[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 14, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H246-H247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               AMERICA IS NOT WINNING ON THE TRADE FRONT

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of 
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, America is not winning on the global trade 
front. Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the 
United States has the largest trade deficit in our history. So many 
more imports are coming in here than exports, and every American can 
affirm that every time they go to shop.
  At $725 billion in the red in 2005, that is three-quarters of a 
trillion dollars, our trade deficit is growing at a rate of more than 
$1,500,000 every minute. This total is more than 18 percent higher than 
one year ago.
  Sectors such as agriculture, as well as manufacturing, which once 
sustained a thriving economy here, are now withering. For every billion 
dollars in deficit, we are shedding a minimum of over 10,000 jobs. 
Workers' wages are not rising, their pensions are being cut, health 
care costs are going

[[Page H247]]

up, and this is a major contributing factor.
  Our manufacturing sector is deteriorating. Since the year 2000, 3 
million more manufacturing jobs, good jobs, have been outsourced. The 
2005 deficit in autos, trucks and automotive parts is $138 billion, the 
worst ever. Those are dollars we used to put in our own pockets, the 
pockets of our workers, the pockets of our shareholders, the pockets of 
the executives. This industry was once at the cutting edge of the world 
and the mother of invention. Today, we have become an assembly line for 
imported parts.
  Our Trade Representative, Ambassador Portman, comes from my home 
State of Ohio. He should be intimately aware on a global scale that it 
is just not a level playing field that parts producers and other 
exporters face. Yet the deficit in the auto sector, which once provided 
a path to the middle class for millions of Americans through living 
wage jobs, keeps going more and more in the red, another 20 percent 
just last year. It seems every week we hear about another plant 
shutting down, more layoffs, the most recent set of companies, Delphi.
  In agriculture, which used to be America's savior, our global trade 
balance in agricultural products showed a mere $27 billion surplus in 
1996. That has gone down from $27 to $4 billion, and it is projected we 
are going to become a net food importer. America, the richest 
agricultural nation in the world, a food importer? That is what is 
happening.
  Yet the agreements that this administration has signed, including 
CAFTA, will encourage countries like Brazil and El Salvador to 
undermine one of our most promising agricultural sectors, ethanol, 
because CAFTA will allow Brazilian ethanol transhipped through Central 
America to undermine that promising agricultural sector of our economy.
  And what is the Bush administration through Ambassador Portman doing 
to stop these hemorrhages? Nothing. Just issuing reports. There is no 
new enforcement actions, no special bilateral talks with countries with 
which we are massing these huge deficits. Today's Congress Daily 
reports Ambassador Portman issued a report reviewing China's trade 
practices; China, a most undemocratic nation that represents an 
alarming chunk of this growing trade deficit that we have amassed. 
Indeed, our trade deficit with China is at an all-time high, over $200 
billion, dollars we used to put in the pockets of American workers.
  Mr. Portman did note that the trade relationship between the United 
States and China ``lacks equity and balance.'' Yet his report does 
absolutely nothing to change it.
  By contrast, my bill, the Balancing Trade Act of 2006, H.R. 4405, 
would require action in the face of consistent deficits of more than 
$10 billion with a single country. With 21 bipartisan cosponsors so 
far, this bill will require action from any administration.
  With the red ink getting deeper and deeper every minute, with 
American workers losing, with American communities losing, we need 
action, not more whitewashing. What a shame that Washington is so out 
of step with what is happening on every Main Street and every 
manufacturing and every agricultural sector of this country.

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