[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 157 (Tuesday, November 9, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H11711]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WTO IN SEATTLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 4 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, many of us have come to this floor of 
the House of Representatives today and on previous days for 5 minutes 
and 1 minutes in various speeches to talk about asking that the United 
States not support accession for China to the World Trade Organization. 
We are instead insisting that labor standards and environmental 
standards be applied to our trading partners, the same kind of 
environmental standards and labor standards that we follow in this 
country. If that makes us isolationists, as my friend, the gentleman 
from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) suggested earlier, then so be it. But the 
fact is that those of us that believe in the right kinds of labor 
standards and the right kinds of environmental standards around the 
world want to lift people up around the world, not continue this 
downward spiral on food safety and labor standard and environmental 
standards that our trading policy seems to move us towards.
  Republican leadership last week wrote a letter to the administration 
demanding that our USTR, U.S. trade rep bureaucrats, do not include 
labor standards in any of the discussions at the World Trade 
Organization. The Republican leadership of the Committee on Ways and 
Means is insisting that the U.S. trade rep ensure that developing 
countries require that we protect property rights but not human rights, 
not labor standards, not environmental rights.
  At the same time, Mr. Speaker, Trade Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, 
an unelected official who never seems to miss an opportunity to 
publicly diminish the importance of labor rights, was supposed to meet 
with some of us here in the House last night and explain whether or not 
the administration really plans to push for stronger worker 
environmental rights in Seattle.
  What happened? Did we have a chance to talk about how Huffy Bicycle 
has closed its last American plant because it cannot compete with cheap 
imports from China, a place where trying to form an independent trade 
union will get one thrown in prison or even killed?
  Did we have a chance to talk about some of the maquilladora factories 
in Mexico which dump their pollution into the same water that their 
workers have to drink?
  Did we get a chance to talk about why armed guards will not permit 
independent monitors into the garment factories in El Salvador which 
ship millions of dollars worth of merchandise here every year?
  No, we did not, and that is because Ambassador Barshefsky and a score 
of other American trade bureaucrats were heading off to the People's 
Republic of China to try to secure a last minute deal to get China into 
the World Trade Organization.
  As we speak, U.S. trade bureaucrats are busy coddling the same gang 
of dictators that are busy arresting, torturing and even killing 
Chinese people that practice Falun Gong, which as far as I can tell is 
the same thing as torturing and killing Christians and Muslims and any 
other group of people that have spiritual beliefs in that country.
  So instead of having a real dialogue on whether the Seattle 
ministerial will have any discussion about human rights, worker rights, 
human rights, instead of having a chance to hear exactly what is going 
to happen in Seattle, the administration wants to commit this country 
to a policy that will continue to hurt workers, a policy that continues 
the human rights abuses, child labor, slave labor, forced abortions, 
persecution of Christians and Muslims and Falun Gong and all kinds of 
religious minorities in China that will continue to allow that kind of 
policy to happen in China.
  We can bet the farm on it. If the People's Republic of China accedes 
to the World Trade Organization, if this country's government supports 
China accession to the World Trade Organization, that is the last we 
will ever hear about human rights.
  Do we really think a totalitarian government that performs forced 
abortions is ever going to protect labor rights? Do we believe that a 
totalitarian government which kills thousands of its own people in 
slave labor camps and then sells their organs is ever going to let the 
WTO implement any sort of framework to protect the rights of workers?
  Mr. Speaker, we should stand strong against the accession of China to 
the WTO.

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