[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 42 (Tuesday, April 12, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1872]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE UNITED STATES TRADE DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to agree with the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Brown). The Commerce Department just announced another 
record trade deficit for our country. As an avalanche of imports comes 
in here and a whimper of our exports go out, we do not have free trade. 
We have a free fall in trade.
  This month the Commerce Department sent out a press release saying 
this past month had a record-breaking trade deficit. The U.S. trade 
deficit soared to an all time monthly high of $61 billion negative. The 
Commerce Department said that, in fact, the February imbalance was up 
4.3 percent from the record gap in January of $58.5 billion.
  It looks like the executive branch's promises are faltering again. 
When it was proposed, free trade for China was promoted as a boon to 
America's exporters. But if we look at what is happening here, every 
single year the trade deficit gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And 
this year it is going through the bottom of the chart.
  Once again, month after month, we see our manufacturers taking a hit. 
America truly is losing its economic prowess and our economic 
independence. In fact, under President Bush's watch, America has lost 
another three million manufacturing jobs.
  One of the hardest hit sectors is textiles. For February, imports of 
textiles and clothing from China rose by nearly 10 percent. One can 
honestly ask, Is anything made in America anymore, other than debt?
  The Bush administration's so-called free trade agenda is on course to 
bankrupt our economy. For the first 2 months of this year, just the 
first 2 months, the annualized trade deficit is 3 quarters of a 
trillion dollars, a full 100 billion more than last year. And we are 
watching oil prices going up over $50 a barrel, and that is adding to 
this growing deficit.
  Combined with our faltering dollar, soaring fuel costs and an 
expanding Federal deficit, America is anything but independent. We are 
in hock to foreign countries that hold nearly half of our public debt, 
and we are paying them hundreds of billions of dollars annually now in 
interest.
  The President talks about his risky plans to try to overhaul Social 
Security by borrowing trillions more dollars. Have they got a printing 
machine for money over there at the back room of the White House?
  This is not the American Dream. It is the American Nightmare. Tonight 
Congress should be taking a stand against this irresponsible fiscal 
policy. The golden rule of trade should be trade balances, not trade 
deficits; and we should operate by the golden rule, free trade among 
free people.
  We should reject CAFTA and any other trade bills that keep pushing 
American jobs offshore and pushing the trade deficit further into red 
ink. We should only support trade that is responsible and creates a 
level playing field and, at a minimum, trade balances and hopefully 
trade surpluses like we used to have.
  Until this President can give us a plan for a healthy economy based 
on security and economic independence, we should say no thank you. No 
more NAFTAs, no CAFTAs, no more trade agreements that do not produce a 
balance and a surplus.
  In fact, for every agreement that is currently on the books that is 
in the red, we ought to go back and require renegotiation if it has 
been in the red for 3 years or more, because it is not operating in 
America's interest. It might be operating in some global corporation's 
interest; but we should be worried about the American people and jobs 
here at home, both in manufacturing and agriculture, in resource and 
mining, in the real muscle of this country.
  We should be here to fight for America's future. It is time the 
President and the entire Congress did the same.

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