[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 20, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2381-H2382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          DO NOT SUPPORT CAFTA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Foxx). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, earlier today, nearly two dozen 
House and Senate Members, a large number of Members of both parties, 
held a news conference with about 175 to 200 people representing a 
whole host of organizations in opposition to the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement.
  Those groups were as diverse as textile manufacturers, as sugar 
farmers, as environmentalists, labor organizations, religious groups, 
all kinds of groups, all kinds of organizations, all kinds of 
individuals in opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
  Madam Speaker, sometime in the next 6 weeks, this legislation, the 
Central American Free Trade Agreement, will come to the House floor for 
a vote, according to Republican majority leader, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. DeLay), and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas.)
  The supporters of the Central American Free Trade Agreement have told 
Members of Congress, have told the public, have told newspapers that 
the Central American Free Trade Agreement will create jobs for 
Americans, it will create more opportunities to manufacture goods and 
export them to Central America, it will help farmers and small 
businesses and manufacturers and consumers and all kinds of groups and 
people in our country.
  The problem is that is the exact same thing that supporters of the 
North American Free Trade Agreement told us a dozen years ago. It is 
the exact same promise that sponsors of entry into the World Trade 
Organization told us about 10 years ago; it is the same promise that 
they told us when we considered the China PNTR, Permanent Normal Trade 
Relations, most favored nation status for China; this is the same 
promise they made on a half dozen other trade agreements.
  Yet, in every case, after every trade agreement, we lost more 
manufacturing jobs, we saw our environmental and food safety standards 
weakened, we saw less prosperity within those countries with whom we 
traded, whether it was Mexico, whether it was China, whether it was 
country after country after country.
  Wages continued to stagnate in those countries, and wages continue to 
stagnant in our country. People actually earn less in real dollars 
today than they did a year ago before the last trade agreement. On 
issue after issue they continue to make these promises, and they 
generally failed to live up to these promises.
  Madam Speaker, I would call your attention to this chart. The year I 
ran for Congress in 1992, the United States had a trade deficit of $38 
billion, $38 billion in 1992, 13 years ago. You can see how this trade 
deficit got bigger and bigger and bigger.
  Today our trade deficit, through the year 2004, our trade deficit was 
$618 billion. It went from $38 billion just about a dozen years later 
$618 approximately.

[[Page H2382]]

That means more Americans, more American jobs are exported, more 
American job losses, and that is bad news not just for manufacturing 
and the people that own those companies; it is bad news for American 
workers, it is bad news for our communities, it is bad news for our 
schools and our families.
  And if we really want to talk about American values, then we ought to 
be talking about what these trade agreements do to our children, do to 
our families, what they do to the school systems, what they do to 
police and fire protection, school districts, police districts and fire 
districts; and cities lose more and more tax revenue.
  The fact is the promises of the Central American Free Trade Agreement 
are again the same as they were under NAFTA, the same as they were 
under China trade, the same as they were under the legislation setting 
up the World Trade Organization. But what we see time and time again is 
more trade deficit, more hemorrhaging of American jobs.
  Now, when they talk about CAFTA, the six countries in Central America 
that this trade agreement involves with the United States under that, 
the entire economies of these six countries are equal to the economy of 
Columbus, Ohio or the State of Kansas, or Orlando, Florida. Their 
buying power is such in those countries, those six countries, as poor 
as they are, and as small as they are, they simply do not have the 
buying power to buy American products. Guatemalans and Nicaraguans and 
the people in Honduras and Costa Rica and El Salvador simply do not 
have the money to buy cars manufactured in Ohio, or steel made in West 
Virginia. They do not have the purchasing power to buy textiles and 
apparel from Georgia, South Carolina, from North Carolina.
  They do not have the money or the purchasing power or the income to 
buy software from Seattle or high-tech products from California. Madam 
Speaker, what this trade agreement is about is what all of these trade 
agreements are about: they are about cheap labor, no environmental 
regulation, weak worker safety laws. We need to vote ``no'' on the 
Central American Free Trade Agreement.

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