[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 145 (Thursday, September 27, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12277-S12278]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              TRADE POLICY

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, our Nation's haphazard trade policy has 
done plenty of damage to Ohio's economy, to our workers--from 
Steubenville to Cambridge, from Portsmouth to Wauseon--to our 
manufacturers--in Bryan and Cleveland and Akron, and Lorain--and to our 
small businesses in Dayton, Cincinnati, and Springfield.
  Recent news reports of tainted foods and toxic toys reveal another 
hazard of ill-conceived and unenforced trade rules. They subject 
American families, American children, to products that can harm them--
that in some cases can actually kill them.
  Our trade rules encourage unsafe imports. Our gap-ridden food and 
product inspection system lets those imports into our country. Our lax 
requirements for importers let those products stay on the shelves. And 
our foot dragging on requiring country-of-origin labeling leaves 
consumers in the dark. It is a lethal--all too lethal, all too often--
combination.
  With a total lack of protections in our trade policy, we do not just 
import goods from another country, we import the lax safety standards 
of other countries. If we relax basic health and safety rules to 
accommodate Bush-style, NAFTA-modeled trade deals, of course, we are 
going to find lead paint on our toys and toxins in our toothpaste.
  Just think of it this way: When we trade with a country, when we buy 
$288 billion of products from China, for instance--a country that puts 
little emphasis on safe drinking water, on clean air, on protections 
for their own workers, on consumer protection, and then they sell those 
products to the United States, why would they care about products, 
consumer products, toys that are safe or food products that are safe, 
when they do not care about that in their own country for their own 
workers and for their own consumers?
  Add to the fact that U.S. companies put tremendous pressure on their 
Chinese subcontractors to cut the cost of production to cut their own 
costs, and the Chinese are going to use lead paint because it is 
cheaper. They are going to cut corners on safety because it is cheaper.
  At the same time, the Bush administration has weakened our Food and 
Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture, and Consumer Product 
Safety Commission rules, and that is compounded even further because 
they have cut the number of inspectors. So why should we be surprised 
when we see toys in our children's bedrooms that are dangerous, or when 
we see vitamins in our drugstores and food in our grocery stores that 
are contaminated?
  Due to trade agreements, there are now more than 230 countries and 
more than 200,000 foreign manufacturers exporting FDA-related goods--
FDA-regulated goods--to American consumers.
  Before NAFTA, we imported 1 million lines of food. Now we import 18 
million lines of food. One million lines of food in 1993; today it is 
18 million lines of food.
  Unfortunately, trade deals put limits on the safety standards we can 
require for imports and even how much we can inspect imports. I will 
say that again. We pass a trade agreement with another country. It puts 
limits on our own safety standards, and it puts limits on how much we 
can inspect those imports.
  Our trade policy should prevent these problems--not bring them on.
  Now the President, though, wants new trade agreements with Peru, 
Panama, South Korea, and Colombia--all based on the same failed trade 
model that brought us China, that has brought us NAFTA, that has 
brought us the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
  This Chamber will soon consider--maybe even next week--a trade 
agreement with Peru. Some may wonder why we are entering into new trade 
agreements right now considering we have had five straight years of 
record annual trade deficits.
  When I first ran for Congress in 1992, on the other side of the 
Capitol, to be a Member of the House of Representatives, our trade 
deficit was $38 billion. Today, it exceeds $800 billion. Our trade 
deficit with China was barely double digits 15 years ago. Today, it 
exceeds $250 billion.
  The NAFTA/CAFTA trade model has driven down wages and working 
conditions for workers in Marion and Mansfield and Bucyrus and Canton 
and all across the United States and abroad.
  This kind of trade has torn apart families' health care and pension 
benefits. It undermines our capacity even to produce equipment vital to 
our national security.
  Contrary to promoting stability in Peru and the Andean region, as 
this trade agreement's supporters would say, these trade agreements are 
actually more likely to increase poverty and inequality.
  This month, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 
issued a report warning developing countries--poorer nations that are 
doing trade agreements with us--to be wary of bilateral and regional 
free trade deals. The U.N. Report cited the North American Free Trade 
Agreement as an example of a trade agreement that may have short-term 
benefits for poor countries but has long-term harm. We know what NAFTA 
did to Mexico's middle class. We know what NAFTA did to its rural 
farmers. Well over 1.3 million farmers were displaced since the North 
American Free Trade Agreement in Mexico.

  Let's look at Peru for a moment. Nearly one-third of Peru's 
population depends on agriculture for its livelihood. The development 
group Oxfam estimates that 1.7 million Peruvian farmers will be 
immediately affected by this trade agreement. When those farmers can't 
get a fair price for wheat or for barley or for corn, they are forced 
to produce other crops--almost inevitably, including coca. That means 
more cocaine production, it means more illegal drugs in the United 
States. We have been there before. We have seen that before. We have 
seen the rural dislocation in Mexico, after NAFTA, and there is nothing 
to suggest the Peru trade agreement will be any different.
  Scholars, including former World Bank Director Joseph Stiglitz, note 
that rural upheaval from trade deals means more violence, more U.S. 
money spent on drug eradication.
  An archbishop in Peru said:


[[Page S12278]]


       We are certain this trade agreement will increase the 
     cultivation of coca, which brings drug trafficking, 
     terrorism, and violence.

  So if we are talking about combating terrorism around the world, the 
exactly 180-degree wrong thing to do is a trade agreement with Peru 
because it will mean, as the archbishop said, the increased cultivation 
of coca because we will put some of their corn farmers, their barley 
farmers, their wheat farmers out of business. More coca, more drug 
trafficking, more terrorism, more violence, more instability.
  We need a new trade approach in our policy, one that benefits workers 
here and promotes sustainable development with our trading partners.
  This Peru agreement has some improvements in labor and the 
environment. It is important to note that this change in the 
administration's view toward labor and environmental rules of trade 
agreements would not have happened without voters' demand for change 
last year. But the demand for change in trade policy runs deep. We have 
heard workers in Ohio and around the country call for big changes in 
trade policy, and we are hearing consumers in Avon Lake and in 
Kettering demand accountability for the unsafe imports that are on our 
shelves. Passing a trade agreement with Peru is not the change we need. 
We want trade. We want more trade. We want trade under different rules 
and, most importantly, our responsibility is to protect our family's 
health and protect our children.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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