[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 91 (Thursday, June 19, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H5647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      DISASTROUS U.S. TRADE POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, congratulations are in order for the 
Bush administration. They have set yet another record, something to be 
proud or at least something that their political campaign contributors 
can be proud of, which is the trade policy of the United States which 
is a disaster for working Americans and the industrial infrastructure 
of this country, but immensely profitable for many multinational 
corporations based in the United States who are generous campaign 
contributors.
  The trade deficit for the first 3 months of 2003 was a new record: 
$136.1 billion. If we keep that pace up, we will break last year's 
trade deficit of $435 billion, and reach a $550 billion trade deficit. 
That means we are losing $1.5 billion a day in U.S. wealth to overseas. 
$1 million per minute.
  Mr. Speaker, 53,000 manufacturing jobs alone were lost in May of this 
year, hollowing out the manufacturing base of the United States of 
America, formally the greatest industrial Nation on Earth. There have 
been 251,000 lost this year and 34 consecutive months of decline in the 
manufacturing workforce. These are all record accomplishments of the 
Bush administration.
  They told us if they weakened the dollar, this would all get better. 
Well, the dollar has plummeted, hurting the purchasing power of all 
Americans, yet the trade deficit is continuing to grow longer. How can 
that be? The economists scratch their heads. The theory says your 
currency goes down, your trade deficit goes. But if you do not 
manufacture things any more, if you do not export goods, which the 
United States does precious little of, then it does not matter what the 
value of the currency is because you are buying overseas.

                              {time}  1815

  In fact, if your currency goes down, your trade deficit goes up, 
which is exactly what happened because you are buying all the 
manufactured goods overseas. Besides that, the Chinese have illegally 
under the WTO, which I am not a supporter of, but the U.S. is a 
signatory to, as is China, and the U.S. fought to get them in, has 
fixed their currency to the U.S. currency. So no matter how low our 
dollar goes, we are still going to run record trade deficits with the 
Chinese who now are the largest holders of U.S. debt overseas.
  We are not only enthralled to the Chinese for their manufacturing, 
they can basically threaten the United States if the United States ever 
decided to get tough with a lot of the bad things they do over there 
with the 300-plus billion dollars of our currency that they hold 
because of the growing trade deficit. This is a looming disaster for 
this country.
  If we look at the record deficit we are setting domestically, again 
another record for the Bush administration, over a $500 billion deficit 
this year and the trade deficit, the United States of America is going 
to have to borrow over $1 trillion this year to finance a failed trade 
policy and a failed domestic financial policy. Borrow over $1 trillion. 
A lot of that money is going to come from overseas. It does not come 
for free, let me tell you that. A good deal of that money is going to 
come from what was supposed to be the Social Security lock box which 
has been busted open and spent and is being spent on current 
consumption, particularly to finance tax cuts for the wealthy.
  For instance, yesterday's vote to permanently repeal any estate tax 
on estates over $6 million, four-tenths of 1 percent of estates in the 
United States of America, supposedly small family farms, small 
businesses and small tree and wood lot folks with over $6 million in 
assets. I tell you what, $6 million is plenty of an exemption for small 
businesses. But, no, the Bush administration had to go whole hog and go 
for an exemption of all estates. That will cost another $60 billion a 
year, which we will borrow from Social Security, from working wage-
earning Americans and send to the wealthy. They will, of course, 
replace the Social Security benefits for those folks. Ha.
  So what is the good we see in this? Unfortunately, very little. 
Record trade deficit, failing trade policy. What has the Bush 
administration proposed? Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts domestically to 
help the deficit and then on the international front, well, our trade 
policy is working so well with a $550 billion looming trade deficit 
this year, with the loss of 53,000 manufacturing jobs in May, 250,000 
lost so far this year, they want to set a new record so they want more 
of the same. More so-called free trade agreements. They have got two 
that are already on the way up here to Capitol Hill that they expect 
will go through like that.
  The wheels are greased because these are important people and this is 
such a successful policy. It is working so well for whom? Not for 
American workers, not for our industrial infrastructure, but for a few 
wealthy benefactors who control those companies.
  Hopefully we can bring about and restore common sense here and 
recognize the fact that you cannot run huge and growing deficits 
forever. Even Alan Greenspan has recognized that. He says this policy 
is not sustainable.

                          ____________________