[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 184 (Tuesday, December 4, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14713-S14716]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PERU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the Peru Free Trade 
Agreement on which we will vote midafternoon today.

[[Page S14714]]

  The trade policies set in Washington, and negotiated across the 
globe, have a direct impact on places such as Lima and Steubenville and 
Cleveland and Hamilton, OH. That is why voters in my State and across 
the country sent a message loud and clear in November demanding a 
different trade policy, a new direction in our trade relations.
  A new report this month from the Center for Economic and Policy 
Research says jobs paying at least $17 an hour--roughly $35,000 a 
year--and provide health insurance and provide some form of pension 
declined by 3.5 million people between 2000 and 2006. If that doesn't 
underscore and emphasize the decline of the middle class, no statistic 
does.
  Working men and women in Ohio know that job loss--a job paying 
$35,000 or $40,000 or $45,000 or $50,000 a year--does not just affect 
the worker or the workers' families, as tragic as that is; job loss--
especially job losses in the thousands--can devastate communities.
  Peru and proposed deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea are 
based on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the so-called NAFTA 
model.
  NAFTA's proponents promised the agreement would create new jobs from 
exports and that U.S. exports to Mexico would exceed Mexican imports by 
some $10 billion. NAFTA supporters also promised it would end our 
immigration issue or problem. More on that at another time.
  Today, imports from Mexico exceed exports by about $70 billion. 
Instead of a multibillion dollar trade surplus with Mexico, as NAFTA 
supporters promised, it has gone the other way manyfold, with a $70 
billion deficit.
  When I was elected to Congress in 1992, the U.S. trade deficit was 
$39 billion. Today, after NAFTA, CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement, and after inclusion in the World Trade Organization, our 
trade deficit has grown to over $800 billion. It went from $39 billion 
in 1992 to, a decade and a half later, $800 billion, which is an 
increase of twentyfold.
  What NAFTA is, and what that model of trade is, is simple: A 
mechanism providing a source of cheap labor for multinational firms.
  The NAFTA model includes rules on investment and procurement that 
favor large companies at the expense of workers, at the expense of 
small manufacturers in Akron, Toledo, Lima, Findlay, and all over my 
State, and at the expense of the democratic process.
  The investor-State rules of the Peru Free Trade Agreement and these 
other proposed deals will allow corporations to enforce their rights 
under the agreement in a private trade tribunal. These are decisions 
where a corporation can sue a foreign government if that corporation 
doesn't like its foods safety rules or if it doesn't like its workers 
compensation system or its consumer protection laws. A company outside 
of the United States can sue our Government when, for instance, our 
Government protests the import of toxic toys from China or protests 
contaminated toothpaste or dog food or any of the consumer protection 
food safety rules that protect our families and our children.
  Now, here is what the investor-State rules mean. If Peru tries to 
make improvements to its food safety, health, and environmental laws, 
large corporations have a mechanism now for challenging it in a private 
tribunal. This isn't a government making the decision, it is a private 
tribunal, with generally anonymous people and trade lawyers who almost 
always decide in support of weakening trade protection laws and decide 
in support of whatever generally corporate interests are in those 
countries and make that decision accordingly.
  That is not bothersome enough. If Peru passes strong consumer 
protection laws or a strong food safety law or a strong generic drug 
law to bring prices down for its consumers, an American company can 
come in--a drug company, a toy manufacturer, a food processor--and sue 
the Government of Peru, saying we don't like these laws, and a private 
tribunal will make the decision. That already has happened under NAFTA, 
and I can give examples. It also works the other way. A company in Peru 
can challenge consumer law, a food safety law, a protection for our 
families law, if you will, in this private tribunal.
  Meanwhile, for other parts of the FTA with Peru, such as labor and 
the environment, we rely on this administration to enforce it. There is 
a history of this administration unwilling to use the existing 
enforcement mechanisms available to us--not just in terms of domestic 
policy, where this administration has weakened environmental laws and 
consumer protection laws and food safety laws, and they have done it 
internationally. Almost one of the first acts President Bush did in 
2001 was all about the Jordan Free Trade Agreement. The Jordan FTA was 
once held as a standard in labor provisions. It passed in 2000 during 
the Clinton administration. I was as critical of President Clinton as I 
am of President Bush. It is not a partisan thing, but today the vote 
may look like that. The Bush administration turned the other way while 
human trafficking was rampant in Jordan.

  In Jordan, workers from Bangladesh come in, their passports 
confiscated, and they work with fabric transshipped from China. So they 
bring fabric produced by textile companies in China--companies with no 
labor standards, little environmental standards, and no real protection 
for workers--they bring in the textiles from China and they bring the 
workers in from Bangladesh. Those workers work sometimes 20 hours a 
day, often without breaks. These textiles are assembled into apparel in 
Jordan in sweatshops and exported to the United States, without duty, I 
might add, without tariffs.
  President Bush's first U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, 
sent a letter to Jordan's Trade Minister in early 2001, saying the 
United States would not use the FTA to enforce certain provisions, 
including the labor chapter. Even though Jordan had strong labor 
provisions, the administration said we are not going to enforce them.
  The Jordanian Government has taken steps to fix its human trafficking 
problem but not because of the enforcement tools available in the trade 
agreement; it is only because of the pressure from world opinion.
  There is more work to do in Jordan. Last week, it was reported that 
workers at a Jordanian factory, working under a subcontract, are being 
threatened with forced deportation after striking to protest the 
imprisonment of six coworkers.
  The National Labor committee, which has done extraordinary 
investigative work in Jordan, reports that the factory owner threatened 
to also cut off workers' food and water. This is the kind of country we 
pass trade agreements with which clearly has no regard for its workers, 
although in this case they were imported workers from somewhere else.
  Remember, factories in Jordan get duty-free access to the U.S. market 
under the Jordan FTA. How can we not be surprised at similar stories in 
Peru, Colombia, Panama or South Korea?
  Workers and consumers get short shrift. Slave wages are OK, unsafe 
working conditions are OK, unsafe products and food are OK, 
contaminated food is OK. With a total lack of protection in our trade 
policy, we are importing not just the goods but the lax safety 
standards. We are not just importing toxic toys from China, with lead-
based paint covering our Frankenstein mugs at Halloween time, we are 
importing the values of those countries. If we are going to outsource 
jobs to China, Peru or Mexico or Bangladesh, they are going to send 
products back into the United States under production standards we 
would never allow in this country. We once did, but we would never 
allow those standards today, with the workers, the environment, the 
safety, and all of that. We are importing Chinese values, those kinds 
of values.
  With the total lack of protections in our trade policy, the Peru Free 
Trade Agreement, similar to NAFTA, which it follows, puts limits on the 
safety standards we can require for imports.
  If we relax basic health and safety rules to accommodate Bush-style, 
NAFTA-modeled trade agreements, then I am afraid we should not be 
surprised to find lead paint in our toys and toxins in our toothpaste. 
We have seen recall after recall after recall: contaminated toothpaste, 
contaminated apple juice and dog food, toxic toys with lead levels 
thousands of

[[Page S14715]]

times higher than we would accept in this country. Yesterday, in 
Cleveland, I had a meeting and a rally with a couple of mothers who 
have small children--Sonia Rosado and Sara Correra. They are alarmed 
and concerned about what to buy their children. They asked: What toys 
can we buy that we know are safe?
  Due to trade agreements, there are more than 230 countries, and more 
than 200,000 foreign manufacturers exporting FDA-regulated goods to 
American consumers.
  Before NAFTA, we imported 1 million lines of food. The FDA regulated 
about $30 billion imported food goods. Now we import 18 million lines 
of foods and at least $65 billion imported food goods. The FDA doesn't 
inspect 50 percent of these or 20 percent or 10 percent; they don't 
even inspect 1 percent of imported foods. They inspect six-tenths of 1 
percent. That means for every 1,000 food shipments that come to the 
United States, they inspect 6. For every 150, they inspect 1. It is a 
pretty lethal combination, when you think about buying products, 
whether it is processed food or toothpaste or toys from a country such 
as China or a country such as Peru, that don't follow the same food 
safety standards or protection standards we do. You have American 
companies hiring subcontractors in Peru or China, and those 
subcontractors are told over and over that you have to cut costs, cut 
corners, and maybe do whatever you have to do to cut costs. Well, that 
means putting lead in toys because lead-based paint is cheaper, easier 
to apply, shinier, and looks a little better sometimes. Then we have 
these products come into the United States and we don't inspect them in 
any significant number.

  So with this trade policy--and Peru is another extension of our trade 
policy with China and another extension of our trade policy similar to 
the North American Free Trade Agreement, the NAFTA model--we are doing 
it again. It is a lethal combination. It is a trade model that chases 
short-term profits for the few, at the expense of long-term prosperity, 
long-term safety, long-term health for the many. It is a model that 
works for a few and doesn't work for overwhelming numbers of Americans.
  Look at our trade deficit: $800 billion, almost $3 billion a day. 
Look at our manufacturing job losses: 200,000 in my State alone for the 
last 5 years. Look at wage stagnation: The middle class no longer gets 
a raise in many cases. Look at imported product recalls: Week after 
week, sometimes day after day, the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
says take that off the market, we can't keep selling that. Look at 
forced labor and child labor and slave labor: We know that is going on 
in China. We say: Well, their products may be a little cheaper. It 
helps us with profits. Companies are doing pretty well. We will accept 
that stuff.
  Look what it does to communities. When a plant closes in Gallipolis 
or a plant closes in Springfield, OH, families face huge tragedies--
neighbors who don't work at those plants, but neighbors see police 
forces cut, teachers laid off, fewer firefighters ready to take care of 
them in an emergency. The tax base is eroded, public services decline. 
They all go together. We are setting ourselves up for more.
  The President says he wants Congress to approve new trade deals with 
Peru, which the Senate will do today, unfortunately, with Colombia, 
with Panama, and with Korea. Secretary Gutierrez called yesterday for a 
vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement soon after the Peru vote. I 
invite the President--I would love to see the President come to 
Portsmouth, OH, on the Ohio River, or sit down with a machinist in Lake 
Erie or Toledo, or sit down with a tool and die maker, a tool and die 
shop owner in Akron. Their productivity is up. These workers are doing 
better and better in terms of productivity. That is a testament to 
their hard work and their skills, but our Nation's workers too often 
don't share in the wealth. They are making more money. They are making 
more profits in the history of our country, particularly since World 
War II: As productivity goes up, so do wages go up. No more. Workers 
are more and more productive as they compete on a very unlevel playing 
field with low income, very underpaid, sometimes slave labor, forced 
labor, child labor workers in other countries. They are more and more 
competitive, but their wages stay flat.
  The President wants these trade deals, and in 2002 Congress gave the 
President the authority to negotiate and to sign and seal these trade 
deals. All Congress gets to do is vote yes or no. No amendments. No 
particularly extensive debate. You have to vote yes or you have to vote 
no. You can't make any changes.
  When I talk to workers in Marion or Mount Vernon or Dayton or 
Mansfield about fast track--this kind of unusual rule that we operate 
trade agreements under in the House and Senate--they ask: What is the 
point of Congress being involved at all? All we do is say yes to the 
President.
  The reason the President wants fast track is it silences opposition, 
it cuts out debate, and pushes through these unpopular trade deals. We 
all know in this body--every single Republican and every single 
Democrat in this body--that these trade agreements--NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR 
with China, trade agreement with South Korea, trade agreement with 
Colombia, trade agreement with Peru and Panama--if they came to a vote 
in the United States among 300 million Americans, they would be soundly 
defeated. We all know that. Many of us ran campaigns last year, in our 
elections a year ago, talking about these trade agreements and what 
they mean.
  The current system is not sustainable. People in Ohio and throughout 
this country will not stand for more of it. Labor unions, environmental 
groups, church groups, development groups are not out lobbying for the 
Peru Free Trade Agreement. People don't come up to me at schools or in 
church or in factories or in small businesses or walking down the 
street or when my wife and I go to the grocery store, and say: Hey, you 
ought to pass another trade agreement because they are working well. 
Our trade deficit only went from $38 billion to $800 billion in 15 
years. They are really working. More jobs created; more manufacturing.
  Of course, they are not asking us to vote for these trade agreements 
because they simply aren't working. Why would we do another trade 
agreement when NAFTA didn't work, when CAFTA didn't work, when PNTR 
with China doesn't work, when these other trade agreements simply don't 
work?
  I think Americans want trade. I want trade. We want trade. We want 
plenty of it, but under rules that raise standards and ensure our 
experts have a lasting and sustainable market for consumers. Trade can 
be a development tool, but the way this administration pursues trade is 
not promoting sustainable development. We want trade with countries 
that will be a lasting market for American goods--a market for American 
goods, not just a source such as Jordan has become, such as China is, 
such as Peru is becoming--not a source for cheap labor. The American 
people want a pro-trade, pro-development, pro-working families, 
forward-looking approach.
  We have a choice. We can work with the countries we want to trade 
with, make sure they play fair, make sure they can purchase our 
products, make sure the standards of living go up in those countries 
over a long period, or we can continue to walk myopically, 
nearsightedly, blindly into even more of the same trade deals. We can 
continue free trade on the cheap, or we can respect the progress 
America has made over the last century: our hard-fought labor laws, our 
food safety laws, our consumer product laws that protect children, that 
protect our families, that give us one more reason to be proud of our 
great country; or we can do what the President wants and what the 
leadership from the Republican Party in this Congress wants. We can 
take two steps--we can take two steps back from this progress to 
accommodate lax labor and safety standards.
  This Congress has a choice too. We can pass legislation to combat 
unfair currency, or we can continue to let China cheat. We can bolster 
trade enforcement, or we can rely on the administration's discretion to 
enforce our trade laws. We can assist workers laid off to unfair trade, 
or we can continue to look the other way.
  We have heard voters in Ohio and around the country call for big 
changes to trade policy. We are hearing consumers demand accountability 
for the

[[Page S14716]]

unsafe imports that are on our store shelves. Looking into the eyes of 
Sara and her children yesterday, looking into the eyes of Sara 
yesterday, of her friend Sonia, and seeing the look she had about why 
isn't the government on our side on this--it does matter. We are 
hearing consumers demand accountability for the unsafe imports that are 
on our store shelves.
  Passing a trade agreement with Peru is not the change Americans 
demanded last year, that Americans continue to demand now, and that 
America will continue to demand in the years ahead.
  I yield the floor and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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