[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4867-H4868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              DEFEAT CENTRAL AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, we have coming before us 
pretty soon an issue called CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade 
Agreement. I want to start my comments, Ross Perot, when he was a 
candidate for the Presidency on October 19, 1992 at a Presidential 
debate said, ``You implement that the NAFTA, the Mexican trade 
agreement where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, 
no retirement, no pollution controls, and you are going to hear a giant 
sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country right at a time 
when we need the tax base to pay the debt.''
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Perot was exactly right. We know Ross Perot as a 
successful businessman and a man who loves and cares about America.
  Let me tell Members what happened since December 1993 when NAFTA 
became the law of the land. Before NAFTA, we ran a trade surplus with 
Mexico. Now the U.S. runs a $45 billion annual trade deficit with 
Mexico; from a trade surplus to a trade deficit.
  In addition, my home State of North Carolina since NAFTA became the 
law of the land has lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs. The United 
States has lost over 2.5 million manufacturing jobs.
  Let me give some facts about illegal aliens coming from Mexico across 
the

[[Page H4868]]

border. Prior to NAFTA, the average was 2 million. Since NAFTA, it is 
better than 7.5 million. CAFTA will continue these trends. Eighty-five 
percent of the language in CAFTA is identical to the language in NAFTA.
  Let me give another example of what has happened to American jobs. In 
2002, the Congress, I did not support this legislation, decided to give 
the President trade promotion authority, known as TPA. Since that time, 
America's annual trade deficit grew $195 billion to $617 billion. That 
is how much the trade deficit grew.
  Let me give an example of TPA and how it relates to North Carolina. 
Since TPA passed, North Carolina has lost over 52,000 manufacturing 
jobs. The United States has lost over 600,000 manufacturing jobs.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. Speaker, on my left I have got two news articles, one from a 
couple of years ago in the Raleigh paper known as the News & Observer; 
it says, Pillowtex Goes Bust, erasing 6,450 jobs. These were five 
plants in North Carolina that lost that many jobs, 6,450. Then I have 
got another article from a business in my county I share with the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield), the Wilson Daily 
Times, says VF Jeanswear Closes Plants, Last 445 Jobs Gone By Next 
Summer. The jobs are going down to Honduras.
  Mr. Speaker, a couple of more points. CAFTA means more U.S. job 
losses. We know what NAFTA has done. We know what Trade Promotion 
Authority, TPA, has done. CAFTA provides every incentive to outsource 
jobs to Central America. Average wages in Nicaragua are 95 cents an 
hour; Guatemala, $1 an hour; El Salvador, $1.25 an hour. Plus, these 
countries have few labor and environmental standards and CAFTA does 
little to improve them.
  CAFTA will allow the Chinese to backdoor fabrics into Central America 
where it can be assembled and shipped into United States duty-free. The 
last thing we need is to help China. We have already outsourced 1.5 
million jobs to China in the last 15 years.
  Mr. Speaker, as I begin to close, I want to show my fellow colleagues 
that might be watching in their offices, recently this was dropped by 
my office, and it says candy decorated fruit snacks, real fruit. Then 
you turn it over and it says, ``made in China.'' If the candy we are 
eating now in America, many of it is made in China, then I wonder if 
one day at the rate we are going of losing these manufacturing jobs, 
that we might be buying our tanks for our military from China.
  I hope, Mr. Speaker, that does not happen. I hope the House will 
defeat CAFTA. It is not good for America, it is not good for the 
American worker, and I do not even believe it is good for the people 
who live in Central America.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I will close by asking God to please bless our 
men and women in uniform and their families and ask God to please 
continue to bless America.

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