[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 54 (Monday, April 7, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2627-S2628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COLOMBIAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, today President Bush announced he was 
sending the Colombian Free Trade Agreement to the Congress. He expects 
and demands that we take it up and pass it. I regret he has taken that 
action because he proposes that we continue failed trade practices of 
the past. That makes precious little sense for this country's 
interests. I am in favor of trade and plenty of it. Trade advances our 
interests provided it is fair and mutually beneficial between our 
country and those with which we have agreements. But I want to cite the 
record of President Bush in the last 7 years because when I say our 
trade policy is a failure, let me describe it this way.
  When President Bush took office in 2001, our trade deficit was $429 
billion. That is way too high. But 7 years later, our trade deficit is 
$815 billion. When the President took office, our trade deficit was 
$429 billion. Now it is almost double, $815 billion. In 7 years, this 
President's trade policies have doubled the trade deficit. We are not 
only collecting a massive amount of debt around the necks of the 
American people, they are encouraging the shipping of U.S. jobs 
overseas.
  Now the President says: I have a new policy. Let's do more of the 
same. If you have trade policies that double the trade debt in this 
country, and you say let's do more of the same, there is something 
wrong with that.
  Last month we lost 80,000 jobs in this country. Just last week it was 
announced, last month we lost 80,000 jobs. And what do we get this week 
from the President? Another proposal of a free-trade agreement.
  Let me describe. We have had plenty of practice with these trade 
agreements. Some long while ago, we had a proposal: We have to have a 
free-trade agreement with Mexico. At the time we had a $1.5 billion 
trade surplus with Mexico. The first President Bush began negotiating a 
free-trade agreement with Mexico. He had a bunch of economists tell us 
how wonderful this would be; if we can just have a free-trade agreement 
with Mexico, it would be nirvana. So we did. I didn't vote for it. I 
led the opposition. But we went from a $1.5 billion trade surplus with 
Mexico to now a $74 billion trade deficit with Mexico. Think of that. 
We went from a $1.5 billion surplus to a $74 billion deficit. We are 
borrowing money from the Mexicans in trade. It is unbelievable. Talk 
about failed agreements.
  This agreement with Colombia is modeled after NAFTA. It is the same. 
You have a failure. Let's do more of it, the President says. I don't 
understand that at all. It is a curious strategy to decide: OK, let's 
hold up a failure and let's suggest we should double it. I don't 
understand it.
  I was watching CNN this afternoon. Wolf Blitzer, who is a terrific 
broadcaster--kind of breathless from time to time--was describing the 
President coming out in his announcement and essentially demanding that 
the Congress pass this free-trade agreement. Wolf Blitzer put up on the 
screen the description the President offered, saying: Most of 
Colombian-made goods come into this country with no tariff on them. 
Many of American goods go to Colombia with a tariff as high as 35 
percent.
  They put up on the screen this zero and 35 with two arrows, Colombia, 
United States. I am thinking to myself, it is curious that the 
President uses this to say we have to have this trade agreement with 
Colombia, as if we have no leverage with Colombia. We are sending a lot 
of money to Colombia, and have for a long while, to help President 
Uribe fight the insurgents, the FARC, the insurgent organization. We 
are sending American tax dollars down there in substantial quantity. We 
don't need to do a bad trade agreement with a failed NAFTA strategy 
with Colombia to get them to reduce their tariffs, if they have tariffs 
on American goods going to Colombia. All we have to do is say: Look, we 
are sending a lot of money down here to help you. Get rid of your 
tariffs. If we don't have tariffs on your goods coming north, don't you 
put tariffs on American goods going south.

  We don't have to pass a bad trade agreement to get that result. We 
just have to say to President Uribe: We have been bankrolling a fair 
amount of the effort that you are making, and we are doing it because 
we want to help you. But in the process of wanting to help you with 
American tax dollars, we expect you to remove the tariffs.
  I have met with President Uribe. I have been in his office in 
Colombia. I have a lot of respect for him. It is a tough job down 
there. They have real problems. Some say: This discussion about labor 
issues and trade agreements is not so relevant. It is pretty relevant 
in a country where one labor leader is killed every week on average 
this year. It is pretty relevant when 97 percent of the killings of 
Colombia labor leaders going back to 2001 have been unpunished--97 
percent. It is pretty relevant, it seems to me. I accept that President 
Uribe has a lot of issues, a lot of problems. We as a country have 
tried to help him. But it seems to me it doesn't help anybody for this 
country and for President Bush to try to push through a bad trade 
agreement.
  While I have respect for President Uribe of Colombia, I don't have 
great happiness about President Uribe being involved in America's 
political system. He decides apparently that he believes he should 
comment on our Presidential race. He says, of one of our Presidential 
candidates, ``I think it is for political calculations that he is 
making a statement,'' referring to a statement that one of the 
political candidates for President said that he didn't support this 
trade agreement with Colombia. So the President of Colombia says:

       I think it is for political calculations that he is making 
     a statement.

  I don't think we need the President of Colombia describing motives of 
our Presidential candidates. There is a perfectly reasonable approach 
to support or perhaps oppose the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. The 
reasonable approach is to say we like failure. We want to do more of 
the same. So give us what you gave us in NAFTA and run a small trade 
surplus up to a huge deficit.
  But there is also a perfectly logical reason for a Presidential 
candidate or a Member of Congress who may wish to

[[Page S2628]]

say at some point: We ought to do a U-turn and say this country is for 
trade. We are for trade and plenty of it. We believe in trade and 
plenty of trade. But we demand and insist at long last that it be fair 
to our country. I don't think the Colombia agreement by itself is some 
sort of pivotal moment. I don't allege that. But I do say I don't think 
we ought to sit here with a President who has doubled the trade deficit 
in 7 years and take advice about what we do in the next 90 days.
  These trade agreements have not worked in our country's interest. 
Trade agreements should be mutually beneficial when we negotiate them, 
whether it is with China, Mexico, Canada, Europe, or Japan. They ought 
to be mutually beneficial. I am flatout tired of seeing the results of 
bad trade agreements.
  I guess some may say if you have an $815 billion trade deficit, it 
doesn't matter. That means over $2 billion a day we are putting in the 
hands of foreigners because that is what we are buying every day that 
exceeds our ability to export. We are importing $2 billion a day more 
than we are exporting in goods. That debt someday will have to be 
repaid with a lower standard of living in the United States. You would 
think at long last someone would say this strategy isn't working.
  It is true that whether it is the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, the 
free-trade agreement with Mexico or Canada or the agreements we have 
with China, it is true that no one in this Chamber is going to lose 
their job to a bad trade agreement. It is other people who will lose 
their jobs--people working in manufacturing plants making bicycles or 
wagons or producing textiles or in high tech.
  I wrote a piece once about Natasha Humphries who lost her job. She 
wasn't a textile worker. She went to Stanford and did everything right, 
a young African-American woman who did everything right and then went 
to work for Palm Pilot. Regrettably, her last job was to train the 
engineer from India who was hired at one-fifth the salary they were 
paying Natasha Humphries.
  So should American youngsters who come out of our colleges, should 
American workers coming out of our colleges, aspiring to work in 
engineering, be willing to work for 20 percent of the salary that is 
paid in this country in order to compete with an engineer from India? 
Those are questions we ought to start asking in this country.
  Everybody says we need to train more engineers and scientists. That 
is true but not if their first job and their last job is to train their 
successor who is an engineer in India making one-fifth the salary.
  So I went further than talking about Colombia, except to say this: 
This is not new. We in this Congress have been for so long a catcher's 
mitt of bad trade agreements from Presidents--for years and years and 
years--and this trade agreement is the model of NAFTA. It is the same 
old thing. There are a couple labor provisions and environmental 
provisions in it, but it is largely the same old strategy.
  I just remind my colleagues what happened with Mexico. Nobody writes 
much about it. Nobody speaks much about it. But we did a trade 
agreement with Mexico. We had all of these claims, all of these boosts, 
all of these suggestions of what was going to happen. We had a $1.5 
billion surplus with Mexico in our trade relationship; in other words, 
it was about balanced. Now it is a $74 billion United States trade 
deficit with Mexico. We end up, some years later, borrowing money from 
the Mexicans, even as we ship our jobs across the line. That is a trade 
strategy that I think is bankrupt for our country.
  My hope is the U.S. House, which likely will deal with this first, 
will make short work of it and simply send a message. The message to 
the President is simple: This country stands for trade. Yankee 
ingenuity and shrewd Yankee business stand for trade. It is in our 
blood. But we also stand for fairness, and at last--at long last--this 
country will begin to write fair trade agreements with other countries 
that stand up for our country's economic interests as well. Yes, we 
want to pull up others, but we will not any longer allow trade 
agreements that push down this country's standards. That has been the 
case for too long.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam 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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