[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 105 (Thursday, July 28, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9253-S9255]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page S9253]]

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                                 Senate

 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC-CENTRAL AMERICA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT 
                     IMPLEMENTATION ACT--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3045) to implement the Dominican Republic-
     Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 20 minutes evenly divided. Who yields 
time?
  The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement, is one more failed chapter in a book of trade failures. How 
deeper must the hole get before we understand we are in trouble? How 
many more Americans must lose their jobs, with manufacturing, 
engineering and, yes, more white-collar jobs going overseas, 
outsourced, before we understand we are in trouble?
  We have the largest trade deficit in the history of this country, $2 
billion a day every day, 7 days a week. This is unsustainable. 
Everybody in this room knows it.
  When will we understand that the next trade agreement is one in which 
we ought to stand up for the economic interests of our country, stand 
up for the interests of American workers? Let's not be ashamed of 
believing that our interest is in this country's economic opportunity, 
supporting our workers, our manufacturers, our farmers. This trade 
agreement pulls the rug out from under our sugar beet growers, from 
under our farmers, pulls the rug out from under American workers one 
more time.
  The House passed this bill by two votes last night. There is a 15-
minute vote in the House. This one lasted well over an hour, while they 
were trying to get the rest of the votes. Let me describe what they had 
to do to get the votes, because this trade agreement is awful. It is 
bad for the country. It is going to pile debt on top of debt and make 
more American jobs disappear overseas. Here is what they said, from 
today's paper: The last-minute negotiations for Republican votes 
resembled the wheeling and dealing on a car lot. Republicans who were 
opposed or undecided were courted during hurried meetings in Capitol 
hallways, on the House floor, and at the White House. GOP leaders told 
their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was the time to 
ask, lawmakers said, and members took advantage of the opportunity by 
requesting fundraising appearances by Cheney and the restoration of the 
money for their programs. Lawmakers said many of the favors bestowed in 
exchange for votes will be tucked into the huge energy and highway 
bills Congress is scheduled to pass this week before leaving for the 
August recess.
  Why do my colleagues think it was necessary to do what they did last 
night in the House to try to buy these votes with side deals and 
special deals and keeping the vote open for over an hour? Because this 
is a terrible agreement, and everybody knows it. When will we have the 
backbone to stand up for this country's economic interests? What will 
it take? How many more bad trade agreements? This isn't rocket science. 
This is our trade deficit. Year after year after year we are drowning 
in trade debt, and there is not one person on the floor of the Senate 
who wears a blue suit who is going to lose their job because of a bad 
trade agreement. It is working folks who lose their jobs, who find out 
their job left for China because they were making $11 an hour and the 
company can hire somebody for 30 cents an hour and work them 15 hours a 
day, 7 days a week. So the American people lose their jobs.
  No politicians are going to lose their jobs. That is why they keep 
writing bad trade agreements. That is why the country is deeper in 
debt, the largest trade deficit in the history of this country. NAFTA, 
CAFTA, ``SHAFTA,'' GATT, you name it. With every single step we have 
taken with this trade strategy, the country has gone deeper into debt, 
and more Americans have found their jobs in peril. When, oh when, will 
it stop? Apparently not tonight.
  Last night they bought CAFTA by two votes in the House. It passed by 
a slim margin in the Senate. But what this demonstrates to me is this 
Congress has not yet awakened to the reality of what it is doing to 
this country. Kids and grandkids wondering about their economic future 
will find they have less opportunity than their parents did. The one 
thing we all aspire to have happen always is that we want things better 
for our kids. We want to leave a place that is better for our children. 
That is not going to happen with these kinds of trade agreements in 
which we trade away American jobs, in which we decide that jobs that 
used to be performed by proud Americans to build products in this 
country are gone.
  There is no social program in this Congress we deal with that is as 
important as a good job that pays well, with good benefits. That is the 
way people are able to take care of their families and pursue a career 
and have the opportunity to expand this great country of ours. Yes, we 
live in a global economy, we are told. It is a global economy, all 
right. The global economy has galloped along for the major corporations 
so they can produce where it is cheap and sell into this marketplace. 
But it is unsustainable. This won't last. The global economy has 
galloped along but without rules.
  Now a corporation can decide to do business through a mailbox in the 
Bahamas. It can decide it wants to produce in China or Indonesia or Sri 
Lanka and hire people for 20 cents an hour and force them to work in 
unsafe plants. They can hire 12-year-olds to

[[Page S9254]]

work 12 hours a day and pay them 12 cents an hour. All of that is just 
fine with this trade strategy.

  It is not fine with this Senator. It is not fine at all. Because I 
understand where it takes this country. We will not long remain a world 
economic power without a first-class manufacturing capability. And our 
manufacturing base is shrinking dramatically. Why? Because major 
corporations have decided they don't want to produce here. Is it 
because our workers don't do well? Not at all. That is not what it is 
about. It is about corporate profits by hiring people to work for 30 
cents an hour and then selling the product at 30-cents labor to the 
grocery stores or on the store shelves of Toledo and Fargo and 
Brainard, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York.
  I am telling my colleagues, this will not work much longer. Yet this 
Congress acts completely deaf and blind to the realities of what has 
come from our recent trade agreements. The North American Free Trade 
Agreement was one of the last agreements. We had all these economists 
tell us how many jobs it was going to create in our country. The fact 
is, our country has lost massive numbers of jobs as a result of the 
North American Free Trade Agreement. That bad agreement turned a modest 
trade surplus with Mexico into a huge deficit, and turned a modest 
deficit with Canada into an even larger deficit. Yet people still say 
that agreement worked. That is total rubbish.
  I hope the Senate will turn down this agreement. I know they have 
voted for it once before, but now is the time to have some backbone, 
some nerve, some will to turn down this bad trade agreement.
  I yield back my remaining time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, over the past two decades, Congress has 
voted again and again to open markets to exports from Central America. 
In 1983, 392 Members of the House and 90 Members of the Senate voted 
unilaterally to reduce tariffs on exports from Central America and the 
Caribbean. In 2000, 309 Members of the House and 77 Senators voted in 
favor of the Trade and Development Act which further unilaterally 
opened our markets to products from Central America and the Caribbean.
  Today most imports from the region enter our market duty-free. In 
contrast--and the purpose of this legislation--our exports have faced 
and continue to face a myriad of tariffs and nontariff trade barriers 
into that region. Our products going that way, having tariffs and 
nontariff trade barriers, products coming this way to our country, no 
barriers. That is the status quo.
  In 2005, with the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Congress has 
the opportunity to reduce tariff barriers to our exports going to these 
countries. You can see it is a very unfair situation. If we maintain 
the status quo, it is unfair to American workers, American 
manufacturers, the economy of America, because their imports come into 
our country duty-free. Meanwhile, our exports that go to those 
countries face tariff barriers of from 3 to 16 percent, some tariffs 
ranging as high as even 150 percent.
  This agreement, finally, after about 20 years of our doing favors in 
that direction, levels the playing field for American workers, American 
farmers, and American manufacturers so we can sell our products in 
these countries.
  This agreement takes a one-way street of trade and makes it a two-way 
street. It tears down unfair barriers to our agricultural exports and 
gives our farmers a chance to compete in a growing and vibrant market 
of over 40 million consumers.
  A vote against CAFTA is a vote for the status quo. It is a vote to 
keep import duties duty free, but it also keeps tariff barriers to our 
export products high. If you vote that way, you are not voting for the 
American worker, you are not voting for the American farmer, you are 
not voting for the American manufacturer. You are voting for the status 
quo.
  Well, that status quo is that the United States has been giving and 
giving for 20 years. This is our opportunity to get, to benefit our 
workers, to have a level playing field for trade--a two-way street for 
trade.
  I don't see how anybody can justify not leveling the playing field 
for American exporters. That would end up creating jobs here in 
America.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Central American Free Trade 
Agreements ignores American workers, and ignores Central American 
workers, too. It ignores the labor injustices that still exist in those 
countries and it turns its back on American workers who continue to 
struggle to keep their jobs.
  It did not have to be this way. We know how to negotiate free trade 
agreements to improve conditions for workers in other nations and level 
the playing field for American workers. We have done it before and we 
can do it again.
  These Central American nations are important neighbors and partners 
to the United States. I have long supported their efforts towards 
progress since President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. Continuing in 
that tradition, we owe it to our friends in Central America to ensure 
that proper labor protections are included and enforced.
  The President abused his power and presented Congress and the 
American people with this take-it-or-leave-it plan, ignoring a strong 
bipartisan recommendation to assist displaced American workers. 
Congress had the opportunity to ask the President to meet that 
responsibility. Instead, partisan back room deals were made and the 
Republican Congress approved the agreement by a narrow majority in the 
Senate and a razor-thin majority in the House.
  This Central American agreement is not free trade. It does not create 
a fair playing field for American workers. It fails to address the 
issues that we hear time and again are so important to them, and it 
does not deserve to pass.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank Chairman 
Grassley for the fine work he has done on a very difficult issue. I 
will start from a different perspective than others might have 
concerning this agreement.
  First of all, I have been leading the opposition to almost every 
multinational agreement that has come along. I have stood on the floor 
of the Senate for probably, collectively, 6 or 8 hours talking about 
how destructive the Kyoto agreement would be should we be a party to 
it. I have talked about the Law of the Sea Treaty. It was passed out of 
the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously and was ready for action 
when we found out what it was. I led the opposition, and we have not 
passed it yet. We would be losing our sovereignty to the U.N. on a lot 
of the areas of the sea and the air above it. This is something I have 
been active in for a long time.
  In 1994, I had a very interesting experience. I was in the House of 
Representatives. I led the opposition to NAFTA at that time. Then I was 
elected to the Senate in a special election, and it came up in the 
Senate, and I led the opposition to NAFTA at that time. In Oklahoma, my 
State, I was the only Member of the House or Senate who opposed NAFTA.
  I am here to say that this is not NAFTA. For those who use the 
argument that NAFTA was wrong and NAFTA should not have worked and, 
therefore, CAFTA is no good, they just don't know what they are talking 
about. CAFTA is totally different. I can recall standing on the Senate 
floor from this very desk saying if we support NAFTA and adopt it, we 
would have problems--transportation problems--where we would be 
allowing Mexican truckers to pick up a load in Brownsville, TX, and 
take it to Oklahoma City and not comply with our wage-an-hour 
requirements and environmental requirements, and all these things 
happened; they came true.
  That is not what CAFTA is. We have two reasons we need to support 
CAFTA. One is what the Senator from Iowa talked about--the tariffs. I 
talked to my farmers, the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, and the Farmers Union, 
and showed them the tariffs they are paying right now, and what the 
other side is paying, and this is a win-win situation for our farmers. 
For example, for grains, we pay 10.6 percent; they pay nothing today; 
for vegetables, we pay 16.7 percent, they pay nothing; for wood 
products, we pay 10 percent, they

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pay nothing. There is a long list--I can go on and on--of commodities 
and products where we are penalized and they are not.
  Under this bill, we will level that playing field and allow farmers 
in Oklahoma to be on the same level as those other countries. The other 
reason--and I think this is very important--is the national security 
reason. I am ranking member on the Armed Services Committee. I can 
remember the days in Central America when President Reagan was our 
President, and then the first President Bush, when we gave freedoms and 
democracies to all those countries down in Central America.
  We remember Daniel Ortega and the activities of the Sandinistas. 
Right now, we are in a position where we can either punish or reward 
our friends. These countries with whom we will be in an alliance are 
our friends. They are supporting us in Iraq and supporting us in 
everything we do. Those other countries are not supporting us. The 
Chavezes, the Ortegas, and the Castros are the ones starting to emerge 
again. Can you imagine, after what we went through with the Sandinistas 
in the 1980s, and we have Ortega running for President again? I am not 
about to reward him and give him what he wants, keeping us from having 
that trade.
  If you want to know the kinds of people who are opposing CAFTA, I 
will read you a few: Earth Justice, Friends of the Earth, 
EnviroCitizen, Freedom Socialist Party, and the Social Welfare Action 
Alliance, and others like that.
  The conservative groups supporting CAFTA are the American 
Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Heritage Foundation, 
Competitive Enterprise Institute, Club for Growth, and it goes on and 
on.
  This is an issue where we are on the right side not just for our 
farmers and for national security and our friends in Central America 
and South America, but also it is right for America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired but 25 seconds.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield that back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the third reading and 
passage of the bill.
  The bill (H.R. 3045) was ordered to a third reading and was read the 
third time.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill, having been read the third time, the 
question is, Shall the bill pass?
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 209 Leg.]

                                YEAS--56

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Cornyn
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Jeffords
     Kyl
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Smith
     Specter
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Boxer
     Burns
     Byrd
     Clinton
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corzine
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Graham
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Mikulski
     Obama
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
  The bill (H.R. 3045) was passed.

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