[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 18, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3549-H3550]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 CAFTA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, last year President Bush signed the 
Central American Free Trade Agreement, a one-sided plan to benefit the 
largest corporations in the world at the expense of American workers 
and farmers, and the expense of Central American workers, farmers, and 
small businesses.
  Every trade agreement negotiated by this administration has been 
ratified by Congress within 65 days of the President's signing it. 
CAFTA 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 year I was elected to Congress, we in this country 
had a $38 billion trade deficit. Today, 12 years later, our trade 
deficit is $618 billion. From $38 billion, a dozen years later to $618 
billion. It is clear our trade policy simply is not working.
  Opponents to CAFTA know that simply it is an extension of the North

[[Page H3550]]

American Free Trade Agreement, which clearly did not work for our 
country. It is the same old story. With every trade agreement, the 
President promises more jobs for Americans, growth in manufacturing, 
more exports, raising the standard of living in the developing world, 
better wages for workers in the developing world. Every time it comes 
out differently.
  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and 
over again and then expecting a different outcome.
  Why will this trade agreement not work? Look at the average wages in 
the CAFTA countries. In United States the average wage is $38,000. El 
Salvador is $4,800. Honduras is $2,600. Nicaragua is $2,300. The 
average Nicaraguan worker is not going to buy cars made in Ohio. The 
Guatemalan worker is not going to be able to buy steel from West 
Virginia. The Honduran worker is not going to be able to buy software 
from Seattle or prime cuts of beef from Nebraska or textiles or apparel 
from North Carolina or South Carolina or Georgia.
  This trade agreement is about giving big business what it wants: 
access to cheap labor. They cannot buy our goods; but American business 
can move its production, its companies, outsource them to Central 
America, and it costs us jobs. That is why, Mr. Speaker, there is such 
strong bipartisan opposition to the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement.
  The administration is pulling out all stops because they know they 
are going to lose this vote. The administration has attempted to link 
CAFTA with helping democracy in the developing world and fighting the 
war on terror. Ten years of NAFTA has done nothing to improve border 
security between Mexico and our country. So that argument does not 
sell. Then last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce flew on a Chamber of 
Commerce junket the six presidents from the CAFTA countries around our 
Nation, hoping they might be able to sell Americans and the U.S. press 
and Members of Congress on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, 
but again they failed. In fact, the Costa Rican president, after 
traveling the United States, announced his country simply would not 
ratify CAFTA unless an independent commission could determine that 
agreement will not hurt the poor and working families in his country.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the most powerful 
Republican in the House, majority leader, said there would be a vote on 
CAFTA within a year of the President's signing, that is, by Memorial 
Day, coming next week. As we can see by this calendar, we are barely a 
week away from that deadline, but still no vote in sight because there 
is simply not enough support for CAFTA. It is dead on arrival in this 
House.
  Last month, two dozen Democrats and Republicans in Congress joined 
150 business and labor groups saying no on CAFTA. Last week more than 
400 union workers and Members of Congress gathered in front of the 
Capitol again saying no on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, 
because Republicans and Democrats, business and labor groups know what 
the administration refuses to admit, and that is that CAFTA is about 
one thing: it is about access to cheap labor and exploiting workers in 
the six CAFTA countries.
  Congress must 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.

                              {time}  2015

  If we throw this agreement CAFTA out, and then negotiate a new 
central American Free Trade Agreement that really works for workers in 
both countries, we will know our trade policy is succeeding. Only when 
workers in the poor countries can afford to not just make American 
products, but also to buy American products, will we know that our 
trade policy has, in fact, succeeded.

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