[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 79 (Wednesday, June 15, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H4554]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H4554]]
                              {time}  1800
                  CENTRAL AMERICA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it has been a little over a year since the 
Bush administration secretly negotiated a trade agreement called CAFTA, 
and we had heard that they were going to bring it before the Congress 
before the Memorial Day break. Of course, that did not happen, and now 
it appears it will not happen before the Independence Day break because 
they simply have not been able to twist enough arms to get enough 
Members of Congress to vote against the interest of the American 
economy, the American workers and their own constituents.
  This is potentially a turning point in trade policy for the United 
States. The statistics are staggering. Last month we recorded a $56.96 
billion trade deficit; that is, that we borrowed almost $2 billion a 
day from foreign interests, foreign governments, in the case of China, 
to finance consumption of goods produced overseas often with U.S. 
capital, often by jobs that were formerly filled by Americans here in 
the United States of America.
  Now, if you use the broadest measure of the Department of Commerce, 
that means that is about 7 million jobs; that sort of a trade deficit 
on an annual basis means a loss of 7 million jobs. It means the 
undermining of our industrial base. And increasingly, it means the loss 
of some of our most sophisticated, highest-technology jobs and 
manufacturing in the United States of America.
  This is simply not a sustainable policy, but the reaction of this 
administration is this is working exactly as planned. It is making a 
few multinational corporations and a few others very wealthy. So what 
if we have lost millions of jobs? So what if the United States of 
America is going in hock to China and Japan and other countries? They 
think it is working just fine, exactly as intended, so-called free 
trade.
  So they want to extend our failed NAFTA agreement, which has 
contributed mightily to this deficit, the agreement with Mexico and 
Canada which promised to bring 800,000 jobs to the United States and 
instead caused us to lose a million jobs, mostly to Mexico. They want 
to extend that throughout Central America so that some companies might 
not have to go as far as China to find exploitable labor who will work 
for $0.25 an hour or less, oppressed by the governments, not allowed to 
organize, working in unsafe conditions. But until now, Congress is 
holding firm, and that is good news. And the American people should be 
contacting their Representatives and their Senators.
  I was very disappointed to see both Senators from my State, a State 
which has lost a lot of jobs because of NAFTA and these free trade 
policies, vote to endorse a continuation or acceleration of these 
failed policies in committee in the Senate just yesterday. But they are 
not listening to the people of Oregon and the people of America. I am, 
and a majority of House is today.
  So let us make them continue to listen, let us continue to speak out, 
and let us break the cycle of failed trade policies and begin to work 
for trade policy that brings and keeps quality jobs, manufacturing 
jobs, high-technology jobs, high-paying jobs, jobs with good benefits 
home here in the United States of America.

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