[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 17, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3428-H3432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 CAFTA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Price of Georgia). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Brown) is recognized for a period not to exceed 60 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, nearly a year ago, President Bush 
signed the Central America Free Trade Agreement, a one-sided plan to 
benefit multinational corporations at the expense of American workers, 
U.S. workers, and Central American workers, businesses, small farmers, 
a whole bunch of us in all those countries, both in Central America and 
here.
  Every trade agreement negotiated by the Bush administration, every 
trade agreement passed by this Congress since George Bush took office, 
Singapore, Chile, Morocco and Australia, every one of those trade 
agreements was voted upon in Congress within a couple of months of the 
time President Bush signed the agreement. CAFTA, the Central American 
Free Trade Agreement, some call it the Central American Free Labor 
Agreement, and you will understand that in a moment, has languished in 
Congress for nearly 1 year without a vote because this wrong-headed 
trade agreement offends both Republicans and Democrats.
  Just look at what has happened with our trade policy in the last 
decade. In 1992, the first year I was elected to Congress, we had a 
trade deficit in this country of only $38 billion. That was in 1992. 
Last year our trade deficit was $618 billion. It went from $38 billion, 
and a dozen years later $618 billion. It is hard to argue that our 
trade policy is working with that kind of gargantuan swelling budget 
deficit.
  Opponents to the Central American Free Trade Agreement know in fact 
it is simply an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement, 
which clearly did not work for our country. It is the same old story. 
Every time there is a trade agreement, the President says it will mean 
more jobs for our Nation. The President says it will mean more 
manufacturing in the United States. The President says it will mean 
better wages for workers in the developing world, and as their standard 
of living goes up they buy more things from the United States.
  Yet, with every trade agreement, from NAFTA through China, through 
every other trade agreement, those promises from the President fall by 
the wayside in favor of big business interests that simply send U.S. 
jobs overseas and export cheap labor abroad. According to President 
Bush, Senior, every billion dollars in trade, surplus or deficit, 
translates into 12,000 jobs.

                              {time}  2130

  So if you have a $2 billion trade surplus, you have a net increase in 
your country of $2 billion, times 12,000 jobs. You have a 24,000 job 
surplus increase if you have a $2 billion trade surplus.
  But instead, we had a $38 billion trade deficit 12 years ago. Today 
we have a $618 billion trade deficit. So according to the way that 
President Bush Sr. figured out what these trade agreements mean, that 
means a job loss of 7.3 million jobs to our Nation.
  You can see pretty much what that meant because many of those jobs, a 
large number of those jobs, are manufacturing jobs. Look at the red. 
The red here means greater than 20 percent manufacturing job loss in 
our Nation in only the last 6-or-so years. You can look at almost all 
the Northeast, much of the Midwest, all the textile manufacturing from 
the South, steel and auto manufacturing here, and steel in these areas, 
textiles in these areas, in State after State after State. You see this 
kind of manufacturing job loss.
  So we are going to do more of these trade agreements so we see more 
manufacturing job loss? That is what the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement is all about. In the face of growing bipartisan opposition, 
and make no mistake about it, the Central America free labor agreement, 
Central American Free Trade Agreement, call it what you want, that 
agreement is dead on arrival when it comes to this Congress because 
large numbers of Democrats and Republicans oppose this agreement.
  That is why the President, unlike all of the other trade agreements 
which were voted on almost immediately upon the President's signature, 
that is why this trade agreement has been languishing for 1 year. For 
11 months and 20-some days, it has not been voted on. But this year the 
administration is trying every trick in the book to pass the Central 
American Free Labor Agreement.
  For instance, the administration is linking CAFTA to helping 
democracy in the developing world. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy 
Secretary of State Zoellick, both said the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement will help in the war on terror. Figure that out.
  Ten years of NAFTA, 10 years of the North American Free Trade 
Agreement, has done nothing to improve border security between the 
United States and Mexico. That argument simply does not sell. The North 
American Free Trade Agreement did nothing for border security. We saw 
this kind of job loss since NAFTA, this kind of trade deficit since 
NAFTA, from $38 billion 12 years ago to a $618 billion trade deficit 
last year.
  So the President's people tried to argue, tried to link the passage 
of CAFTA to making the world safe against terrorism. That did not work, 
so now just last week the United States Chamber of Commerce flew on a 
junket the six presidents from Central America and the Dominican 
Republic around our Nation hoping they might be able to sell the 
Central American Free Trade Agreement. Again they failed.
  But they sent these six presidents to Cincinnati, to Los Angeles, to 
Albuquerque, back to Washington where they had a Chamber of Commerce 
reception at their very fancy headquarters, but that did not work 
because those six Central American presidents are not strong believers 
in CAFTA themselves.
  The Costa Rican president, for instance, announced his country would 
not ratify CAFTA unless an independent commission determines that the 
agreement will not hurt the working poor of his country.
  Understand what CAFTA is all about. The average income for an 
American is about $38,000. The average income for a Honduran or a 
Nicaraguan is less than one-tenth that. So think about that. A $38,000 
average income for an American. And on that income many Americans can 
buy a washer and a dryer, and can begin to purchase a home, perhaps. 
Many Americans can buy a car and begin to put away in some cases a 
little money for a child for college or at least borrow some money and 
get them to college.
  But on $2,000 or $3,000 an average wage in Honduras or Nicaragua, 
they are not going to buy cars made in Ohio and washing machines made 
in the U.S. or steel from West Virginia or software from Seattle. They 
are not going to be able to buy prime beef from Nebraska. They are not 
going to be able to buy textiles or apparel from Georgia. The fact is 
that this trade agreement is not about the U.S. selling products to 
Central America. It is about U.S. companies looking for cheap labor and 
outsourcing those jobs to Latin America. That is why we have this kind 
of

[[Page H3429]]

manufacturing job crisis. That is why we have this trade deficit that 
went from $38 billion 12 years ago to $618 billion today.
  Get a look at these manufacturing job losses: 210,000 jobs lost in 
Michigan; 216,000 jobs lost in Ohio; 228,000 jobs lost, and these are 
just manufacturing jobs, not to mention what happens when a 
manufacturing job is lost. If a manufacturing job is lost in Lorain, 
Ohio, that means not just that man or woman loses a job. It means that 
family can no longer send their kids to college. It means that family 
can barely get along. They might lose their house. It means that town 
has lost a factory, which means higher school taxes; it means a layoff 
of police and fire. It means that education suffers. This kind of job 
loss, 200,000-plus in Ohio; 200,000-plus in Michigan; 200,000-plus in 
Illinois; 228,000-plus in North Carolina; 50,000 in Mississippi; 75,000 
in Alabama; 100,000 in Georgia, that in most cases is about one in five 
manufacturing jobs in the State.
  These numbers may not mean anything to Members of Congress; they are 
just numbers. But think about the families that lose these jobs. Think 
about the breadwinner coming home and saying to his wife, we lost this 
job, how do we clothe our kids? How do we pay for medical care, and 
what are we doing about the police and fire in our neighborhoods 
because this plant is shutting down? That is what this trade agreement 
is about. They are about workers in our country, and they are about 
workers in the developing world in Latin America.
  About 5 years ago at my own expense, I flew to McAllen, Texas. I 
wanted to see the face of NAFTA. I knew all of the statistics about 
NAFTA. I knew the lost manufacturing jobs and what it did to my 
community in O'Leary, Ohio; but I wanted to see what it did in Mexico. 
So I rented a car in McAllen, Texas, and went across the border to 
Reynosa, Mexico, just to look at the face of free trade and what NAFTA 
had done along the U.S.-Mexican border.

  I went to a home, and this was a shack maybe 30 feet by 20 feet, dirt 
floors, no electricity, no running water. This dirt floor turned to mud 
when it rained. The husband and wife both worked at General Electric 
Mexico 3 miles from the United States. If you walked back behind their 
home in this colonia, you would see other shacks that looked a lot like 
theirs. But as you walked through the neighborhood, as the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Flake) knows, and he lives on a border State, you can 
tell where these workers work because their homes are constructed out 
of packing material, wooden crates and packing materials from the 
companies at which they worked, or from boxes to the suppliers for 
which they work.
  I saw a ditch with two by fours running across it. Who knows what was 
running through the ditch, human waste, industrial waste. Children were 
playing in this ditch because children will play wherever children 
play. The American Medical Association said this area along the U.S.-
Mexican border is the most toxic place in the western hemisphere, and 
yet these workers are working at General Electric Mexico 3 miles from 
the United States each making 90 cents an hour.
  Nearby their home, I visited a General Motors plant. General Motors 
Mexico looks not much different from a General Motors plant in 
Lordstown, Ohio, or a Ford plant in Avon Lake, or a Chrysler plant in 
Twinsburg, Ohio. The workers are working hard, the plant is clean, the 
plant is modern. This plant in Mexico is more modern than many in the 
United States, but there is one difference between the plant in Mexico 
and the plant in the United States, and that is the plant in the Mexico 
does not have a parking lot because the workers cannot afford to buy 
the cars they make.
  You can fly halfway around the world to Malaysia and to a Motorola 
plant and the workers cannot afford to buy the cell phones they make, 
or fly back halfway across the world to Costa Rica and go to a Disney 
plant and the workers cannot afford to buy the Disney toys for their 
children, or fly to China and go to a Nike plant and the workers cannot 
afford to buy the shoes they make.
  Mr. Speaker, that is what makes our country great is because of trade 
unions. Because of a free democracy in this country, Americans share in 
the wealth. If you work for General Motors, a local hardware store, if 
you are a teacher, a nurse, you are creating value and creating wealth 
for your employer. If you are a private sector employee, you are 
creating wealth for the company. You share some of that wealth. You get 
health benefits and a decent wage. You can buy a house and a car.
  If you work in a service job, you are creating value for those people 
whom you serve, and you get some wealth. You share in some of the 
wealth of the value that you create. That is why our system works. That 
is why these trade agreements do not work, because when we move these 
manufacturing jobs, the 216,000 in Ohio, a heck of a lot of those ended 
up in Mexico, and darn near all of them ended up as part of our trade 
deficit to China or Mexico or to somewhere else across the world.
  Whenever those jobs are lost, they are typically jobs that are 
transferred; but those jobs do not create wealth for the people that 
get them in the developing world because they simply are not paid 
enough. If they are Ford workers in Mexico, they are not paid enough to 
buy the cars that they made. That is why these trade agreements do not 
work.
  The most powerful Republican Member of the House, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader, joined by the chairman of the 
Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Thomas), said there would be a vote on the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement by Memorial Day. That marks the 1-year anniversary.
  Remember at the beginning of my remarks I said all four trade 
agreements that this Congress has voted on since President Bush has 
been President, the trade agreements for Australia, Chile, Morocco and 
Singapore, all four were voted on within 60 days after the President 
signed them.
  This trade agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, has 
not been voted on for 11\1/2\ months. Members can see the CAFTA 
countdown, and in only a week and a half the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement will celebrate its 1-year anniversary. That tells me 
they simply do not have the votes to pass the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement.
  So at the same time the self-imposed deadline from the majority 
leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas), means they may call a vote before the end of 
the month. We are hearing they are going to delay it.
  I ask, Mr. Speaker, as we can see by this calendar, a week away from 
the deadline with no vote in sight, what this should tell my fellow 
Members of Congress is that come May 27, we should scrap the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement, not that we should never do a trade 
agreement, not that we are against any kind of trade. We should scrap 
this trade agreement and renegotiate another trade agreement that will 
work for the American people.
  Last month two dozen Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined 
more than 150 business groups and labor organizations in this city 
saying vote ``no'' on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Last 
week more than 400 union workers and Members of Congress gathered in 
front of the Capitol saying vote ``no'' on the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement.
  Why, because Republicans and Democrats, business and labor groups, 
know what the administration refuses to admit, and that is CAFTA is not 
about selling products abroad or exporting American goods because that 
simply has not worked. CAFTA is about one thing: it is about access to 
cheap labor and the outsourcing that goes with it.
  Congress must throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA on this 
deadline this month, must throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA 
and negotiate a trade agreement that will lift workers up in Central 
America while promoting prosperity here in our country.

                              {time}  2145

  Instead of a loss for American workers and the kind of job loss we 
have seen in State after State after State, instead of a continuing to 
increase trade deficit, from $38 billion to over $100 billion to over 
$200 billion, to over

[[Page H3430]]

$300 billion, to over $400 billion, last year in 2003 over $500 
billion, now a $600 billion trade deficit in this country, instead of 
these continued trade deficits, continued manufacturing job loss, 
Congress should throw out this dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA and 
negotiate a trade agreement that will lift up workers in Central 
America while promoting prosperity here at home.
  Come May 28, we should bury the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement. We should renegotiate a new CAFTA so that we can negotiate 
and trade more with our neighbors on terms that will help lift up 
workers in all six of the NAFTA countries and in the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for 
his ever-present vigilance on issues that affect American workers and 
the American economy. I rise tonight to join him in objecting to CAFTA 
and in pointing out to the people why it is so important that CAFTA be 
defeated. All of these trade agreements have been about one thing and 
one thing only--cheap labor. Corporations create conditions where they 
help to pass these agreements so that they can move jobs out of this 
country and create jobs in other countries but the jobs in the other 
countries are not benefiting people because they are working, in some 
cases, far below the poverty level. CAFTA, as it was with NAFTA, 
creates conditions where workers have no rights. As a matter of fact, 
the trade agreements are written specifically to preclude workers 
having the right to collective bargaining, the right to organize, the 
right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a 
safe workplace, the right to be compensated if you are injured on the 
job, the right to a secure retirement, the right to participate in the 
political process. All of those are swept aside under CAFTA as they 
were under NAFTA.
  What happens when jobs are created under these trade agreements? 
First of all, workers are working for a pittance. Secondly, they have 
no protections whatsoever. They are just basically human chattel. 
Third, there is no job security. They can be moved around. Beyond that, 
these trade agreements have no protections against child labor, prison 
labor, slave labor. They have no protections for the water or the air.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. As the gentleman was talking, I am thinking about 
what he said a few nights ago. There is no protection for the 
environment, for workers, but there is very good protection in this 
bill for a group that is very powerful in this body and that is the 
prescription drug industry. My colleague spoke last week about what the 
drug industry did in Central America, what the United States Trade Rep 
did on behalf of the drug industry that gave them a whole lot more 
rights than workers get, a whole lot more protections than the 
environment get.
  Would my colleague talk a little bit about that?
  Mr. KUCINICH. Yes. The agreements are written so that corporations 
have protections and their patents have protections and people who need 
drugs in certain countries for their own health often cannot afford 
them because the patent protections are supplied to corporations under 
these trade agreements but countries cannot go ahead and make generic 
equivalents because it would challenge the way the trade laws are 
structured. So these trade agreements are never written to benefit 
people. They are written to benefit corporations. We have to remember 
that even in our own country, corporations often have greater powers 
than individuals. There was an 1895, I believe it was, Santa Clara 
County decision by the Supreme Court which basically ceded to 
corporations a whole range of rights that put them on equal status with 
people. Yet corporations do not want to recognize the fundamental human 
rights that workers have, the fundamental responsibility that we all 
have to protecting the environment, and so they are given privileges in 
this country to avoid responsibility for protecting our air and water, 
to avoid responsibility for protecting workers' pensions, to avoid 
responsibility for providing for a safe workplace. They often can get 
off on some of their violations. Yet these trade agreements basically 
create a race to the bottom on standards, on rights, on principles, on 
the environment. That is why it is absolutely critical that my 
colleague has been leading the way on this and I am glad to join him in 
challenging what this does to people.
  There are moral principles here. These principles go beyond politics. 
Pope Leo XIII when he wrote Rerum Novarum talked about the rights of 
workers. Pope Paul VI when he wrote his encyclical Progressive 
Populorum spoke about how corporations have responsibilities. There are 
fundamental principles that are engrained in a Judeo-Christian ethic, 
in a body where we celebrate, we are told, these kind of principles 
which are a bedrock of our society, yet they are just swept aside in 
favor of profit. It is not supposed to be that way.
  That is why so many of us stood with young people in the streets of 
Seattle to challenge the WTO. That is why people are gathering all over 
this country challenging the Central American Free Trade Agreement. 
That is why our brothers and sisters in Central America need us to 
stand up.
  Yo creo que es muy importante pelear por los derechos de los 
trabajadores. It is very important to take a stand for the rights of 
workers.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Taking back my time for a moment, as we talked 
about a week or so ago, while the six presidents were flying around the 
United States on a junket paid for by the Chamber of Commerce and then 
met with President Bush and all, they mentioned a lot of things about 
CAFTA but they never mentioned the kind of opposition to the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement, not just from American workers but from 
workers in every one of those countries. There were demonstrations and 
protests of thousands of people in virtually every capital city in the 
six countries. To the point that the president of Costa Rica, as I said 
in my earlier remarks, the president of Costa Rica now is saying he 
does not want to see this ratified until he sees some real guarantees 
in this agreement that the poor in his country, and in his country 
there are a large number of very poor people, and the workers in his 
country will not be left out of the agreement. So far, they are left 
out and he is dissatisfied by that.
  But I think when those presidents have come home, both when they 
left, they saw these kinds of demonstrations, huge opposition among the 
people of those countries, and that huge opposition has continued. This 
Congress should simply not believe when these six presidents are 
walking around after their Chamber of Commerce tour, when they came to 
our offices and argued for this Central American free labor agreement, 
my colleagues need to understand that just because those six presidents 
were for it does not mean their countrymen and countrywomen were.
  Mr. KUCINICH. A member of congress from one of these Central American 
countries who will be meeting with a group of Congressmen soon so I do 
not want to release his name just yet, told me that when a bill that 
would help facilitate CAFTA came before the House in his country, that 
it was brought in at about 3 in the morning, that members did not have 
a chance to read it, that they did not know that it would facilitate 
the privatization of public services, for example, and that they were 
basically encouraged to vote for it sight unseen.

  These are the kind of fundamental violations of democratic principles 
and democratic rights which we see people in Central America already 
suffering even before this agreement is passed. What happens is these 
corporations have so much power in these other countries that 
legislatures are steamrolled. Here in the Congress of the United 
States, people not only in Central America but in this country are 
depending on Members to stand up, depending on us to stand up for the 
basic rights of workers but also depending on us to stand up to stop 
the continued erosion of manufacturing jobs in this country.
  As my colleague points out in his chart there on the trade deficit, 
it is obvious that NAFTA has not resulted in creating jobs in this 
country. It has resulted in taking good-paying manufacturing jobs out 
of this country. Those are jobs that supported middle-

[[Page H3431]]

class existence for many families. Those are jobs that helped sustain 
communities. Those are jobs that helped protect small business. Those 
are jobs that had health care benefits. Those are jobs that let people 
buy homes. Those are jobs that let people send their children to 
college. And now we are seeing our whole way of life adversely affected 
by these trade agreements. That is why CAFTA presents us with an 
opportunity to say, stop, stop, let's start to go back through the 
whole structure of trade agreements and demand that no agreement can 
ever exist unless it has fundamental protections for workers' rights, 
human rights and the environment, because frankly when corporations 
sweep those aside, that is how they make their profit.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Taking back my time, it is no surprise, or no 
coincidence, that as this trade deficit has increased from $38 billion 
the year I first ran for Congress 12\1/2\ years ago to last year's 
deficit of $618 billion, that is the same trajectory where we have seen 
health benefits cut, where we have seen workers in our country losing 
their pensions. When we lose these manufacturing jobs, every time a 
Ford worker loses his job or her job in Avon Lake or in Cleveland, that 
is often one fewer person in Ohio with health benefits, one less person 
that has a pension. These trade agreements clearly have pulled down the 
standard of living for way too many of my colleague's constituents and 
way too many of mine, way too many people in North Carolina where 
textiles and the apparel job loss have devastated their part of the 
country.
  I want to make a prediction. My colleague made a statement a minute 
ago that in one of the Central American countries with whom we have 
negotiated this deal that legislation was passed in the middle of the 
night. I will make a prediction. Based on a lot of facts, the facts 
that every major piece of legislation, or virtually every major piece 
of legislation this Congress has considered the last 2 years, the 
debate started about this time of night, maybe even a little later, 
started about midnight, started around 1 o'clock, the debates on these 
very important issues, Head Start, money for veterans' benefits, money 
for education, $87 billion for Iraq, the major tax cuts, Medicare and 
the trade promotion authority. The last big trade agreement this 
Congress voted for, we voted in the middle of the night. The roll call 
was left open. It is normally only 15 minutes. The roll call was left 
open for well over an hour as the majority leader, Tom DeLay, strong-
armed, cajoled, offered with a carrot, threatened with a stick, until 
he got two North Carolina Congressmen to change their votes. We have 
seen that over and over. My prediction is that when the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement, if it comes to this Congress in the next 
6 weeks, even though it is already past this deadline, this self-
imposed deadline, this 1-year anniversary of the signing of CAFTA, 
whenever it comes, either by the end of this month or the end of next 
month, you can bet that that is going to be a middle-of-the-night vote 
where there is incredible political pressure, where there are threats, 
where there are transfers in some cases, promises on one bill, on the 
Medicare bill, promises of campaign cash on the House floor as claimed 
by one of my colleagues, a Republican from Michigan, where there are 
all kinds of goodies offered to this Member of Congress or that Member 
of Congress to get a vote. I am just terrified that even though the 
American people clearly do not like the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement, even though the American people recognize the kind of job 
loss that our State of Ohio and so many other States, especially the 
States in red, have been hit the hardest, with all this job loss, with 
all this opposition from the American people and from Members of 
Congress that the administration will do what it did with trade 
promotion authority and offer all kinds of things to these Members of 
Congress to get them to change their vote and vote the opposite of what 
they have promised and vote the opposite of what their constituents 
asked them to.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, when I was traveling the country, I had 
the opportunity to visit many areas around America. I would stand in 
front of plant gates that were padlocked. I saw grass growing in 
parking lots which were once filled with cars, where workers would go 
into a plant and they would make steel, cars, washing machines, sewing 
machines, truck bodies. And now their plant gates are padlocked and 
there is grass growing in the parking lots. All of America is littered 
with the rusting hulks of huge manufacturing plants. Yet there are many 
people who remain in those communities who have the ability to do the 
work. It is not that there is no work to be done. It is not that we are 
not consuming the very products which were made once in America. But 
they are being made now elsewhere at a fraction of the price, where 
workers are underpaid, where they have no rights.

                              {time}  2200

  When we started years ago challenging these trade agreements, some of 
us were told, well, you are being an isolationist; we have to have 
trade. Well, it is true, we do have to have trade; but we have to have 
fair trade. We have to have trade which respects the undeniable fact 
that all people are interdependent and interconnected. These trade 
agreements create a divide, a chasm, between the very wealthy and the 
increasingly poor. These trade agreements have helped to bring about 
the destructive undermining of America's middle class.
  So when you look at that map, I say to the gentleman, and you can see 
not only various colors of States, depending on how many jobs they have 
lost, but behind those statistics are individual stories of dreams that 
were shattered, of families that were broken, of opportunities that 
were denied, of futures that were totally changed, of the American 
Dream being dashed, of the American Dream being dashed. That is why we 
are standing here tonight, challenging CAFTA and, by reference, all of 
the other trade agreements that have passed.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I will close as I just listen to my 
friend talk about seeing this country as he has seen it up close, and 
we all have seen it. Again, these are all numbers, 200,000, 200,000, 
57,000, trade deficits of billions and tens of billions, hundreds of 
billions of dollars; they are all numbers. But I think almost every 
Member of Congress, those of us that really get out in our communities, 
and that is most of us on both sides of the aisle, really have seen the 
kind of pain that people suffer when someone loses a job after being in 
a plant for 30 years and loses their pension or loses their health 
benefits, and they are 58 years old and they cannot get Medicare yet. 
Or they are 35 years old and they cannot send their kid to school, they 
had been saving a little bit of money: all that that means for those 
children, for those families, for those school districts that have lost 
that revenue when a plant closes, for those communities that can no 
longer protect their citizens with adequate police and fire protection. 
These are real people, these are real jobs, real communities, real 
people, real dreams, real lives.
  When I think about our trade policy and what we have done, and our 
trade policy has always been for years to outsource jobs, to lose our 
manufacturing jobs, shut these plants down, encourage these companies 
to hire cheap labor in the developing world, do not really give those 
people any chance, because they are not paying them enough money. My 
definition of successful trade policy is that when the workers in poor 
countries cannot just make American products, make products that they 
export back into the United States, but that those workers can actually 
buy products made in the United States, then we will see a trade policy 
which lifts those workers up so they have a decent standard of living 
in Guatemala or in India or in Mexico, and, at the same time, lifts our 
workers up so we can continue our strong food safety standards, 
environmental standards, worker rights, and wages in our country.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, before we conclude, it appears to me that 
there is an opening here for this Congress, that at a time when we are 
challenging these trade agreements, we have an opportunity to present 
an alternative. That alternative should not just be creating a new 
architecture for trade with workers' rights, human rights, and 
environmental quality principles; but that alternative should also

[[Page H3432]]

include an American manufacturing policy, a new one, a new American 
manufacturing policy which declares that the maintenance of steel, 
automotive, and aerospace is vital to our national security; that for 
that reason, we should be thinking in terms of rebuilding automotive, 
with cars that are more fuel economical. We should be thinking of 
rebuilding steel, because we consume so much steel in this country; 
there are so many mills that we could actually bring back to life. We 
should be thinking about rebuilding aerospace, not shipping jobs 
overseas. Right now, our trade deficit with China is approaching about 
$160 billion, is it not?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Slightly over that.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Right. China at this moment is organizing its economy 
to be able to excel in steel, automotive, and aerospace because Chinese 
leaders recognize that it is those very industries that enabled America 
50 years ago to achieve preeminence in all the world. So we need a new 
American manufacturing policy, and we need a new policy which rebuilds 
our infrastructure. Just as FDR understood that the New Deal was an 
opportunity to put millions of people back to work, we should create a 
deal where we rebuild our infrastructure, where we rebuild our bridges, 
our water systems, our sewer systems; where we rebuild parks and 
hospitals and schools; where we rebuild America's infrastructure and 
create millions of new jobs, and then that would be an investment that 
would enable people to go back and start factories again.
  Mr. Speaker, we need a new direction in this country. We need a new 
approach with our economy. We have to do something about this trade 
deficit, but we have to make sure that our basic infrastructure is 
strong to help create productivity; and we also have to do something 
about our tax system, which is incentivizing the movement of jobs out 
of this country, our tax system where 34 percent of the tax cuts go to 
the top one percent.
  Also, we have to recognize, as some of our major industries are 
recognizing, that if we are going to protect industry in this country, 
then we have to have a universal, single-payer health care system. 
Because we know right now that the automotive business is in trouble in 
part because of the health care costs. We need a system where everyone 
is covered; that would help American manufacturing as well.
  And we need to protect people's retirement security. It is absolutely 
a disgrace that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation right now has 
over $26 billion in the hole, and that they have over $100 billion in 
unfunded pension liabilities they are facing, and all the corporations 
in America are looking right now to dump their pension obligations on 
the government. Right now people over 55 years old have the lowest 
level of savings; for seven consecutive quarters, it is at $10,400. It 
is the lowest consecutive quarter since 1934. So people's savings are 
being undermined, their pensions are being lost, and now there is an 
attack on Social Security.
  All of this fits together. We have to have an holistic view and 
vision of what our country needs. We need to have health care and 
retirement security. We need to have retirement security. We need to 
rebuild our infrastructure and have a new manufacturing policy. But we 
need to first take care of business, which means standing up here, 
challenging CAFTA and saying we are going to use the defeat of CAFTA as 
an opportunity for a new beginning in the American economy.
  I want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), 
for the leadership that he has shown on this; and I want to tell him 
what an honor it has been to be on the floor with him this evening.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich) for his leadership on this whole array of issues. I would 
summarize by echoing what he said, that as the CAFTA countdown, as 
CAFTA is buried at the end of this month, the 1-year anniversary of 
CAFTA, it is important as we defeat CAFTA that we look at all of those 
issues that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) talked about, and 
especially that we think about a new trade agreement with Central 
American countries that lifts workers in both, in all seven of our 
countries, lifts workers' standards, lifts environmental standards, 
helps workers and families and communities in all of the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement countries, and in our country. It can be 
a win-win for all of us, instead of the kind of downward slide that we 
have seen in our trade policy.

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