[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 33 (Thursday, March 17, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1678]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         RECORD TRADE DEFICITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, the United States set a new record 
officially, and that is something, unfortunately, which will haunt us 
for decades to come, a new record trade deficit of $665.9 billion. We 
have two growing categories of exports as the leading industrialized 
nation in the world, and one is waste. We are exporting more waste 
paper, bottles, cans and things to the world's fastest growing 
industrial giant, China, which they turn into high value added goods 
and ship back to us.
  Our second greatest export, or actually the greatest export is U.S. 
dollars. We are borrowing $665.9 billion from overseas producers to 
bring goods into this country without adding to the economic industrial 
base, in fact to the detriment of the economic industrial base of the 
United States.
  Japan today holds $820 billion, China $610 billion. China will soon 
eclipse Japan. Within 3 years, China will have a trillion dollars of 
IOUs from the United States Government. They will have not only a 
stranglehold over the production of goods, because we are buying so 
many things from them and so many U.S. companies have put capital into 
China instead of jobs here, but they will have a stranglehold over the 
dollar.
  Let us image a confrontation over Taiwan, and the Chinese say we are 
not going to take you on militarily yet, it is 10 or 15 years until we 
have eclipsed you militarily, although we have eclipsed you 
industrially, but we are going to dump dollars tomorrow. We are going 
to take the dollar down to the value of a rupee or even less. They 
could threaten to dump that trillion dollars onto the world market, 
cause an economic catastrophe here at home and around the world. They 
would not have to fire a single shot.
  This administration thinks it is just peachy. They say the U.S. is 
growing so fast, that is why we have these huge trade deficits. Yes, we 
are growing so fast on borrowed money and purchasing products made 
overseas. That is not exactly my idea of adding to the economic 
industrial base might of the United States of America and putting our 
own people into productive work. Members wonder why wages are dropping 
in the U.S. and people are not doing so well, because the good jobs, 
the manufacturing jobs, the high-paying jobs, the jobs with benefits, 
are going to China and other unfair trading nations.
  And this administration, and to give them some due, the last 
administration was afraid to take on China on their unfair trade 
practices. They can steal products, like they have from companies in my 
own district, clone them in China, including translating the U.S. 
patents into Chinese, and this administration and the last will not 
lift a finger to stop that. This administration said bring them to the 
WTO, rules-based trade, and then we will go after them. They have only 
filed one complaint against China. The billions that they are pirating 
from our companies, one complaint and who was it for, Pfizer, the big 
drug company, the only company that this administration would file a 
complaint at the WTO on behalf of, not the electronics company in my 
district, not the wood products company in my district, not other 
companies all across America who are being pirated by the Chinese, just 
Pfizer who could probably take care of themselves, but these other 
little guys cannot.
  We have a failed trade policy in this country. We cannot continue to 
borrow here at home, $1.3 million a minute with our current account 
deficit to run the government, and borrowing $2 billion a day from 
overseas from countries that are potential future enemies, or at least 
competitors, like China. It is crazy. It is not sustainable.
  Even the great guru, Alan Greenspan, the head political economic hack 
in this town, has said it is not sustainable. When will this 
administration wake up?

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