[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 57 (Thursday, April 10, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H2211]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRADE POLICY IS CREATING A CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, today, for the first time in 4 decades, 
the House of Representatives stood up against yet another bad trade 
agreement. Our trade policy is creating a crisis. It's eroding the 
incomes of the middle class. We're losing our manufacturing base in 
this country. We're borrowing $2 billion a day from overseas making us 
vulnerable to countries like China and others who do not have our best 
interests in mind as they amount huge piles of our dollars because of 
the trade deficit.
  Now, all the pointy-headed economists out there, they have a theory. 
The theory is when your dollar or your currency declines, at some point 
you kind of get to a point where your idled capacity ramps up, your 
goods become less expensive, and the world begins to buy your goods and 
your trade deficit goes away.
  I confronted an economist over that vision a couple of years ago, and 
I said, well, that was an interesting theory, you know, 50 years ago. 
Maybe it even worked.
  But what I said to him was what happens to the country that doesn't 
make anything anymore? Doesn't that mean, in fact, as your currency 
drops, you're still addicted to buying the goods made overseas or 
you're just not going to have those goods because you don't make them 
in the U.S. anymore?
  There is no idle capacity to ramp up. Our companies of wholesale 
exported their manufacturing capacity to Mexico and China in the chase 
for ever cheaper, more exploitable labor around the world which has 
been encouraged by our trade agreements. Every other nation on earth 
has a trade policy to take care of the people of their own country. The 
United States has a trade policy to take care of the corporate elite in 
the United States of America and to heck with the rest of our country 
or even national security.
  So why do I come to the floor today to talk about this? Two things: 
One is because we finally stood up against the free trade agreement and 
the fast-track gimmick that has jammed those things through time and 
time and time again. The President negotiated it in secret. You, 
Congress, you can't mess that up. We will lose respect around the 
world. You're just gonna take it. You can't amend it. And we'll fix it 
later. And later never comes.
  But the second reason I come to the floor is because today, to the 
great surprise of those pointy-headed economists, our trade deficit got 
bigger even though we're in a recession and the dollar is dropping like 
a rock toward the value of a rupee, which it will soon achieve if we 
don't do something to turn the tide.
  So our trade deficit grew 5.7 percent to $62.3 billion. We could be 
headed for a record trade deficit. Now why's that? Because those same 
goods that we don't make here anymore are more expensive now because 
we're still buying them with a depreciated dollar.
  Of course, the nightmare scenario is the day when oil becomes 
denominated in somebody else's currency and countries refuse to take 
our currency and refuse to continue to lend us $2 billion a day. And 
that day of reckoning may not be far off.
  It's time for a new trade policy in America, one that brings and 
keeps high-value jobs here at home and gives us a future as a great 
power and a manufacturing power, not as a has-been.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  (Mr. JONES of North Carolina addressed the House. His remarks will 
appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.)

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