[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 52 (Tuesday, May 2, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H2393-H2398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WHAT IS FREE TRADE?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I asked for this Special Order this evening 
to talk about trade. We are going to be dealing with permanent normal 
trade relations with China here soon, and there is also a privileged 
resolution that will be brought to the floor that I have introduced, 
H.J.Res. 90. The discussion in the media and around the House floor has 
been rather clear about the permanent normal trade status, but there 
has not been a whole lot of talk yet about whether or not we should 
even really be in the World Trade Organization.
  I took this time mainly because I think there is a lot of 
misunderstanding about what free trade is. There are not a whole lot of 
people who get up and say I am opposed to free trade, and many of those 
who say they are for free trade quite frankly I think they have a 
distorted definition of what free trade really is.
  I would like to spend some time this evening talking a little bit 
about that, because as a strict constitutionalist and one who endorses 
laissez-faire capitalism, I do believe in free trade; and there are 
good reasons why countries should trade with each other.
  The first reason I would like to mention is a moral reason. There is 
a moral element involved in trade, because when governments come in and 
regulate how citizens spend their money, they are telling them what 
they can do or cannot do. In a free society, individuals who earn money 
should be allowed to spend the money the way they want. So if they find 
that they prefer to buy a car from Japan rather than Detroit, they 
basically have the moral right to spend their money as they see fit and 
those kinds of choices should not be made by government. So there is a 
definite moral argument for free trade.
  Patrick Henry many years ago touched on this when he said, ``You are 
not to inquire how your trade may be increased nor how you are to 
become a great and powerful people but how your liberties may be 
secured, for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.'' 
We have not heard much talk of liberty with regards to trade, but we do 
hear a lot about enhancing one's ability to make more money overseas 
with trading with other nations. But the argument, the moral argument, 
itself should be enough to convince one in a free society that we 
should never hamper or interfere with free trade.
  When the colonies did not thrive well prior to the Constitution, two 
of the main reasons why the Constitutional Convention was held was, 
one, there was no unified currency, that provided a great deal of 
difficulty in trading among the States, and also trade barriers are 
among the States.
  Even our Constitution was designed to make sure that there were not 
trade barriers, and this was what the interstate commerce clause was 
all about. Unfortunately though, in this century the interstate 
commerce clause has

[[Page H2394]]

been taken and twisted around and is the excuse for regulating even 
trade within a State. Not only interstate trade, but even activities 
within a State has nothing to do with interstate trade. They use the 
interstate commerce clause as an excuse, which is a wild distortion of 
the original intent of the Constitution, but free trade among the 
States having a unified currency and breaking down the barriers 
certainly was a great benefit for the development and the 
industrialization of the United States.
  The second argument for free trade is an economic argument. There is 
a benefit to free trade. Free trade means that you will not have high 
tariffs and barriers so you cannot buy products and you cannot exert 
this freedom of choice by buying outside. If you have a restricted 
majority and you can evenly buy from within, it means you are 
protecting industries that may not be doing a very good job, and there 
is not enough competition.
  It is conceded that probably it was a blessing in disguise when the 
automobile companies in this country were having trouble in the 1970s, 
because the American consumer was not buying the automobiles, the 
better automobiles were coming in, and it should not have been a 
surprise to anybody that all of a sudden the American cars got to be 
much better automobiles and they were able to compete.
  There is a tremendous economic benefit to the competition by being 
able to buy overseas. The other economic argument is that in order to 
keep a product out, you put on a tariff, a protective tariff. A tariff 
is a tax. We should not confuse that, we should not think tariff is 
something softer than a tax in doing something good. A tariff is a tax 
on the consumer. So those American citizens who want to buy products at 
lower prices are forced to be taxed.
  If you have poor people in this country trying to make it on their 
own and they are not on welfare, but they can buy clothes or shoes or 
an automobile or anything from overseas, they are tremendously 
penalized by forcing them to pay higher prices by buying domestically.
  The competition is what really encourages producers to produce better 
products at lower costs and keep the prices down. If one believes in 
free trade, they do not enter into free trade for the benefit of 
somebody else. There is really no need for reciprocity. Free trade is 
beneficial because it is a moral right. Free trade is beneficial 
because there is an economic advantage to buying products at a certain 
price and the competition is beneficial.
  There really are no costs in the long run. Free trade does not 
require management. It is implied here on conversation on the House 
floor so often that free trade is equivalent to say we will turn over 
the management of trade to the World Trade Organization, which serves 
special interests. Well, that is not free trade; that is a 
misunderstanding of free trade.
  Free trade means you can buy and sell freely without interference. 
You do not need international management. Certainly, if we are not 
going to have our own government manage our own affairs, we do not want 
an international body to manage these international trades.
  Another thing that free trade does not imply is that this opens up 
the doors to subsidies. Free trade does not mean subsidies, but 
inevitably as soon as we start trading with somebody, we accept the 
notion of managed trade by the World Trade Organization, but 
immediately we start giving subsidies to our competitors.
  If our American companies and our American workers have to compete, 
the last thing they should ever be required to do is pay some of their 
tax money to the Government, to send subsidies to their competitors; 
and that is what is happening. They are forced to subsidize their 
competitors on foreign aid. They support their competitors overseas at 
the World Bank. They subsidize their competitors in the Export/Import 
Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
  We literally encourage the exportation of jobs by providing overseas 
protection in insurance that cannot be bought in the private sector. 
Here a company in the United States goes overseas for cheap labor, and 
if, for political or economic reasons, they go bust, who bails them 
out. It is the American taxpayer, once again, the people who are 
struggling and have to compete with the free trade.
  It is so unfair to accept this notion that free trade is synonymous 
with permitting these subsidies overseas, and, essentially, that is 
what is happening all the time. Free trade should never mean that 
through the management of trade that it endorses the notion of 
retaliation and also to stop dumping.
  This whole idea that all of a sudden if somebody comes in with a 
product with a low price that you can immediately get it stopped and 
retaliate, and this is all done in the name of free trade, it could be 
something one endorses. They might argue that they endorse this type of 
managed trade and subsidized trade; but what is wrong, and I want to 
make this clear, what is wrong is to call it free trade, because that 
is not free trade.
  Most individuals that I know who promote free trade around 
Washington, D.C., do not really either understand what free trade is or 
they do not really endorse it. And they are very interested in the 
management aspect, because some of the larger companies have a much 
bigger clout with the World Trade Organization than would the small 
farmers, small rancher or small businessman because they do not have 
the same access to the World Trade Organization.

                              {time}  2115

  For instance, there has been a big fight in the World Trade 
Organization with bananas. The Europeans are fighting with the 
Americans over exportation of bananas. Well, bananas are not grown in 
Europe and they are not grown in the United States, and yet that is one 
of the big issues of managed trade, for the benefit of some owners of 
corporations that are overseas that make big donations to our political 
parties. That is not coincidental.
  So powerful international financial individuals go to the World Trade 
Organization to try to get an edge on their competitor. If their 
competitor happens to be doing a better job and selling a little bit 
lower, then they come immediately to the World Trade Organization and 
say, Oh, you have to stop them. That is dumping. We certainly do not 
want to give the consumers the benefit of having a lower price.
  So this to me is important, that we try to be clear on how we define 
free trade, and we should not do this by accepting the idea that 
management of trade, as well as subsidizing trade and calling it free 
trade is just not right. Free trade is the ability of an individual or 
a corporation to buy goods and spend their money as they see fit, and 
this provides tremendous economic benefits.
  The third benefit of free trade, which has been known for many, many 
centuries, has been the peace effect from trade. It is known that 
countries that trade with each other and depend on each other for 
certain products and where the trade has been free and open and 
communications are free and open and travel is free and open, they are 
very less likely to fight wars. I happen to personally think this is 
one of the greatest benefits of free trade, that it leads us to 
policies that direct us away from military confrontation.
  Managed trade and subsidized trade do not qualify. I will mention 
just a little later why I think it does exactly the opposite.
  There is a little bit more to the trade issue than just the benefits 
of free trade, true free trade, and the disadvantages of managed trade, 
because we are dealing now when we have a vote on the normal trade 
status with China, as well as getting out of the World Trade 
Organization, we are dealing with the issue of sovereignty. The 
Constitution is very clear. Article I, section 8, gives the Congress 
the responsibility of dealing with international trade. It does not 
delegate it to the President, it does not delegate it to a judge, it 
does not delegate it to an international management organization like 
the World Trade Organization.
  International trade management is to be and trade law is to be dealt 
with by the U.S. Congress, and yet too often the Congress has been 
quite willing to renege on that responsibility through fast-track 
legislation and deliver this authority to our President, as well as 
delivering through agreements, laws being passed and treaties, 
delivering

[[Page H2395]]

this authority to international bodies such as the UN-IMF-World Trade 
Organizations, where they make decisions that affect us and our 
national sovereignty.
  The World Trade Organization has been in existence for 5 years. We 
voted to join the World Trade Organization in the fall of 1994 in the 
lame duck session after the Republicans took over the control of the 
House and Senate, but before the new Members were sworn in. So a lame 
duck session was brought up and they voted, and by majority vote we 
joined the World Trade Organization, which, under the Constitution, 
clearly to anybody who has studied the Constitution, is a treaty. So we 
have actually even invoked a treaty by majority vote.
  This is a serious blunder, in my estimation, the way we have dealt 
with this issue, and we have accepted the idea that we will remain a 
member based on this particular vote.
  Fortunately, in 1994 there was a provision put in the bill that said 
that any member could bring up a privileged resolution that gives us a 
chance at least to say is this a good idea to be in the World Trade 
Organization, or is it not? Now, my guess is that we do not have the 
majority of the U.S. Congress that thinks it is a bad idea. But I am 
wondering about the majority of the American people, and I am wondering 
about the number of groups now that are growing wary of the membership 
in the World Trade Organization, when you look at what happened in 
Seattle, as well as demonstrations here in D.C. So there is a growing 
number of people from various aspects of the political spectrum who are 
now saying, what does this membership mean to us? Is it good or is it 
bad? A lot of them are coming down on the side of saying it is bad.
  Now, it is also true that some who object to membership in the World 
Trade Organization happen to be conservative free enterprisers, and 
others who object are coming from the politics of the left. But there 
is agreement on both sides of this issue dealing with this aspect, and 
it has to do with the sovereignty issue.
  There may be some labor law and there may be some environmental law 
that I would object to, but I more strenuously object to the World 
Trade Organization dictating to us what our labor law ought to be and 
what our environmental law ought to be. I highly resent the notion that 
the World Trade Organization can dictate to us tax law.
  We are currently under review and the World Trade Organization has 
ruled against the United States because we have given a tax break to 
our overseas company, and they have ruled against us and said that this 
tax break is a tax subsidy, language which annoys me to no end. They 
have given us until October 1 to get rid of that tax break for our 
corporations, so they are telling us, the U.S. Congress, what we have 
to do with tax law.
  You say, oh, that cannot be. We do not have to do what they tell us. 
Well, technically we do not have to, but we will not be a very good 
member, and this is what we agreed to in the illegal agreement. 
Certainly it was not a legitimate treaty that we signed. But in this 
agreement we have come up and said that we would obey what the WTO 
says.
  Our agreement says very clearly that any ruling by the WTO, the 
Congress is obligated to change the law. This is the interpretation and 
this is what we signed. This is a serious challenge, and we should not 
accept so easily this idea that we will just go one step further.
  This has not just happened 5 years ago, there has been a gradual 
erosion of the concept of national sovereignty. It occurred certainly 
after World War II with the introduction of the United Nations, and 
now, under current conditions, we do not even ask the Congress to 
declare war, yet we still fight a lot of wars. We send troops all over 
the world and we are involved in combat all the time, and our 
presidents tell us they get the authority from a UN resolution. So we 
have gradually lost the concept of national sovereignty.
  I want to use a quote from somebody that I consider rather typical of 
the establishment. We talk about the establishment, but nobody ever 
knows exactly who they are. But I will name this individual who I think 
is pretty typical of the establishment, and that is Walter Cronkite. He 
says, ``We need not only an executive to make international law, but we 
need the military forces to enforce that law and the judicial system to 
bring the criminals to justice in an international government.''
  ``But,'' he goes on to say, and this he makes very clear, and this is 
what we should be aware of, ``the American people are going to begin to 
realize that perhaps they are going to have to yield some sovereignty 
to an international body to enforce world law, and I think that is 
going to come to other people as well.''
  So it is not like it has been hidden, it is not like it is a secret. 
It is something that those who disagree with me about liberty and the 
Constitution, they believe in internationalism and the World Trade 
Organization and the United Nations, and they certainly have the right 
to that belief, but it contradicts everything America stands for and it 
contradicts our Constitution, so, therefore, we should not allow this 
to go unchallenged.
  Now, the whole idea that treaties could be passed and undermine the 
ability of our Congress to pass legislation or undermine our 
Constitution, this was thought about and talked about by the founders 
of this country. They were rather clear on the idea that a treaty, 
although the treaty can become the law of the land, a treaty could 
never be an acceptable law of the land if it amended or changed the 
Constitution. That would be ridiculous, and they made that very clear.
  It could have the effect of the law of the land, as long as it was a 
legitimate constitutional agreement that we entered into. But Thomas 
Jefferson said if the treaty power is unlimited, then we do not have a 
Constitution. Surely the President and the Senate cannot do by treaty 
what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way.
  So that is very important. We cannot just sit back and accept the 
idea that the World Trade Organization, we have entered into it, it was 
not a treaty, it was an agreement, but we have entered into it, and the 
agreement says we have to do what they tell us, even if it contradicts 
the whole notion that it is the Congress' and people's responsibility 
to pass their own laws with regard to the environment, with regard to 
labor and with regard to tax law.
  So I think this is important material. I think this is an important 
subject, a lot more important than just the vote to trade with China. I 
think we should trade with China. I think we should trade with Cuba. I 
think we should trade with everybody possible, unless we are at war 
with them. I do not think we should have sanctions against Iran, Iraq 
or Libya, and it does not make much sense to me to be struggling and 
fighting and giving more foreign aid to a country like China, and at 
the same time we have sanctions on and refuse to trade and talk with 
Cuba. That does not make a whole lot of sense. Yet those who believe 
and promote trade with China are the ones who will be strongly 
objecting to trade with Cuba and these other countries. So I think a 
little bit more consistency on this might be better for all of us.

  Alexander Hamilton also talked about this. He said a treaty cannot be 
made which alters the Constitution of the country or which infringes 
any expressed exception to the powers of the Constitution of the United 
States.
  So these were the founders talking about this, and yet we have 
drifted a long way. It does not happen overnight. It has been over a 
50-year period. Five years ago we went one step further. First we 
accepted the idea that international finance would be regulated by the 
IMF. Then we accepted the idea that the World Bank, which was supposed 
to help the poor people of the world and redistribute wealth, they have 
redistributed a lot of wealth, but most of it ended up in the hands of 
wealthy individuals and wealthy politicians. But the poor people of the 
world never get helped by these programs. Now, 5 years ago we have 
accepted the notion that the World Trade Organization will bring about 
order in trade around the country.
  Well, since that time we have had a peso crisis in Mexico and we had 
a crisis with currencies in Southeast Asia. So I would say that the 
management of finances with the IMF as well as the World Trade 
Organization has been very unsuccessful, and even if one does not 
accept my constitutional argument

[[Page H2396]]

that we should not be doing this, we should at least consider the fact 
that what we are doing is not very successful.
  What I think we are seeing, when you get tens of thousands of people 
out on an issue that seems to be esoteric and start talking and 
demonstrating against our policy, essentially as they did in Seattle 
and Washington, I would say maybe the grassroots in America are 
starting to wake up a lot sooner than the people here in the U.S. 
Congress. So I think that it is very important that we think this 
through and think of it in the big context, not only in the very narrow 
context of voting for trade with China or not.
  The World Trade Organization does not represent free trade because it 
is management of trade. It accepts all the complaints from the 
countries who think that they are being undersold or the competition is 
getting a little tough for them.
  Just this week, the President has announced that he will send seven 
more complaints to the World Trade Organization, seven different 
countries who are being charged with unfair trade practices. The United 
States has not fared well with the World Trade Organization. The World 
Trade Organization has ruled against us on patents dealing with the 
playing of music, the World Trade Organization has ruled against us 
with regard to taxes, and also against us on some anti-dumping 
resolutions.

                              {time}  2130

  But I am afraid that what is happening is, it is just another 
international bureaucracy that will be able to provide benefits for 
some very powerful special interests and ignore the little people who 
have a harder time to get an ear at the World Trade Organization.
  The China situation I think is an interesting one because we are 
spending a lot of effort trading with China. Of course, the tragedy 
really here is not free trade in trading with China; it has to do with 
China getting some of our top secrets which to me is more disturbing 
than trading and buying some things that we might want from China. But 
China, we have gone to this extent. They have received a tremendous 
amount. I think they have now received $13 billion from the World Bank. 
They are the largest recipient of the Export-Import Bank. And, at the 
same time we send these benefits to China, we still have Members in the 
Congress who seem to flip flop on the issues who will say well, no, I 
do not like China; I think China, they are not respectable enough and 
they will undermine what we are doing, so I do not want to trade with 
China and they will vote against trade with China, yet at the same time 
they continue to vote to subsidize China through the Export-Import 
Bank. That is hard for me to understand why, if one does not want to 
trade with China, why would one want to continue to send them money. 
Why would they not vote against the World Bank sending them money. Why 
would they not vote against the Export-Import Bank sending money over 
there, because that is subsidizing them. That is where the real harm 
comes from. Yet, we see that inconsistency all the time.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to discuss the third point about free 
trade that I made, and that is that free trade should lead to peace. I 
sincerely believe this, if we have free trade. But take an example of 
this: free trade is supposed to lead to lower taxes and lower prices. 
But here we have the World Trade Organization not telling us to lower 
taxes to be equal, that would not be quite as harmful, but here we have 
a World Trade Organization telling us to raise taxes to equal the 
competition. So it is working perversely. The same way in the military 
sense. We trade with China, we subsidize China, and yet China appears 
to be a threat to Taiwan.
  So what do we do? Do we say let us not send any more subsidies to 
China? No, what we do is we hurry up and say well, there could be a 
conflict between Taiwan and China, so we send more weapons to Taiwan. 
So in subsidizing the Communist system in China, as well as 
militarizing and sending the military weapons and promising that we 
will support Taiwan, we are bound and determined to stir up a fight 
over there with us in the middle. So this, in itself, should tell us 
that this is not free trade. Free trade means that we are less likely 
to fight with people and yet, we are stirring up trouble over there and 
literally, but rather typically, we are subsidizing and helping both 
sides, which we have done for many, many years.
  This is why the argument for national sovereignty and the national 
defense, a strong national defense makes a whole lot of sense, because 
we do not have to make these determinations. First, we do not have the 
authority to make the determination of the internal affairs of other 
nations. We do not have that authority. We probably do not have the 
wisdom to pick out who the good guys and the bad guys are, but we 
certainly do not have the finesse to do it by going in there and 
satisfying all sides. About all we do is we commit ourselves to these 
conflicts around the world, commit our troops and commit our dollars.
  Instead of trying to come back from some of these commitments of 
troops every place in the world, we are looking for more dragons to 
slay. We in the Congress are going along with the President, getting 
prepared to send billions of dollars down to Colombia to support a 
faction down there that has been in a civil war for decades and 30,000 
people killed. And of course the grandiose explanation is that we are 
going down there and we are going to stop drugs from coming in here, 
which is a dream, because that is not going to happen. But the real 
reason why I think we venture out into these areas is to serve the 
financial interests, because it just happens that those individuals who 
like to sell helicopters and they like to sell airplanes and they like 
others who would like to protect oil interests are the ones who are 
more likely to lobby for us to be in areas like this.
  Madam Speaker, free trade, if it were true free trade, we would be 
less likely ever to fight with other countries. There was one free 
trade economist who stated that he had a rule, it was called the 
McDonald rule. He said he has watched it so far and up until now, the 
best he knows, there has never been two countries that have had 
McDonalds in each country ever fought a war. So that is rather 
simplistic, but I think there is a lot of truth to that, that we should 
trade and talk with people, give people the freedom and the right to 
spend their money the way they want. Do not take the money from the 
people who may have short-term disadvantages from free trade and tax 
them in order to subsidize the competition. That is where I think we 
really get off track and we do way too much of it.

  Madam Speaker, I would like to touch on another subject about trade 
that is rarely mentioned, and it may well be one of the most important 
aspects of trade. That has to do with the even flow of trade between 
countries and their currencies. Balance of payment deficits and current 
account deficits are very, very important in the long run, especially 
if they are accompanied by fiat money and not sound money and different 
currencies being inflated at different rates. This will cause 
imbalances which causes tremendous shake-outs like we had in Southeast 
Asia where all of a sudden there are devaluations and some of the 
protectionist sentiment in order to get an edge on the competitors will 
be frequently deliberate devaluations where they will prop up 
currencies in order to get an edge or keep a currency lower in order to 
get an edge. These things can work for a while, but they usually end up 
in a crisis, with a currency crisis, higher interest rates, inflations 
and a downturn in the economy.
  Now, fortunately, over the last 10 years, most other countries have 
done a poorer job than we have. The United States has had a built-in 
advantage in the 1990s since the breakup of the Soviet Union. We have 
remained the power house economically and militarily which conveys a 
certain amount of confidence to our currency and has given us license 
to counterfeit. It has given our Federal Reserve license to create 
credit out of thin air for all of the reasons they want to do, to 
stimulate housing or whatever. Also, to encourage some of these trade 
imbalances. So some of the protectionists will look and they will say, 
look how much we buy from China, look how

[[Page H2397]]

much we buy from Japan. That is related to the fact that we have a 
currency that is artificially and temporarily rated very high and 
foreigners are willing to take our money, creating this imbalance. But 
that will all come to an end, because we cannot do this forever. When 
that happens, stocks go down, interest rates go up, the economy drops, 
and inflation comes back.
  The benefits that we have received over these past 10 years have only 
been temporary. So when we look at the imbalances created by the 
currency system and the monetary system, we should be prepared to find 
out that the World Trade Organization will do absolutely nothing to 
solve that problem. The IMF cannot solve that problem, the World Bank 
cannot solve that problem, and the World Trade Organization certainly 
will not solve that problem, because some of the imbalances have 
already been built into the system.
  Madam Speaker, we are the greatest debtor Nation in the world today. 
Our current account deficit is running at record highs. That will be 
reversed, and the value of the dollar will be reversed. This will cause 
some serious problems for all of us. It will be the paying back. We 
have borrowed money endlessly, the foreigners are willing to take our 
money, sell us cheap products. Our standard of living goes up, they 
loan us back the money, they buy into our stock market, so we have an 
illusion of wealth because we have the greatest counterfeiting machine 
in the world, and that is the Federal Reserve's ability to create 
credit out of thin air.
  It would be nice if it would last forever and these perceptions would 
persist, but if one looks at monetary history, one finds out that it 
never persists forever. It persists only for a limited period of time. 
There was a time in the 1980s they thought in Japan it would persist 
forever, and then all of a sudden the investment and the adjustments 
that were required from the over-capacity built into their system came 
about, and because they have not permitted the liquidation of the debt 
and the adjustment in prices and wages, their problems have persisted 
now for more than 10 years.
  So we will have to face up to that. The important thing there is that 
it is not a trade problem, it is a currency problem. One day, we in the 
Congress will have to decide whether or not we want a sound currency 
again, or whether we want to continue manipulating a paper currency, a 
paper currency backed up by nothing. Nothing but promises, promises 
that we will tax the American people, and that if the American people 
are not working hard enough and they are not paying enough taxes or the 
economy slips, all of a sudden that perceived value of the dollar will 
go down. So that is a very serious problem that we will be needing to 
address in the not too distant future.
  I would like to mention in a little bit more detail the H. J. Res. 
90, because that is the number of the resolution that will be brought 
to the floor for a vote, and it is not a complicated piece of 
legislation, it is a single page. It just says that we do not want to 
be members of the World Trade Organization. People worry, well, what 
will this mean? It will mean that we believe in free trade. It means 
that we will trade with China and that we will have low tariffs and 
that we should not be subsidizing or managing trade for powerful 
special interests, but it will also mean that we do not endorse this 
concept that the World Trade Organization should be dictating to us the 
way we write our laws. The way this was stated is that we must accept 
the idea that we accept the rules of the WTO. I, of course, think that 
is a serious mistake, and that we should always work for free trade.

  Monesque was very clear on his ideas about what free trade should be 
and why we should have it in relationship to this issue of war and 
peace. That, of course, I think is the most important. He says, peace 
is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who differ with each other 
become reciprocally dependent, for if one has an interest in buying, 
the other has an interest in selling, and thus, their union is founded 
on their mutual necessities. That is true, but what we are doing today 
by subsidizing and supporting a regime like Red China, not trading with 
Red China, but subsidizing them at the same time we see the antagonism 
building with Taiwan and our only answer there is to rush to Taiwan and 
send them more weapons, and we decide to stand in between them, I think 
is a foolish policy that will lead to trouble.
  Madam Speaker, we should not be the policemen of the world. We should 
set a standard on free trade. We should set a standard in the ideas of 
liberty. We should be aware and think more seriously about what Patrick 
Henry said. If we are concerned only about the immediate financial 
benefit of some trade agreement, we forget about the bigger picture. 
And the bigger picture and the bigger the responsibility of all of us, 
my responsibility and your responsibility to our people, and the 
American people should think about this too. The most important thing 
is that we provide liberty for our people to let our people solve their 
problems. This blind faith in big government and this blind faith in 
international government and World Trade Organization, the United 
Nations, and this idea that we can police the world, that is a blind 
faith which I think has caused a lot of trouble and is bound to bring a 
lot more pain and suffering to us in the future.
  Madam Speaker, I am quite confident that in due time, it will be the 
undoing of our system if we do not change our ways. Because 
technically, we are a bankrupt Nation. We talk about huge surpluses, 
but the huge surpluses are fictitious. The national debt is going up at 
a rate of $100 billion a month. There is no surplus. There is a 
commitment made out there, and the wealth of this country is based on 
borrowed money and a belief that the dollar is going to be remaining 
strong forever and ever. That fiction will come to an end, and we will 
be forced to face up to reality, and then we have to decide what really 
is our purpose. Is our purpose to manage people, tell them how to live, 
tell them how to live their personal lives? Is our job to manage the 
economy and distort the general welfare clause and the interstate 
commerce clause to the point that we tell everybody what they can do 
with every item they buy?

                              {time}  2145

  And are we going to permit agreements that are not treaties to act as 
treaties to undermine our national sovereignty and write laws for us in 
the Congress? I do not think that is a very good idea, and I think that 
is the direction that we are going.
  I think there is every reason to believe that if we go back to what 
America was all about and the importance of the American policies, what 
made America great, we will be all right. But we have too much emphasis 
on the commercialism of what people want from special advantage.
  Why is it that we here in the Congress are lobbied by lobbyists 
willing to spend $130 million a month? Why do they come here? Because 
their interests are best served because we are doing way too much. And 
I certainly do not believe that the answer is to regulate the 
lobbyists, regulate the elections or tell people how to spend their own 
money. What we should regulate is ourselves. We should regulate our 
insatiable desire to tell people what to do and how to live and how to 
run the economy and how the world should run.
  That is what we cannot seem to control. We seem to not have any 
ability to just back away and have some belief and conviction that a 
free society works; that freedom works; that protection of life and 
liberty is important; the protection of property is important.
  Madam Speaker, the World Trade Organization undermines property 
rights through the patent laws, which they have done; the Congress 
endlessly buying up land and confiscating land from the people, taking 
land from the people. We do not honor property rights. We interfere 
with contracts continuously.
  The Government should be protecting liberty. The Government is not 
here under the original agreement with the people and the Constitution. 
The Government, we the Congress, the Constitution was designed to 
protect our liberties, not to undermine them; and yet we spend most of 
our time here undermining the liberties of the people.
  Now the question is: Is that what the people want? Do the people 
really want us to do this and tell them what to do and how to live 
endlessly, and they will accept that because they will get

[[Page H2398]]

things from us? As long as we take care of them and provide them free 
medical care and free education and everything is free, everybody knows 
we have all of that ability to create free things.
  Most people, though, I am afraid are on to us. They think the U.S. 
Congress and the United States Government creates nothing. They are 
incapable of creating anything. About all they can do is take from one 
and give to another, and then in the process undermine the principles 
of liberty. And by doing that, we will undermine the principles of the 
basic concept of what is necessary to produce a good standard of 
living. But we concentrate not on liberty, not on freedom. We 
concentrate on the things that are distributed and redistributed, the 
advantages and the disadvantages and how we are going to get bigger 
government. Not only bigger Federal Government, but bigger 
international government, never talking about what are the advantages 
to the people if we just give them their freedom. Just leave them 
alone.
  The people I have my greatest sympathies for are the low middle-
income people. People who do not want to go on welfare and are getting 
ripped off by the system because they do have to pay taxes, and they 
are the first ones who suffer from job losses and suffer from the 
inflation, and they are the last ones to have any representation up 
here. If one is on welfare, they have representation. And if one is a 
giant corporation willing to send equipment overseas and fight wars, 
they have great representation.
  But if one is hard working, believes in freedom, accepts the 
responsibility for their own acts, believes they should take care of 
their family, would like to be left alone, then they are seen as an 
enemy of the State. The Government too often wants to do something to 
them, like tax them more and more.
  So I think it is time we as a Congress started thinking about 
something other than the transfer of wealth and the control and 
manipulation of people. Think again once more of the quote that I used 
as I started tonight by Patrick Henry: ``You are not to inquire how 
your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and 
powerful people, but how your liberties may be secured. For liberty 
ought to be the direct end of your government.''
  If we make liberty the direct end of our government, I do not believe 
for one minute that we will have to worry about the prosperity. Because 
we have neglected the liberties of our people, I am deeply concerned 
about the prosperity of our people and I am deeply concerned about the 
international conflicts that we tend to stir up and demand that we send 
our troops throughout the world. I think that can lead to trouble. It 
has in the past. It will in the future.
  Because we have drifted from this notion that the Government should 
be limited. Limited to protecting our liberty, making sure the 
marketplace is free, making sure that property rights exist, and making 
sure that we mind our own business. And quite possibly if we would do 
more of that, minding our own business and not spending this money 
overseas, we could literally do a better job taking care of our 
military.
  Madam Speaker, our military needs funding. They need a morale boost. 
They need better training. They need a better mission. And yet we send 
them hither and yon around the world spending hundreds of billions of 
dollars, at the same time our defenses are probably as low as they have 
ever been.
  But that is not a ``lack of money'' problem; that is a ``lack of 
mission'' problem. It is a lack of understanding what policy ought to 
be. Our policy ought to be, and our purpose ought to be, the 
preservation of liberty. The preservation of liberty means that we 
should have free trade and that we should talk to our so-called enemies 
and trade with them and deal with them, and we are less likely to fight 
with them.
  But we should never fall into the trap of talking and using words 
incorrectly, this idea that people come and talk so much about free 
trade and then do not defend free trade, or do not understand it. What 
they are talking about is managed trade by the World Trade 
Organization, and it means that we also subsidize our enemies and our 
competitors around the world. That is not free trade. That is not 
related to freedom. Freedom is not that complex.
  Fortunately for us, we have a document that is rather clear and 
simple that we all can read and understand. And, unfortunately, we do 
not read it often enough when we pass this massive legislation here on 
the House floor and get ourselves involved in too many things. So, 
hopefully, here in the next couple of weeks as we talk more about trade 
and we have a vote on China, as well as a vote on whether or not we 
should even be in the World Trade Organization, hopefully we will have 
more than five or 10 or 15 or 20, say: That makes sense. Why are we in 
the World Trade Organization?
  We can still believe in freedom, we can still believe in trade, we 
can still believe in the American dream without accepting the idea that 
free trade and freedom means we belong to the World Trade Organization. 
Hopefully, there will be enough people in this Congress to send the 
message and say at least let us question this. Why do we feel so 
compelled to belong to these international organizations, joining them 
not with a treaty but with a mere vote of this Congress and now they 
are dictating law back to us.
  Hopefully, those individuals who are a little bit annoyed with the 
World Trade Organization because they have encroached upon our 
lawmaking process dealing with trade law, dealing with labor law, and 
dealing with environmental law, dealing with tax law, that they will 
say maybe the problem is not mismanagement of the World Trade 
Organization; maybe we should not have that much confidence that if we 
get a few new managers in there, like they think they can do at the 
IMF. Maybe the problem is that we should not be in the World Trade 
Organization at all.

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