 
are left to that ``sole control of a single force impelling us in a 
certain direction,'' which Mr. Gallatin feared.
  We need a trade policy framework that will represent the interests of 
all of the American people, and that will best advantage our business 
sector in its global competitive challenge. Unfortunately, despite the 
best efforts of our President and his first rate economic and trade 
team, we do not yet have such a framework.
  I am particularly concerned about the issue of child labor. American 
business cannot compete fairly with nations that allow labor costs to 
be artificially depressed by the exploitation of children. In 1994, the 
U.S. Department of Labor issued a startling report

[[Page S12078]]

entitled ``By the Sweat and Toil of Children--the Use of Child Labor in 
U.S. Manufactured and Mined Imports.'' That report found that in 
textiles manufacturing, food processing, furniture making, and a host 
of other export-directed activities, children are employed for long 
hours in abysmal conditions, and are paid very low wages. They have 
few, if any legal rights, can be fired without recourse, and are often 
abused. They are hired by our foreign competitors to minimize labor 
costs. The International Labor Organization reports that 25 million 
children, world wide, are so engaged.
  In the Philippines, for example, the Labor Department Report stated 
that in the wood and rattan furniture industry, children working in 
factories received 15 to 25 pesos per day--approximately 61 cents to 
$1. About 29 percent of the children were unpaid or compensated with 
free food; the rest were paid on a piece rate basis. About 48 percent 
of the children work between 15 to 25 hours a week, while another 13 
percent work more than 50 hours for less than minimum wage.
  The report stated that children who work in the garment industry in 
Thailand work 12-hour days in shops where they earn as little as five 
cents for sewing 100 buttons. Furthermore, they reported that in Cairo 
in Egypt's small family-operated textile factories, 25 percent of the 
workers were under the age of 15. Seventy-three percent of the children 
worked in excess of 12 hours per day and earned an average of $8 per 
month.
  These are just a few examples of countries that employ children. 
Clearly, it is in the interest of every modern business and every 
industrialized nation to develop new international standards to help 
end child labor. Lower wages and extremely poor working conditions can 
lower manufacturers' costs in the short term, but they create long-term 
economic and geopolitical problems, not just for the country that 
exploits its children, but for the United States, as well.
  When foreign industries artificially depress their labor costs by 
exploiting children, how can a U.S. worker compete? We must level the 
playing field for American workers. And more importantly, we must put 
our Nation on record that child labor must end. The United States must 
realize that it is an enlightened business policy to eliminate abusive 
child labor. Free-trade agreements should contain clear provisions 
against the use of abusive child labor.
  Child labor should be designated an unfair trade practice, but S. 
1269 does not make it so. Without such minimal ground rules with 
respect to child labor, our trade policy will be at cross purposes with 
our trade and larger foreign policy and national security objectives. 
We will have created a two-tier system in which U.S. companies will be 
prohibited from exploiting children here at home, while foreign firms, 
and U.S. companies, which leave to take advantage of the lower labor 
costs on foreign soil, will be permitted to exploit children so they 
can gain competitive advantage over those who play by our domestic 
rules. Such a system does nothing to benefit American business, creates 
incentives for the loss of U.S. jobs, and leaves us all with the shame 
of complicity in child abuse.
  Finally, it is important to note that the Executive has the ability 
and the authority to negotiate trade agreements even in the absence of 
the fast-track procedure. It is my understanding that some 200 trade 
agreements have been concluded without it. Fast-track has only been 
used five times since 1974, for the GATT Tokyo round in 1979, the 
United States-Israel Free-Trade Area Agreement in 1985, the United 
States-Canada Free-Trade Agreement in 1988, NAFTA in 1992, and the 
Uruguay round of the GATT in 1994.
  Instead of closing off debate about the proper purposes and 
architecture of free trade, we ought to encourage open and full debate 
with the American people about it. Trade is inevitably a more and more 
important aspect of our economic landscape, and indeed, as American 
business achieves the kind of market access in the world community that 
its capacity will allow, more and more U.S. workers will see the 
benefits of liberalization. Even today, those businesses which have 
benefited from the increased access accorded by NAFTA and GATT are 
enthusiastic about the prospects for real economic growth from this 
sector. We should be optimistic about our prospects overall, because 
American goods and services are seen by the rest of the world as 
providing the excellence they want. But we will see only fractiousness 
and retreat, if we fail to achieve consensus about the rules of our 
foray into this global economic competition.
  I have a sense that trade, and its impacts, not only on our economy, 
but on our foreign policy as well, will come more and more to dominate 
the debate in our country about our future course and direction. If we 
are to be mindful of the ancient warning that ``all wars start with 
trade'' then we should redouble our resolve to make certain that our 
policy is based on consensus among our people regarding its direction, 
its objectives, its ground rules. We do not have such consensus yet. We 
should not shut off the debate which is the only way to get that 
consensus.

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