[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 62 (Thursday, May 12, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3250-H3252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE DANGERS OF CAFTA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dent). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed hearing my friend, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), and his comments about Medicare.
  I know that my Republican friends care about health care. But 
unfortunately, they care more about the drug companies and the 
insurance companies than they do in providing low-cost prescription 
drugs and health insurance to the 50 million Americans who do not have 
health insurance.
  I did not come forward today to talk about Medicare, particularly, 
except to note that when Congress passed the Medicare bill last year, a 
bill that a couple of years ago was not received by the public very 
well in part because they did not tell us the truth about the cost of 
the bill, it ended up costing almost $1 trillion when they told 
Congress it would only cost $400 billion.
  But more than that, this bill provided literally 180 additional 
billion dollars to the drug industry profits and had direct subsidies 
of about $60 billion to the insurance industry.
  So I wish, while my Republican friends, I do believe they care about 
the poor, they care about working people, they care about health 
insurance, unfortunately their caring so much more about the drug 
industry, the insurance industry, it sort of gets in the way of too 
often doing the right thing.
  I come forward this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, to talk a little bit 
about the Central American Free Trade Agreement which, frankly, will 
likely be defeated in this Congress bipartisanly. This is not a 
partisan issue. It is an issue of justice, an issue of jobs, and an 
issue of where our country and our economy goes.
  Two weeks ago, more than 150 Republicans and Democrats, Senate and 
House Members, pro-business, pro-labor groups gathered on Capitol Hill 
to speak out against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. 
Republican House and Senate Members and Democratic House and Senate 
Members joined with these outside groups, this group of unlikely bed 
fellows perhaps, to speak with one voice of the unified message to vote 
against the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
  CAFTA expands on the failed trade policies of the North American Free 
Trade Agreement and expands on those policies by enlarging NAFTA, the 
North American Free Trade Agreement, to six Central American countries, 
including the Dominican Republic.
  When I ran for Congress in 1992, I do not want to bore my colleagues 
with numbers, when I ran for Congress in 1992, the United States had a 
trade deficit of $38 billion. We thought that was way too big. That 
meant we were buying, importing $38 billion more worth of goods than we 
were exporting; $38 billion trade deficit we had in 1992.
  Last year after NAFTA, after PNTR with China, after several other 
trade agreements over the last decade-plus, our trade deficit is $618 
billion, from 38 to 618 billion.
  Now, you can see the trade deficit with Mexico as an example, prior 
to NAFTA, the year I came to Congress, in 1992, we actually had a trade 
surplus with the Republic of Mexico. We actually sold them more than we 
bought from them. Look what happened after NAFTA. Look at these 
numbers. This is zero right here. We had a trade surplus in those 4 
years prior to NAFTA. Then all of the sudden 10 billion, almost 20 
billion, 25 billion, over 30 billion, almost 40, over 40, approaching a 
$50 billion trade deficit with Mexico.
  Now, George Bush, Sr., who originally negotiated the North American 
Free Trade Agreement, he said that $1 billion in imports or exports 
represented about 12,000 jobs. That meant if you have a $3 billion 
trade surplus then that is three times 12,000. You would have 36,000 
more jobs in your country. If you have a $3 billion trade deficit, you 
would have 36,000 fewer jobs in your country.
  Look at this. We went from a $38 billion trade deficit overall to 
$618 billion. You do not need to do the math except you just sort of 
estimate and you see what these trade agreements have meant to the 
American people, to our economy, to our manufacturing base.
  In my State of Ohio we have lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs. One out 
of 5 manufacturing jobs in my State has disappeared in the last 4\1/2\ 
years since President Bush took office. Those manufacturing jobs have 
been lost for a lot of reasons. The most important reason is NAFTA and 
PNTR and these trade agreements.
  Unfortunately, these trade pacts like NAFTA and like CAFTA enable 
companies to exploit cheap labor in other countries and then import 
back to the United States under favorable terms. The Central American 
Free Trade Agreement should probably be named the Central American Free 
Labor Agreement because that is really what it is all about.
  About 5 or 6 years after NAFTA passed, in the mid-to late 1990s, at 
my own expense I flew to McAllen, Texas, rented a car and went across 
the border to Reynosa, Mexico because I wanted to see what NAFTA looked 
like, what these free trade agreements looked like. I wanted to put a 
face on these numbers. These numbers are persuasive. They certainly 
convinced me and I think convinced many that these trade agreements are 
bad ideas. But I wanted to see real faces and real people and put real 
names next to those faces and people so I really could understand what 
this global economy looked like.
  I went to the home of two people who worked for General Electric 
Mexico. They lived in an area about 30 feet by 30 feet, maybe smaller 
than that, probably more like 20 feet by 20 feet. No running water. No 
electricity. Dirt floor. When it rained hard, their floor turned to 
mud. Both of these people worked at General Electric Mexico. They lived 
3 miles from the United States of America.
  Now, if you walk outside their little shack into their colonia, their 
neighborhood, 3 miles from the United States, you will notice as you 
look around a couple of things. The first thing you will notice is 
there is a ditch nearby with who-knows-what human and industrial waste 
running through this ditch, maybe 4 feet wide. Children playing in this 
ditch because children will play wherever children play.
  The American Medical Association said this area along the Mexican-
U.S. border was the most toxic area in the Western Hemisphere. So no 
telling what kinds of diseases these children could get from playing in 
this ditch.
  If you walk through the neighborhood more, you will notice that all 
of these shacks were built out of packing materials, boxes and wooden 
crates and wooden platforms, coming from the companies from where they 
worked. So you could tell where these workers worked just by walking 
through the neighborhoods and looking at the shacks, shacks literally 
constructed out of packing materials for these companies they worked 
for.
  The point of the story is when I went to a General Motors plant 
nearby and what I noticed was this General Motors plant looked just 
like a General Motors plant in Lawrencetown, Ohio, and just like a Ford 
plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, or just like a Chrysler plant in Twinsburg, 
Ohio. It was modern. It was new, newer than the plants in my State. The 
floors were clean. The workers were working hard. The latest 
technology.
  There was one difference between the General Motors plant in Mexico 
and the auto plant in Ohio. And the different was the auto plant in 
Mexico did not have a parking lot because the workers were not paid 
enough to buy the cars which they make.
  You can go half way around the world to Malaysia to a Motorola plant. 
The workers do not make enough to buy the cells phones which they 
manufacture. You can go back halfway around the world to Costa Rica, 
one of the countries in the Central American Free Labor Agreement, and 
the workers at a Disney plant do not make enough to buy the toys that 
they manufacture.
  You can go back halfway around the world to China and go to a Nike 
plant

[[Page H3251]]

and the workers do not make enough to buy the shoes that they 
manufacture.
  That is what is great about our country. In our country because of 
labor unions, because of labor laws, because of our democracy workers 
share in the wealth that they are creating. If you work at General 
Motors or you work at a hardware store or wherever you work, if you 
help your employer make a profit and create wealth at that company or 
create value as a nurse at a hospital or a teacher in a high school, 
you share in the wealth or share in the good that you do. You get a 
share of those profits, a share of that wealth. That is how our country 
works.
  Unfortunately, it does not work that way in Mexico. And as you will 
see, frankly, it does not work that way in the other countries that are 
part of the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
  The average worker in the United States makes $38,000. That is enough 
to buy shoes, maybe to send your kids to college. It is enough to live 
in a decent place. It is enough to own a car. It is enough to go to the 
grocery store. It is enough to buy some things. But if you look at the 
rest of the countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement, 
Costa Rica, the average income is $9,100. In the Dominican Republic it 
is $6,000; El Salvador, $4,800; Guatemala, $4,100; and in Honduras and 
Nicaragua it is less than 10 percent of the income that Americans make: 
$2,600 in Honduras; $2,300 in Nicaragua.
  The combined purchasing power of these six countries, the combined 
purchasing power of the Central American countries is equal to that of 
Columbus, Ohio, or Orlando, Florida.
  When you think about the combined purchasing power and you look what 
these people in those countries earn, you know they do not make enough 
to buy a car manufactured in Ohio. They do not make enough to buy prime 
rib coming from cattle in Nebraska or Colorado. They do not make enough 
to buy software from the State of Washington. They do not make enough 
to buy steel from West Virginia. They do not make enough to buy clothes 
from North Carolina or South Carolina or Georgia.
  The fact is this Central American Free Labor Agreement is not about 
U.S. companies and U.S. farmers exporting their products to Central 
America. That will not happen because the Central American people are 
not paid enough to buy American products.
  What this agreement is all about is simply outsourcing of jobs; is 
American manufacturers moving production to Central America and setting 
up plants and paying workers wages that barely keep them alive and then 
selling those products back to the United States at tremendous profits.
  I have visited a factory in Nicaragua where the workers are making 23 
cents per pair of jeans that they sew. They get 23 cents for a pair of 
jeans they sew, and that pair of jeans is sold at Wal-Mart in the 
United States for $25 or $30. So the company is getting rich. The 
workers stay poor. And unfortunately, that is what is going to happen 
and get worse if CAFTA passes.
  If you want more proof already than this, the trade deficit, the 
amount of money that people are making, the fact that they simply 
cannot buy American products, let us look at the politics of it for a 
moment.
  The President of the United States has sent five trade agreements to 
Congress. The first four trade agreements, the trade agreement with 
Morocco, one with Chile, one with Singapore, and one with Australia, 
all passed the Congress overwhelmingly in fewer than 60 days, in less 
than 2 months. This time the President sent this trade agreement to us 
is almost a year ago, 348 days ago to be exact.
  Now, the reason the President sent this a year ago and Congress has 
not moved on it is simply because the American people understand what 
these trade agreements do to our country. Not just what they do to a 
family that loses a job. But what that means to that family, what that 
means to that school district, what that means to police and fire 
protection is that they do not have the kind of tax revenues when a 
plant closes down in a community and moves to China or moves out of 
town. All of that the American people understand it.
  It is finally after all of these trade agreements, the Congress of 
the United States has finally figured it out. That is why we have not 
voted on the Central American Free Labor Agreement yet, simply because 
the American people understand this trade agreement is not working. It 
has not worked in the past. These trade agreements will not work in the 
future.
  The President has tried to get it to pass in Congress, and Congress 
simply does not have the votes to pass it.

                              {time}  1645

  Earlier this spring, the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. DeLay), the most powerful Republican in the Congress, has 
announced that we would vote on Central American Free Trade Agreement 
by the end of the month, by May 27 before Congress leaves for Memorial 
Day weekend.
  That will mark literally the 1 year deadline, the 1 year anniversary, 
since CAFTA was signed by the President. That means with CAFTA, if 
CAFTA's not voted on by then, it is dead in the water. The issue is 
dead on arrival. It is clear the American people have said no and the 
U.S. Congress has said no.
  Once this 1-year anniversary passes, a lot of us who are opposed to 
this agreement say the President, I think the 1 year really means, 
okay, it has failed, it is time to go back to the drawing board and 
write a Central American Free Trade Agreement that we can pass.
  Clearly, there is a desperation among those people who have pushed 
Central American Free Trade Agreement in this Congress, that they have 
not been able to convince the American people that it is a good idea. 
So they are trying one last-ditch effort and that happened this week.
  This week the Presidents of the Central American countries and the 
Dominican Republic and six countries under CAFTA are touring the United 
States. The six Presidents of these countries are on a United States 
Chamber of Commerce junket pushing CAFTA. They went to Miami, Los 
Angeles, Albuquerque, to my State to Cincinnati, and they are 
attempting to convince the American people and the press that CAFTA is 
good for their country, good for their people and good for our country 
and good for our people.
  Like our own President, like in this country, these six Presidents 
have tried to convince everybody that CAFTA will lift up low income 
workers and that CAFTA will create jobs here in the United States. What 
they do not say is they do not talk about the combined purchasing power 
of CAFTA Nations equal to that of Columbus, Ohio, or Orlando, Florida, 
or Memphis, Tennessee. They do not mention that.
  They do not mention the fact, as I said earlier, that the workers in 
Central America cannot buy cars in Ohio or software from Washington 
State or steel made in Pennsylvania.
  What we do not hear from them is that CAFTA does nothing to ensure 
the enforcement of internationally recognized labor standards in their 
countries, and with all due respect to the Central American leaders, 
what they are not saying and what millions of us know already is that 
millions of their workers, like 10s of millions of American workers, do 
not support this agreement. The Presidents may support them, but the 
workers in their countries and our country do not support this 
agreement.
  What they will not tell reporters, what they did not tell reporters 
in their Chamber of Commerce junket around the United States is that 
8,000 Guatemalan workers protested against CAFTA 2 months ago. Two of 
them were killed by government security forces.
  They do not tell us that 10s of thousands of El Salvadorans protested 
CAFTA two-and-a-half year ago.
  They do not tell us about the 18,000 letters sent by Honduran workers 
to the Honduran legislature, decrying the dysfunctional cousin of 
CAFTA, NAFTA.
  They do not tell us about the 10,000 people who protested CAFTA in 
Managua, Nicaragua, in 2003.
  They do not tell us about the 30,000 CAFTA protesters in Costa Rica 
this past fall.
  They do not tell us that hundreds of thousands of workers have 
protested in Central America in 45 different demonstrations in the last 
3 years.
  Opposition to CAFTA is as strong in Central America as it is in the 
United

[[Page H3252]]

States. I ask my colleagues in this Congress, when the Presidents of 
Central American countries come around to our offices, as they have, 
and ask us to vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, 
understand, they may support it for whatever reasons, but the people of 
their countries, in large numbers, do not.
  A couple of nights ago, after the Chamber of Commerce tour of America 
that the six Presidents took, the Chamber of Commerce hosted a 
reception for the visiting dignitaries, rewarding them, thanking them 
for their lobbying efforts this week. You can imagine this very plush 
room at the Chamber of Commerce, in its beautiful structure in downtown 
Washington, where the chamber has its very nice offices.
  You can imagine the leaders, the CEOs, of the most powerful and 
largest corporations in our country were raising toasts, thanking the 
six Central American and Dominican Republic Presidents for their 
campaigning for this issue. Then you can see the six Presidents raising 
a toast to the Presidents and CEOs of the largest companies in America, 
thanking them for their support.
  It just made you wonder were the CEOs or were these Presidents 
thinking of the millions of workers and hundreds of thousands of 
workers in each of these countries, millions of workers in the United 
States, who are opposed to this agreement and who knew that this 
agreement would bring more problems for America.
  Did they think about the small businesses in Ohio and Michigan that 
do not want another failed trade agreement? Did they think about the 
small stores in Managua and Santo Domingo and in San Juan that would go 
out of business and that would be pushed out of business because of 
these trade agreements? Did they think about the family farms in North 
Carolina or the coffee farmers in Costa Rica or the highlands of 
Nicaragua? Did they think about the sugar farmers in Minnesota, in 
eastern Oregon and in Idaho and in Minnesota and Louisiana? Or did they 
think about the sugar cane workers in Central American? My guess is 
they did not.
  When I think about these trade issues, and I again go back to this 
chart as I am about to close, I go back to this chart which shows the 
relative income of each of these Central American countries, and when 
you think about where we want to go with our trade agreements and what 
has happened to our trade agreements, we have seen so much pain on each 
side.
  We have seen pain in O'Leary, Ohio, near where I live, a town of 
about 50,000, industrial town which has had certainly its tough times. 
When York Manufacturing shut down its plant and moved much of its 
production to Mexico, think about those families; the unemployment in 
that community; people losing their jobs; kids not able to go to 
college; people, their homes are foreclosed on; what happened to the 
school district, which lost a big chunk of money; what happened to 
police and fire protection in that city because they lost so much tax 
revenue. Then you think about what happens to workers in the developing 
world in these countries when these trade agreements inflict the damage 
that they do on them, these workers, the family I met in Mexico that 
worked at General Electric, that could barely make a living and what 
happened in their lives and the pain they felt.
  You think about the damage, both in the rich world, our world, the 
United States, the rich countries, and you think of the poor countries 
and the damage there. Instead, we could pass not this Central American 
Free Trade Agreement. When the time runs out, when this clock is down, 
when the deadline passes and CAFTA is dead, it is time to pass a new 
Central American Free Trade Agreement, negotiate a new one that will 
really lift workers up, because trade agreements work when the world's 
poorest workers, the workers for Nike in China, the workers for 
Motorola in Malaysia, the workers for Disney in Costa Rica, the workers 
at the auto plants in Mexico, when the world's poorest workers can buy 
American products, rather than just make them, then we will know, Mr. 
Speaker, that our trade policies are finally succeeding.

                          ____________________