[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 184 (Tuesday, December 4, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14716-S14719]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    UNITED STATES-PERU TRADE PROMOTION AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 3688, which the clerk will 
report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3688) to implement the United States-Peru 
     Trade Promotion Agreement.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there 
will be 90 minutes of debate equally divided.
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words as to why I am 
strongly opposed to the Peru Free Trade Agreement. Some of the points I 
made last night, but I think they need reiteration. The untold story of 
the economy in the United States is that the middle class is shrinking, 
poverty is increasing, and the gap between the rich and the poor is 
growing much wider. I am not going to stand here and tell you trade is 
the only reason the middle class is shrinking, but I am going to tell 
you it is a major reason, and it is an issue we have to deal with.

  Mr. President, since George W. Bush has been in office, 5 million 
Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty, 8\1/2\ 
million Americans have lost their health insurance, median household 
income for working-age families has gone down by nearly $2,500, over 3 
million good-paying manufacturing jobs have been lost, 3 million 
Americans have lost their pensions, wages and salaries are now at their 
lowest share of GDP since 1929, and we are in a situation now where the 
wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earn far more income than the bottom 
50 percent.
  In the last number of years, technology has exploded and worker 
productivity has increased. Yet in the midst of all of that, the middle 
class is struggling desperately to keep their heads above water, and 
poverty is increasing.
  I think the question this Senate should be spending a lot of time on 
answering is why that is happening. Why is it that everything being 
equal, our kids will have, for the first time in the modern history of 
the United States, a lower standard of living than we do? Why is it 
that a two-income family today has less disposable income than a one-
income family did 30 years ago? In the midst of all this globalization, 
all of the explosion of technology, all of the increase in worker 
productivity, there is more and more economic desperation in the United 
States, and the only people who are doing very well are the wealthiest 
1 or 2 percent of the population.
  Now, I think there is a real problem when you have unfettered free-
trade agreements which essentially allow corporate America to throw 
American workers out on the street, move to China, move to other low-
wage countries, pay people their 50 cents an hour, $1 an hour, and then 
bring their products back into this country. One of the great crises we 
are facing is we are not building manufacturing plants in the United 
States and putting people to work at good wages with good benefits. Not 
only are we losing blue-collar jobs, we are losing white-collar 
information technology jobs. And millions of parents all over this 
country are wondering what kind of jobs are going to be available for 
their kids.
  The fact is, these free-trade agreements have not worked. I don't 
know how many times and what people need to understand that. Just take 
a look at NAFTA. I remember, because I was a Member of the House during 
that debate, that the supporters of unfettered free trade told us over 
and over that NAFTA would increase jobs in the United States. But 
according to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA has led to the 
elimination of over 1 million American jobs.
  Now, why would you want to follow a paradigm, a trade policy approach 
which has failed in the past? If it has failed time and time again, why 
would you keep doing the same thing? A manager of a baseball team who 
has losing records year after year gets fired. That is what happens. 
The team changes its approach.
  Right now, we have a huge trade deficit. It is a growing trade 
deficit. We are losing good-paying jobs. Pressure on wages is to push 
them down into a race to the bottom. That is a failed trade policy.
  Supporters of unfettered free trade told us that NAFTA would 
significantly reduce the flow of illegal immigration into this country 
because the standard of living in Mexico would increase. Well, guess 
what. They were wrong. It didn't happen. As a result of NAFTA, severe 
poverty in Mexico increased. It didn't go down, it increased, and 1.3 
million small farmers in that country have been displaced, with real 
wages for the majority of Mexicans having gone down. All of this has 
led to a 60-percent annual increase in illegal immigration from Mexico 
during the first 6 years of NAFTA alone.
  What is happening in Mexico and in the United States and in many 
other countries today because of unfettered free trade is we are seeing 
a huge increase in the gap between the people on top and everybody 
else. I will give just one example. In Mexico today, a poor country, a 
gentleman named Carlos Slim has just surpassed Bill Gates as the 
wealthiest person in the world, worth over $60 billion, in a poor 
country. Incredibly, because of unfettered free trade and near liberal 
type of economic policy, Mr. Slim is worth more than the poorest 45 
million Mexicans combined. One man has more wealth than the bottom 45 
percent, which happens to be 45 million Mexicans. That is one of the 
manifestations of unfettered free trade.
  And the situation is the same with China. I remember the debate about 
China--we have a great market in China. If we open permanent normal 
trade relations with China, it will create all kinds of jobs. Nobody 
believes that is true. We have a huge trade deficit with China, a trade 
deficit that is growing. People today are doing Christmas shopping. 
When they go to the stores, the products they will find from A to Z are 
made in China, not made in the United States. I can tell you that in my 
small State of Vermont, we have lost 25 percent of our manufacturing 
jobs in the last 6 years--not just due to trade, but trade has played 
an important role.
  All over this country, people are wondering why corporate America is 
not reinvesting in Pennsylvania or Vermont or the rest of the country. 
Well, you know why. They are investing billions and billions of dollars 
in China, hiring people there at pennies an hour, and then they bring 
their products back into this country. And people are wondering: How do 
you become a great economy? How do you lead the world? How do you have 
good jobs for your kids if we are not producing the goods that our 
people purchase?
  You will remember, Mr. President, that 20, 25 years ago, the largest 
employer in the United States was General Motors. They produced 
automobiles. They paid people good wages, they had good benefits, and 
there was a strong union. Today, the largest employer in the United 
States is Wal-Mart, with low wages, minimal benefits, and vehemently 
antiunion.
  What I also don't understand, in terms of this trade debate, is who 
the

[[Page S14717]]

Congress thinks it is representing. You go out in my State and all over 
this country, and people say: We do not like unfettered free trade. If 
you want to be a political opportunist, and you don't care about the 
issue, you should vote against the Peru trade agreement. That is what 
the people want you to do. In fact, according to a recent Wall Street 
Journal NBC news poll, 59 percent of Republicans--of Republicans--
believe unfettered free trade has been bad for the U.S. economy. And a 
majority of Democrats feel the same way. So I think maybe the Congress 
has got to start saying to the large corporation CEOs, who in fact do 
very well by unfettered free trade, that our job is not just to 
represent them but to represent the working families of this country.

  This agreement will simply continue a failed trade policy. And, Mr. 
President, you know, because you are a new Senator as well, that during 
the last campaign, many of us raised this issue about unfettered free 
trade. What we heard from constituents was that they wanted a change in 
trade policy. They wanted companies to start investing in America, not 
in China. They are worried about the future.
  So the bottom line is, we have a failed trade policy, and before we 
pass any more trade agreements, I think we need to take a hard look at 
what past trade agreements have done. I think we need a moratorium on 
them, and we need to develop new trade agreements. Trade is a good 
thing, but we need new trade agreements that represent the working 
families of this country so that we can see our wages and our incomes 
going up, not going down; our health care benefits going up, not going 
down; so that we are not engaged in a race to the bottom; so that we 
are helping poor countries improve their standard of living, while our 
standard of living is going up and not bringing everybody down.
  I hope Members of the Senate will give serious consideration to 
rethinking our trade policies and voting this Peru trade agreement 
down.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of 
the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement. Peru is no ordinary 
country, and the Peru agreement is no ordinary free-trade agreement.
  Peru is a vibrant country. It is marked by the diversity of its 
dramatic and varied landscapes, abundant and rich wildlife, and strong 
people. Peru provides a home to more than 170 million acres of forest 
and 84 of the 103 existing ecosystems on the planet. And it is the 
birthplace of the Inca civilization, the builders of the incomparable 
Machu Picchu complex in the Andean highlands. Their descendants live on 
today in Peru's thriving indigenous communities. This remarkable 
diversity of landscape, wildlife, and people deserves to be protected, 
and the strong labor and environmental provisions of the Peru agreement 
ensure that it will.
  Since 1958, when the United States entered into a free-trade 
agreement with Israel, we have entered into bilateral or regional free-
trade agreements with no fewer than 15 additional countries, and since 
then Democrats have sought to make labor and environmental issues a 
greater priority in trade agreements. We have had limited success until 
now.
  The Peru agreement is in fact a groundbreaking achievement. Months of 
complex negotiations involving numerous parties and difficult 
compromises on all sides resulted in a landmark deal between Congress 
and the administration. Believe me, this is a very significant and 
unexpected breakthrough that was achieved not too long ago. We agreed 
to include strong labor and environmental provisions in all our pending 
trade agreements beginning with the Peru Free Trade Agreement. That was 
the understanding, all agreements beginning with Peru--truly a 
remarkable accomplishment, and we should be proud of what we have 
achieved. For the first time, the Peru agreement requires the parties 
to implement the five core International Labor Organization standards. 
For the first time, the Peru agreement requires the parties to 
implement seven core environmental treaties. And, for the first time, 
the Peru agreement makes these labor and environmental provisions fully 
enforceable by subjecting them to the same dispute settlement mechanism 
that applies to all other obligations.
  Some may criticize the agreement as not going far enough, but these 
provisions are in fact exactly what many of us in Congress in the labor 
and environmental movements have been seeking to include in trade 
agreements for decades. They will benefit workers, they will encourage 
environmentally sustainable development, and they will ensure the Peru 
agreement helps to export our fundamental values abroad at the same 
time that it helps to export our products and services abroad.
  The agreement also strengthens our ties with a stalwart ally in an 
increasingly troubled part of the world. It is an agreement with a 
leading reformer in our hemisphere, it is an agreement with one of the 
fastest growing economies in Latin America, and it is an agreement with 
solid commercial benefits for the United States. Mr. President, 98 
percent of Peruvian exports to the United States already receive duty-
free treatment under various United States preference programs. This 
agreement levels the playing field and allows our exports to enjoy the 
same benefits in Peru.
  To cite one example, more than two-thirds of current United States 
farm exports to Peru, including delicious Montana beef, I might add, 
and wheat, will receive immediate duty-free access to Peru under the 
agreement. All remaining tariffs on Montana and other U.S. agricultural 
goods will be eliminated within 17 years.
  For Peru, this agreement means better conditions for its workers, 
strengthened protection for its amazingly diverse environment, and 
greater integration into the world economy. Our neighbors to the south 
can hope it will represent a first step toward increased prosperity, 
transparency, and stability for the Latin American region as a whole.
  This agreement demonstrates what Congress and the administration can 
achieve when we work together. I hope we can build on the success of 
this agreement to heal the wounds of previous battles and I hope we can 
begin to recreate a consensus for trade liberalization going forward.
  But the Peru agreement is only one step in this process. Enactment of 
a robust and modernized trade adjustment assistance program should be 
our next focus, certainly before this Congress considers additional 
free trade agreements. We cannot express support for trade agreements 
unless we fulfill our responsibility to ensure that trade-displaced 
workers, whether in manufacturing or the services sector, are able to 
retrain and retool for the 21st century economy. I look forward to 
working with my colleagues and with the administration on trade 
adjustment assistance reauthorization very soon.
  For all these reasons, I am pleased to support the United States Peru 
Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act and I urge my colleagues 
to support it as well.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous 
consent the time be charged equally against both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I rise this morning to speak on the 
proposed free trade agreement with our friend and neighbor to the 
south, the country of Peru. This is, I believe, a critical piece of 
legislation. The approval of this agreement would do wonders to advance 
United States interests in the region. This is a treaty that should be 
approved because it is good for our bilateral relations with this very 
important country, it is good for our overall relations with the 
region, but most of all we should approve this treaty because it is 
good for the United States

[[Page S14718]]

economy and it is good for Florida's economy, it is good for bilateral 
relations, and it is good for our overall security posture in the 
region.
  The legislation will make trade with Peru a two-way street, will 
benefit small and medium-size businesses, and will reduce barriers to 
services and to investments.
  Over two-thirds of total U.S. exports are manufactured goods, so 
agreements that remove tariff and nontariff barriers in foreign 
countries benefit all American manufacturers, large and small.
  Implementation of this agreement would raise a total of U.S. 
merchandise exports to Peru by over $1 billion in the first year. This 
agreement will add over $2 billion per year to the U.S. gross domestic 
product. Further, this agreement contains groundbreaking enforceable 
core labor and environmental provisions. I know these are important.
  It is not just is it good for business, but is this something that is 
going to also speak about our core values when it comes to labor 
standards? Is it something that we believe will further the condition 
of the world as it relates to the environment?
  This agreement includes provisions that will enhance both of those. 
For the first time, future administrations will have the right to take 
dispute action if labor or environmental issues become a problem. So 
this will have enforcement mechanisms built in. Never has this been the 
case with any of our previous trade agreements.
  So we have made maybe a marker, maybe a breakthrough in a way that we 
can have more of these trade agreements come to pass that are good for 
our country, that are good for our economy and that of our neighbors, 
but yet give people the sense of assurance that environmental and labor 
rights are going to be protected.
  The first year of implementation will boost Florida's total economic 
output by $140 million, create more than 900 jobs in the State I 
represent, and increase workers' earnings by $35 million.
  In the next decade, it is estimated that Florida's total economic 
output would increase by more than $760 million per year. Exports to 
Peru would support more than 4,900 jobs and increase workers' total 
personal income by more than $180 million a year. Fifty-four percent of 
all U.S. high-tech goods exported to Peru are made in Florida. Twenty-
three percent of all U.S. exports to Peru are made in Florida. Florida 
is the hub for transportation, trade, finance, insurance, and several 
other professional services provided to companies from all over the 
world doing business in Peru. More than half of all Peruvians visiting 
the United States come to Florida.
  Peru's democracy has successfully weathered serious security and 
political challenges to its institutions over the last decade. But it 
is a democratic country, and democracy has proven strong, and it has 
proven that it can, in fact, withstand challenges from all sides.
  The decision by newly elected President Alan Garcia to support the 
United States-Peru TPA marks a turning point in our bilateral relations 
and political stability by providing for a secure and predictable 
framework for investors, protections for intellectual property rights 
and worker rights, and an innovative process for public scrutiny 
regarding the enforcement of environmental regulations.
  Peru's democracy has successfully weathered serious security and 
political challenges to its institutions by the fact that elections are 
now repeatedly held and that, in fact, these elections have an outcome 
that is honored by all of the citizens of Peru which shows us they are 
a country strongly on the path to democratic institution building.
  But a great part of this is also economic success. We cannot just 
build democratic institutions; the people must believe by following the 
faith of democracy, by following the path of trade and partnership with 
the United States they can also better their lives; that, in fact, the 
false prophets who would preach to the people of Peru that the path to 
their better future lies in antagonism to the United States, lies in 
the path of socialism, which has been proven to be a failure throughout 
the world wherever tried, is to allow them an opportunity to have a 
successful future by following the path of trade and partnership with 
the world of beliefs in the globalized economy that all of us can 
benefit from if it is done right, and if it is done with the right 
provisions.
  The fact is, at this point in time, we are at a significant 
crossroads in our relations with Latin America. It is an area of the 
world that as long as things are going fine oftentimes we choose to 
ignore. But at the current moment in time, we find that in agreeing to 
this proposal for and altering the trade agreement with Peru that we 
would be rewarding the democratic institutions that have maintained 
Peru over the last decade, but also we would be telling them: We want 
to trade with you. We want to do business with you.
  As we enhance the job creation in my home State of Florida, as I have 
said, as well as in the United States, there is no question that we 
will also be enhancing job creation in Peru itself; that those people 
in Peru who aspire to a better life, who aspire to an opportunity 
perhaps to own their own small business, who aspire to have an 
opportunity to maybe have more yield and output from their agricultural 
production, those who benefit from the opportunities of trade and 
investment will all see the benefits and the fruits of this partnership 
with the United States.

  Now it is good for Peru. But broadly speaking, trade agreements are 
good for America, and they are good for our relations with the region. 
So, therefore, I would say we should approve this agreement today, we 
should vote in favor of our trade agreement with Peru, but we should 
not stop there. We should soon also see progress on our trade agreement 
with Panama and our trade agreement with Colombia.
  The template of this agreement, while we have additional protections 
as well as enforcement methods for labor and environmental rights, is 
the template that we should use in moving forward the Panamanian Free 
Trade Agreement and the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. We have no 
closer friends or neighbors than Panama and Colombia. We have no better 
friends in the region than the Government of President Uribe, where in 
partnership with now two consecutive administrations, the United States 
has taken a bold step forward in saying: We will help you, Colombia, to 
get rid of the narcoterrorists in your country. We will help you to 
achieve a better life and a more secure future for your own people by 
helping you to defeat the people who will sow terror on your streets 
and in your highways.
  In that we have made tremendous progress. As we have done so, we have 
diminished the amount of illicit and illegal drugs from Colombia that 
are entering the United States and poisoning our American streets. But 
we have done more than that. We have also helped them pacify their 
country. Their country is in a huge turnaround. Their country has 
tremendous economic growth. The Colombian people can now freely travel 
the country. That is a result of the good efforts of the United States 
working in partnership with the Colombian Government.
  Colombia has a bright and tremendous future. Forty million people are 
in the country of Colombia. It is a very diverse country. From the 
coast of the Caribbean to the Andes and the interior, it is a country 
of resourceful and tremendously ingenious people who would benefit 
tremendously from the opportunity of having a free-trade agreement with 
the United States.
  It is a free-trade agreement that will create jobs in America, that 
will also enhance the opportunity for the same kind of economic growth 
and job creation that I have talked about with Peru.
  The Panama agreement is a much smaller agreement. Panama increasingly 
has become the trading hub of the Americas through the Panama Canal. 
And we now know that for more than a couple of decades, Panama has been 
in charge and has been running its own canal in a very successful way. 
Now they are enhancing it by expanding it.
  The banking system, from Asia to the Americas, seems to be at a 
crossroads through Panama. It is a country with which we should have a 
trade agreement. We have one that is there.

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It is teed up. We should move it forward. It should be the next one we 
approve, with Colombia coming along not long after. But these are 
tremendously important. These countries look to these agreements as a 
way forward, as a way of enhancing their partnership with our country, 
and rejecting other ideologies.
  You know we might as well talk about this. I think it is very 
important. On Sunday we had a very startling event occur in the region. 
Venezuela held an election in what was a proposal from an increasingly 
authoritarian leader, Hugo Chavez, to become essentially President for 
life. It was essentially to give him the authority to rule by decree, 
to declare a state of emergency and essentially suggest that all of the 
institutions of the country be suspended and he would be the sole 
ruler.
  It also went further, and it said the country would take a socialist 
path. Now, this is only the latest excess by a leader who is excessive 
in many ways, his rhetoric and his action. But this latest excess was 
rejected by the people of Venezuela.
  I congratulate the people of Venezuela for taking this bold step in 
the direction of not a single authoritarian person in charge of the 
government but one who would allow a more democratic future for the 
people of Venezuela. The people of Venezuela courageously went to the 
streets, courageously demonstrated against tremendous oppression and 
repression by the Venezuelan authorities, and continued to insist that 
they have a free vote on Sunday, and they did.
  They rejected the overreaching of President Chavez. But this ideology 
that President Chavez preaches, the failed ideology that was preached 
by Fidel Castro that has taken Cuba on the path of destruction, 
disaster, and desolation is now trying to be inflicted on the people of 
Venezuela, where they are now seeing the same kind of food shortage we 
have seen in Cuba for almost a half a century beginning to manifest 
itself in a country that is so oil rich it is ridiculous.
  The fact is, we see in the path to bilateral trade agreements with 
the United States a rejection of these failed ideologies, a rejection 
of the Chavez way, and a welcoming of a partnership with the United 
States, one that allows independence and democratic institutions to 
flourish, while at the same time improving the lives of the people of 
the region.
  I urge my colleagues to look forward also to the Colombian and 
Panamanian trade agreements. They should be coming. We need to proceed 
to move those forward. They are tremendously important for these 
countries. Let's engage in this friendship, but let's take care of 
first things first and today resoundingly approve the free-trade 
agreement with Peru that is good for America, good for our Nation, but 
also good for Peru, and for our relations with the region.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak for up to 5 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to make a very 
simple statement; that is, about our food security in America.
  For all of my life--as a farmer and a rancher and attorney general--I 
have recognized importance of food security for America. On my desk in 
my Senate office here in Washington, DC, there is a sign that says: 
``No Farms, No Food.''
  It is important for all of us in this Chamber to recognize the 
importance of the food security of the United States of America by 
moving forward with the passage of the 2007 farm bill.
  As the Presiding Officer well knows, the Agriculture Committee, under 
the leadership of Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss, worked very 
hard--worked for weeks and weeks and months and months--to come up with 
what is a very good farm bill. It is a very good farm bill that invests 
in the nutritional needs of our country. It is a very good farm bill 
that helps us unveil the clean energy future of America and helps us 
grow our way to energy independence. It is a very good farm bill that 
invests such as no other farm bill ever has in the conservation 
opportunities we need to protect our land and our water in America. It 
is a very good farm bill in all respects, and it is paid for. It is a 
farm bill that is paid for.
  We have been on this farm bill now in the Senate for the last several 
weeks, since before Thanksgiving, and have not been able to move ahead. 
The majority leader, Senator Reid, has propounded a proposal where we 
would move forward with a set of discrete amendments, giving the 
Republicans 10 amendments, having the Democrats have 5 amendments and 2 
additional amendments would be considered. It seems to me that is a 
very eminently fair proposal, and I would ask my colleagues, both on 
the Democratic side and the Republican side, to stand behind that 
procedural framework so we can get onto the farm bill and get this farm 
bill across the finish line.
  It is my view the people of America deserve no less from this Senate, 
and I am very hopeful we will be able to come to that agreement very 
soon.

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