[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14779-S14780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PERU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am a longtime supporter of policies 
designed to open foreign markets to our Nation's exports through trade 
agreements. I have fought to break down barriers that many other 
countries have erected to block our exports and to create unfair 
advantages. The fact is that mutually beneficial trade agreements serve 
to improve farm income and create jobs here at home, and American 
consumers receive benefits as well, including lower prices and a 
greater variety of goods.
  I supported the fast track procedure in the 1988 Trade Act. I voted 
for the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Uruguay Round GATT 
Agreement. However, trade agreements are not only about commercial 
transactions. Trade agreements also have major environmental impacts, 
and they have major implications for the legal rights and working 
conditions of laborers. All of these factors must be carefully 
considered in determining whether to support a given trade agreement.
  Certainly, there are modest positives in this Peru Free Trade 
Agreement. The American Farm Bureau Federation has estimated that the 
agreement would generate a net increase in U.S. agricultural exports of 
more than $700 million annually once the agreement is fully implemented 
in 2025. I note, however, that, in today's dollars, that would 
represent only roughly one-half of 1 percent of current U.S. 
agricultural exports.
  In addition, this agreement would level the playing field for the 
United States vis-a-vis other major agricultural exporters in South 
America. Both Brazil and Argentina enjoy preferential access into 
Peru's markets because of Peru's associate membership in Mercosur, and 
this FTA would make it easier for our products to compete with exports 
from Brazil and Argentina. However, I have always considered these 
country-by-country trade deals to be far less than ideal. It would be 
far better to negotiate a successful global trade agreement under the 
auspices of the World Trade Organization.
  Despite these modest benefits, I believe that, on balance, the Peru 
Free Trade Agreement falls short. I am particularly concerned about the 
agreement's deficiencies with regard to fighting child labor.
  As many of our colleagues know, I have been working to reduce abusive 
and exploitative child labor around the world for a decade and a half. 
I first introduced a bill on this issue in 1992. Over the years, I have 
worked hard to improve the labor provisions in various trade measures, 
concentrating particularly on abusive and exploitative child labor. I 
believe strongly that trade agreements should support and reinforce 
existing international child-labor standards, not undercut them. On 
this criterion, the Peru FTA falls short.
  According to the best estimates by the International Labor 
Organization, ILO, there are at least 218 million child laborers 
between the ages of 5 and 17 in today's global economy. Of these 218

[[Page S14780]]

million child laborers, more than 100 million have never seen the 
inside of a classroom. An estimated 126 million children are working 
under the most hazardous circumstances in mines, in fishing operations 
and on plantations. These children are being robbed of their 
childhoods. Many are being denied an education. They are deprived of 
any hope for a brighter future. In the years ahead, they will grow up 
illiterate and exploited, and this will create a wellspring of future 
social conflict and strife, and even terrorism.
  We have made progress in recent years by increasing funds for 
programs to rehabilitate child laborers through our contribution to the 
ILO's International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor. In 
2000, I successfully amended the Trade and Development Act with a 
provision directing that no trade benefits under the Generalized System 
of Preferences, GSP, will be granted to any country that does not live 
up to its commitments to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. I 
required that the President submit a yearly report to Congress on the 
steps being taken by each GSP beneficiary country to carry out its 
commitments to end abusive and exploitative child labor.
  I want to explain clearly to my colleagues what I mean when I refer 
to abusive and exploitative child labor. I am not talking about 
children who work part time after school or on weekends. There is 
nothing necessarily wrong with that. What I am referring to is the 
definition set out by ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child 
Labor. This is not just a Western or a developed-world standard; it is 
a global standard that has been ratified by 163 countries. It was 
ratified by Peru in 1999. The United States was the third country in 
the world to ratify this convention.
  It is true that we have made some modest progress in including labor 
protections in this Peru Free Trade Agreement. But we all know that 
labor protections in trade agreements mean nothing in the absence of 
political will to enforce them. I am also concerned that, on the very 
same day that the deal to include new labor provisions in the Peru FTA 
was announced, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said, ``We 
are encouraged by assurances that the labor provisions cannot be read 
to require compliance with ILO Conventions.'' Clearly, this statement 
sends a powerful message that the labor provisions in the Peru FTA 
should be ignored.
  Under the Peru deal, the only party that can seek enforcement of 
labor violations in Peru is the U.S. administration. There is no 
mechanism for an outside party, such as a nongovernmental organization, 
to bring a complaint, as exists under the GSP. This would actually take 
us, and the world, a step backward when it comes to protecting 
children. That is right. This free-trade agreement with Peru, which 
replaces GSP provisions in governing trade between our two countries, 
will take us backward with respect to combating abusive and 
exploitative child labor.
  Under the current U.S. GSP provisions, the President now must report 
to Congress annually regarding Peru's child labor practices. Under GSP, 
if Peru is not meeting the obligations that it undertook as a signatory 
to the ILO Convention 182, if it is not acting to eliminate the worst 
forms of child labor, then trade sanctions are imposed immediately to 
require enforcement in Peru of internationally recognized standards. 
This protects children. It also ensures that our workers will not be 
subjected to unfair competition from abusive and exploitative labor 
abroad. Unfortunately, under the Peru Free Trade Agreement, trade 
sanctions are not automatic.
  I remind our colleagues that we voted 96 to 0 to include those 
protections, which I offered to GSP. It was a Harkin-Helms amendment, 
and it received unanimous, bipartisan support. None of us wanted to 
have those child labor protections undercut by our trade negotiators in 
an agreement with Peru or any other country but that is exactly what 
has happened. Now, because of fast-track rules which don't allow us to 
amend this legislation, we won't even be able to vote to restore the 
GSP protections in this agreement. If we vote for this trade agreement, 
we are voting to remove the protections that all of us who were here in 
2000 voted to put in place.
  On the matter of child labor, this Peru Free Trade Agreement takes us 
in the wrong direction. Abusive and exploitative child labor is wrong 
as a matter of principle. And it is also wrong as a practical matter. 
Our workers and our small businesses should not have to compete with 
abused and exploited child laborers abroad.
  I am sorry to say that this is not an academic or rhetorical issue in 
the case of labor practices in Peru. Peru is far from the worst 
Government, even in our hemisphere, when it comes to meeting its 
international obligations to protect children from abusive and 
exploitative labor. I don't mean to single out Peru. But there is broad 
agreement among international observers--including our own Department 
of Labor, the Department of State, UNICEF and the International Labor 
Organization--that the problem of abusive child labor persists in that 
country. As many as 1.9 million Peruvian children between the ages of 6 
and 17 are working rather than attending schools as they should. There 
are an estimated 150,000 child laborers in the capital city of Lima 
alone. The Government of Peru may be seeking to reduce the problem, as 
it should, but we should not be weakening our sole existing trade 
mechanism that allows us to monitor its progress. That is not the way 
forward for free and fair trade. And it is certainly not the way to 
lift up the Peruvian economy. Abusive child labor perpetuates the cycle 
of poverty across generations. No country has achieved broad-based 
economic prosperity on the backs of working and exploited children.
  Mr. President, I appreciate that improvements were made to this 
agreement thanks to my Democratic colleagues in the House. But this 
remains a flawed agreement, one that we are not allowed to correct 
through amendments. I was eager to support an agreement promoting freer 
trade with Peru, but I cannot support a flawed agreement that takes a 
step backward from current law.

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