[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 55 (Thursday, March 29, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4137-S4139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            TRADE AGREEMENTS

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, last month, at a Senate Agriculture 
Committee hearing, Rhonda Stewart, a single mother from Hamilton, OH, 
Butler

[[Page S4138]]

County, testified that despite working full time, caring for her 9-
year-old son Wyatt--even serving as president of the PTA--she and her 
son must rely on food stamps to survive.
  At the end of each month, she told us, she must forgo dinner so her 
son can eat because the food stamps, which is about $6 a day, don't go 
far enough. She told us that at the beginning of the month, he gets 
pork chops. He knows he eats better in the beginning of the month than 
at the end of the month when she is running out of money. At the end of 
the month, she sits and tells him she is not really hungry, as her son 
eats, because she wants him to have enough, even when she doesn't.
  On the same day that Ms. Steward testified, U.S. Treasury Secretary 
Paulson told the Senate Banking Committee that the economy was doing 
well. He said over and over that the GDP was up 3 percent for the 
quarter. He kept insisting: Senator, you don't understand, things are 
going very well in this country. GDP is up 3 percent. People are making 
money and companies are profitable.
  When you think about all of that, here is the story: Profits are up. 
The stock market is doing well. Millionaires are enjoying exorbitant 
tax breaks. Worker productivity is up, but the workers are not sharing 
in the increasing profits most corporations are making. Workers across 
the country too often are losing their jobs, and a single mother 
working full time cannot afford to eat dinner--even with the $6 a day 
in food stamps.
  A Wall Street Journal article reported this week that since 2001, the 
economy has grown by 16 percent--16 percent since 2001--while worker 
pay, after inflation, has grown less than 1 percent--16 percent growth 
in the economy, profits up, workers gaining less than 1 percent.
  Wrongheaded economic policies and job-killing trade agreements have 
fueled income disparity at home and abroad.
  A few years ago, after the North American Free Trade Agreement 
passed, Congress was considering another one of these job-killing trade 
agreements. I traveled to McAllen, TX, where I crossed the border into 
Reynosa, Mexico. I rented a car with some friends and went to visit 
some families in Mexico just a couple of miles on the other side of the 
American border. There I met a husband and wife who worked for General 
Electric, Mexico. They lived in a shack that was about 20-by-20 feet, 
with no running water, no electricity, dirt floors. When it rained 
hard, the floors turned to mud. They worked 10 hours a day, 6 days a 
week, and each made less than a dollar an hour. Behind their shack was 
a ditch that was about 3 feet wide, perhaps, which was full of who-
knows-what--perhaps human and industrial waste. The children played in 
this ditch. The American Medical Association has said that along that 
border is one of the most toxic places in the entire Western 
Hemisphere.
  We visited an auto plant nearby, a modern, high-tech auto plant. The 
plant in Mexico looked just like an auto plant in Lordstown, OH, or 
Avon Lake or Cincinnati. The workers were working hard, the floors were 
clean, the technology was up-to-date, and the productivity was very 
good. But there was one difference between the Mexican auto plant and 
the one you would see in Ohio. That difference was the Mexican auto 
plant didn't have a parking lot. The Mexican workers were not making 
enough to buy the cars they made.
  You can go halfway around the world to Malaysia to a Motorola plant, 
where the workers are not making enough to buy the cell phones they 
make, or you can go to Costa Rica, where workers at a Disney plant 
don't make enough to buy the toys they make. In China, workers at a 
Nike plant are not making enough to buy those shoes they make. These 
workers are not sharing in the wealth they create for their employers.
  That is why these job-killing trade agreements don't work. Only when 
workers share in the wealth they create will we know our trade policy 
is working. In fact, when the poor in the developing world--those 
people who are working hard, working 50 to 60 hours a week, with their 
hands--only when the poor in those countries are able to buy the 
products they are making for us will we know our trade policy in the 
United States is actually working.
  During the fight against the Central American Free Trade Agreement 2 
years ago, the largest ever bipartisan fair-trade group was formed. 
Democrats and Republicans, environmental groups, religious groups, 
labor organizations, and business groups united and we changed forever 
the debate on trade. That coalition is alive and well, not just in the 
House of Representatives but also for the first time in the Senate. 
They are already working to revamp our Nation's trade policy and 
working to establish a manufacturing policy.

  Senators Byron Dorgan, Lindsey Graham, and I have introduced 
legislation that would ban imports from sweatshops. We have called for 
tougher World Trade Organization action to be taken against China, a 
country where, at least in 2005, 5,000 political prisoners were 
executed. The human rights violations continue in China. The oppression 
of workers continues in China. The kinds of values we hold dear in this 
country are violated every day by that Government and every day by 
these companies doing business in China, a country that manipulates its 
currency and continues to exploit its workers.
  Our Government must renegotiate these trade agreements so that they 
lift up workers here and abroad, reward U.S. businesses that stay here, 
reward U.S. businesses that produce here, and reward U.S. businesses 
that create jobs here. That means doing away with current fast-track 
authority. That means doing away with the fundamentally flawed North 
American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA model trade agreements. Make no 
mistake, we want trade. We want more of it, but we want fair trade. It 
is not a matter of if we revamp U.S. trade policy; it is when and who 
benefits from that.
  America is a nation of innovation. The future of our manufacturing 
policy is firmly planted in the research and development of alternative 
energy. Today, I spoke with several people from Ohio--business owners 
and plant managers--who are part of a group called the Manufacturing 
Extension Partnership. It is a relatively small government program that 
helps small manufacturers, small businesses in Ohio and across the 
country, learn to compete better, helps them learn to cut their health 
care costs, helps them to be more energy efficient, and helps them 
learn how to export some of their products. We have a long way to go.
  Oberlin College, not far from where I live, is home to the largest 
building in the United States on a college campus that is completely 
powered by solar energy. However, when that college built this 
building, they had to buy the components of the solar panels from Japan 
and Germany because we don't make enough of them in this country.
  The same is true when you talk about wind turbines. In Ashtabula, OH, 
they make components for wind-turbine manufacturing. So do some other 
places around the country. But they do not make enough. More and more 
wind turbines are being built in this country, and it is a great 
opportunity, as all of alternative energy production is, for us as a 
nation to use that, in part, to help rebuild our manufacturing 
capabilities, to cut energy prices, and to do the right thing for the 
environment. It works in every way.
  That is why as we, in the next couple of months, move toward votes on 
trade promotion authority, as we move forward, perhaps, on votes on 
bilateral trade agreements with Colombia, Peru, Korea, Panama, and 
other countries, perhaps, it is time that we pass trade agreements in 
this country that lift up workers, help our small manufacturers, that 
help us continue to preserve and expand our manufacturing base.
  It is an American value to reward hard work. This Congress has a real 
opportunity not just to talk about a different trade regimen but to go 
in a different direction, to replace trade promotion authority with a 
trade promotion authority legislation model that will help to lift our 
workers up, create jobs in this country, help the developing world lift 
up their living standards so that we can continue to reward work and 
continue to fight for our values as a nation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

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  Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that upon 
completion of my remarks, Senator Alexander of Tennessee be recognized 
for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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