[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 19, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H6079]
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 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of 
the Dominican Republic and Central American Free Trade Agreement and 
urge my colleagues to join me in its passage in the next week. Both the 
strength of our economy and the jobs available to our own people depend 
on our ability to gain access to new markets and offer products that 
are price competitive, and quality competitive. Without greater access 
to the global market, it is our people that pay the price. The DR-CAFTA 
agreement will, for the very first time, allow U.S. goods to flow into 
the Central American countries without tariffs, just the way Central 
American goods flow into America without tariffs. It merely levels the 
playing field.
  Furthermore, it will allow us to modernize the partnership between 
the United States textile industry and the Central American countries. 
Through this partnership we can compete with China. If we lose this 
partnership and the opportunity to modernize it, then textiles will go 
to China. They will take jobs from the Central American countries and 
that will take jobs from America because this partnership uses entirely 
American yarn, and China is unlikely to do that. So not only would our 
goods flow into these Central American countries without tariffs, but 
by modernizing the textile partnership between the United States and 
the Central American nations we save jobs in both countries and keep 
ourselves competitive with China.
  Finally, this agreement helps strengthen fledgling democracies and 
economies that at one time were the center of civil war, terrible 
unrest, terrible suffering and great poverty. Through the development 
of their democracies and their economies, their people are beginning to 
do better, and by supporting that growth we can stem both legal and 
illegal immigration from those nations, which we would like to do.
  I strongly support CAFTA, as do the majority of producers of American 
products from manufactured products to agricultural products, because 
the agreement levels the playing field for workers by immediately 
reducing tariffs imposed on exports to Costa Rica, the Dominican 
Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. It zeros out 
many tariffs immediately, while others are reduced the first year by 80 
percent. This is manufacturers, agriculture products, everything across 
the board.
  Currently, imports from CAFTA countries enter the United States duty 
free, but of course our goods are not allowed to go back duty free. 
This is a great leveling of the playing field and will increase exports 
from the United States to the Central American nations.
  It may surprise you to hear that Central American countries are my 
home State of Connecticut's largest export market for crops. 
Connecticut's dairy farmers will gain immediate duty free access to the 
Central American markets for dairy products, and all tariffs will be 
phased out over time. That is exactly why the American Farm Bureau has 
endorsed CAFTA.
  Now there has been some discussion about the labor requirements, the 
labor provisions of CAFTA. In fact, this agreement has been roundly 
criticized by Members of this body who voted overwhelmingly for the 
agreement with Morocco and the agreement with Jordan. And yet this 
agreement is far tougher on labor standards and far stronger on 
enforcement.
  I am proud to say that under this agreement, after a year's work 
between the Development Bank and the ILO to evaluate carefully these 
countries' labor laws and to upgrade those laws, to evaluate carefully 
their ability to enforce those laws and what had to be done to 
strengthen enforcement, after that year of work, all that work is 
embodied in this Central American agreement, the CAFTA agreement. 
Consequently, this agreement will enforce laws that meet the ILO 
standards in all these countries, 100 percent in most of them and in 
two of them there are constitutional provisions that essentially make 
it equivalent to 100 percent. So the labor laws meet high standards and 
through this agreement enforcement will meet high standards.

                              {time}  1830

  We not only commit money to those standards but we creatively 
approach for the first time the issue of enforcement. First of all, 
under the old agreement, if the Central American countries did not live 
up to their obligations to make progress in the area of labor laws, all 
we could do was completely cut off all trade agreements. That nuclear, 
that draconian option was never in the whole 22 years used. It did not 
work.
  So in this agreement we have the right to levy stiff monetary fines, 
up to $15 million per year per violation; and if that does not work, we 
can take away their trade benefits. But meanwhile these fines will go 
into a special fund to be used with American oversight and American 
agreement to solve specific labor problems to strengthen specific 
enforcement measures and to make the lives of the workers in these 
countries better.
  Not only do we have flexibility and enforcement and new funding from 
the penalty system, but our country has committed $180 million dollars 
to enforcement.
  In sum the DR-CAFTA agreement will for the first time allow U.S. 
goods greater access to central American markets close to our country, 
allow us to modernize our textile partnership to compete directly with 
China, and help strengthen the fledgling democracies and economies of 
our southern neighbors which alone will stem immigration--legal and 
illegal--from those nations.

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