[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 30 (Thursday, March 9, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H852]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ANOTHER RECORD TRADE DEFICIT

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of 
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from California?
  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's economic strength can be measured 
by her trade accounts, whether we are exporting more goods and services 
than we are importing; and if we do export more than we import, 
America's economic strength grows. But when America imports more than 
she exports, her economic muscle weakens.
  This chart that I brought to the floor this evening shows that since 
the mid-1970s, when America began signing very unbalanced trade 
agreements with other countries, every single year America began to 
import more than she exports. This last year of 2005, we had a historic 
trade deficit with the world totaling over $750 billion, three quarters 
of $1 trillion. Indeed, it was $725 billion more in imports coming into 
our country than exports going out. This is not an insignificant 
amount. This has never happened to the United States of America before.
  In January, America imported this year $68.5 billion more in goods 
and services than we exported. This was an all-time high just for 1 
month, an increase of over 5 percent from last December. This year in 
agriculture alone for the first time in American history since the 
Pilgrims settled, the United States will import more food than we 
export. Think about that. Think about what that means for America's 
independence, our birthright of independence.
  According to Alan Tonelson at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, 
America's condition cannot be explained by high oil prices. That makes 
these numbers worse, but Mr. Tonelson says the January trends spotlight 
the continued decline of U.S. national competitiveness in ``industries 
of the future,'' such as high-tech hardware and services, and 
throughout our vital manufacturing sector.
  Today, many companies, airline companies, automotive parts companies 
like Delphi, a data corporation in my own district which just announced 
bankruptcy, all of them are teetering and a sign that imports are 
displacing what America used to make and send elsewhere. Today's report 
by the U.S. Department of Commerce suggests that the U.S. current 
account trade deficit for this year will probably surpass $1 trillion, 
$1 trillion; and that is on top of the $9 trillion of public debt that 
has been amassed since 2000 in our country. Truly, we are a republic 
teetering financially, losing our independence because somehow we have 
to fund these gaps in what is owed publicly and in this trade account 
deficit. And we are borrowing in order to make up the difference, and 
we owe interest on those borrowings.
  In order to sustain such an unprecedented and rapidly accumulating 
deficit, we are dependent on this massive borrowing from abroad and 
selling off valuable U.S. assets just like a fire sale, like you go to 
a pawn shop. To sustain a deficit like these, we are dependent upon 
investment by foreign agents like Dubai Ports World, which is in the 
headlines again today.
  Our country cannot be secure, cannot be secure, from the defense 
standpoint or financially under conditions like these. And yet after 12 
years of evidence of the failure of trade agreements like NAFTA, Trade 
Representative Portman continues to negotiate trade deals like the 
CAFTA agreement. This year the administration intends to bring new 
trade agreements under the same failed model like the U.S.-Peru Free 
Trade Agreement and an agreement with Colombia. Peru, a country that 
employs child labor, and Colombia, where labor leaders are more likely 
to be killed and are, summarily, more of them than anywhere else in the 
world.
  How can our workers compete with these conditions? How can our small 
business people, how can our salaried executives compete with 
undemocratic places, no transparent legal system, no banking system 
that really functions openly?
  The answer is we cannot. We simply cannot. So we are outsourcing 
everything to these places. And that is why imports are rising faster 
and faster and the people in those other places cannot afford to buy 
what is made by the people of this country who have sustained a middle-
class life-style until now. Despite modest economic growth in our 
country, middle-class workers are not seeing any rise in their income. 
That is right: inflation-adjusted income for all households except the 
very wealthiest is flat. This may be the first generation in America 
when our children do not live as well as their parents before them. And 
you know what? The American people know it. They know it.
  This is not the American Dream. This is the American nightmare.
  Please sponsor the Balancing Trade Act, H.R. 4405, that would require 
action by the administration when we sustain these kinds of continued 
trade deficits with other nations. It is time for America to become 
independent again. It is time for America to restore her promise to all 
of her people.

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