[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 112 (Friday, July 25, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      UNITED STATES-CHILE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. BRAD SHERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 24, 2003

  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, the Chile and Singapore Free Trade 
Agreements and related implementing legislation were put before the 
House this week. These agreements are far less objectionable than other 
free trade agreements of major economic importance which the United 
States has enacted in the last decade.
  Viewed by themselves their disadvantages do not greatly exceed their 
advantages. These agreements are objectionable more for what is not in 
them than for what is in them. They will not in any event do much to 
decide our economic future.
  What is left is symbolism. I used this opportunity to hopefully 
reduce slightly what has been interpreted as round of applause for our 
current trade policy by the House of Representatives this week.
  Our current trade policy has produced the largest trade deficits in 
history. Our current accounts deficit for 2002 was $503 billion, our 
trade-in-goods deficit, about $485 billion. However you measure the 
deficit, it is now about 5 percent of GDP. At the beginning of the 
1990s it was 1/5 of one percent of GDP. And our deficit has doubled in 
just about the last 3 years.
  How far into the future can this continue--5 years, ten years? Either 
we will recognize this crisis in the middle years of this decade and 
take radical action, or we face an economic debacle, perhaps by the end 
of this decade, or certainly during the next.
  The best reason to vote against these two trade agreements is that 
they represent a slight readjustment of two deck chairs as the Titanic 
approaches the iceberg. Whether the chairs will now be positioned in a 
slightly more auspicious manner during the few minutes before the 
iceberg is struck, or whether their adjustment puts the chairs in a 
slightly less auspicious position, is hardly the point.
  I voted ``no'' on these trade bills. Lets shake our trade policy-
makers out of their stupor and work on trade and economic policies that 
will put us back on track, and put Americans back to work.