[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 10, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5177-H5178]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
A RED HERRING
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, the New York Times CBS spring poll has
reported that 68 percent of Americans favor putting restrictions on
what is called free trade to protect our domestic industries. That is
the highest level of concern since the poll began asking the question
in the 1980s, and a 12 percent rise just since 2000.
Only 14 percent of Americans surveyed last year by the Pew Global
Attitudes Project said increase in trade was very good for our country.
And the American people, by a healthy majority, view NAFTA and NAFTA-
like trade agreements as flawed and costing our people more job washout
every day. In other words, a majority of people in our country not only
believe something is wrong with current U.S. trade policy, enough of
them have now been hurt directly by unfair trade that they now know
personally what a bad trade deal can yield. When you are almost $1
trillion in trade deficit, something is fundamentally wrong.
So what does one of America's premier newspapers place on its
editorial page this week in response? Do they look inside the gaping
job loss and trade deficits our Nation is experiencing and attempt to
reshape the policy to again produce a better yield in jobs for our
people and Nation? No. They put their head in the sand. And they do so
in the form of an editorial that is nothing more than a red herring.
Actually, this looks like a herring to me. A red herring. You've heard
that old expression which means someone distracts attention from the
real issue. They state a half-truth and then wage a fierce argument
against that falsehood as if the falsehood were true. It is an old
trick.
The New York Times article written by Eduardo Porter, is a complete
red herring. He said that people who worry about job loss in America
related to trade want to stop trade. He said that those people are
isolationists. Nothing could be more untrue.
I say to Mr. Porter the vast majority of the American people want to
fix what is wrong with these trade deals. And there is plenty wrong. If
he fails to grasp that, he might, as the old expression goes, ``fail to
see the wall in front of his face and run right into it.'' Mr. Porter
alleges that the majority of Americans who favor putting restrictions
on free trade to protect domestic industries will push the new
President to be undiplomatic and unreasonable when it comes to what
Porter calls economic protectionism.
Mr. Porter, reciprocity is not protectionism. With nearly $1 trillion
net trade deficit sucking more and more jobs out of this country, he
should be championing balancing our trade agreement and creating jobs
here in America again. But he opines that other countries, like Canada,
Sweden and Germany, in which fewer people favor such measures, are
scared that a new trade model would bring about what he calls a trade
war. Yeah, you scare them, right? Try to scare the American people.
What Mr. Porter does not understand is that America's hostility is
not to international trade, but to trade agreements and deficits that
cause job outsourcing, job losses and cuts to middle-class benefits and
health coverage. Americans support trade that wins for them and that
brings prosperity to America again. They want trade that builds a
middle class here at home and abroad. They are tired of being jerked
around by the multinational companies that trade them for $1 an hour
worker in China who has no hope of a better life. They want that worker
to get a fair deal too. They support trade that creates jobs, America
used to do that before we fell into deficit, and exports American
products again to customers around the world. They broadly oppose the
failed NAFTA model that has sucked jobs and money away from America to
corrupt and closed markets that keep their boot on the necks of workers
around the world who have no rights. Porter claims trade hawks want to
disengage from the world. Wrong again. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Americans wants to engage. They want reciprocal trade,
balanced trade and free trade that builds a middle class, not shatters
it.
That is why a number of us introduced a bill he mentions offhand, the
trade act, H.R. 6180 which currently has over 50 sponsors and sets
guidelines for responsible trade that encourages free trade among free
people. Porter says that Europe and Germany don't share our point of
view and we should be more like them. I will agree with him on one
account. We should be more like them because they have trade balances,
not trade deficits. They are sitting pretty compared to ours. We have a
$711.6 trade deficit in 2007, and they, in fact, have surpluses. So Mr.
Porter ought to be fighting for a strong America. And that means free
trade among free people.
Indeed, the latest monthly trade figures from April show our nation
has just gone further in the hole at $60.9 billion deficit. More red
ink = more lost jobs and more workers falling out of the middle class.
Yet Canada and Sweden both managed surpluses of about $30 billion in
U.S. dollars. Their trade numbers are moving in the right direction.
Germany commanded a trade surplus of more than $185 billion. I ask Mr.
Porter, why shouldn't America move its accounts to balance and surplus?
Why does he favor more job washout? More loss of income for our people?
More red ink? Furthermore, workers in those countries need not worry
about losing their healthcare since the government provides assistance.
Those countries trade in order to make money, but our trade policies
have resulted in a hemorrhage of our resources.
The New York Times and Mr. Porter ought to be fighting for a strong
America--and that
[[Page H5178]]
means a strong economy evidenced by balanced trade accounts, not
deficits. A strong America means keeping and creating good jobs, with
living wages and benefits like healthcare. And a strong America means
trade relationships that bring strength to our economy and our trading
partners', not a race to the bottom or human rights violations.
America ought to be fighting for opening the closed markets of the
world, like Japan's and China's, not putting our heads in the sand
while our competitors levy non-tariff barriers against America's goods
and services. If we are not trading with a free country with a free
market and free people, we are not trading freely at all. We are paying
these countries to continue unfair economic and political practices at
the cost of our own prosperity and standard of living.
We ought to be fighting for America's middle class, not outsourcing
their jobs to China, India, and Mexico. We should not oppose free
trade; we should support free trade among free people.
[From the New York Times, June 7, 2008]
Europe Fears a Post-Bush Unilateralism, This Time on Trade
(By Eduardo Porter)
The Democrats' vocal hostility to trade is starting to
scare many of America's best friends. As Barack Obama and
Hillary Clinton have bashed China and a variety of free trade
agreements, allies who have been yearning for an end to
President Bush's in-your-face unilateralism are worried that
a Democratic president may be just as undiplomatic, and
unreasonable, when it comes to economic protectionism.
``It is very irresponsible, in my view, to pretend to
people that we can disengage from international trade,''
Peter Mandelstam, the European trade commissioner, warned in
a May interview with the BBC.
It would be a mistake to brush all this off as mere
campaign posturing. The United States remains as open to
trade as its European allies, and in some areas it has even
fewer restrictions. But the question is, for how long?
Despite economists' assurances about trade's many benefits,
American workers increasingly view globalization as a losing
battle against China's cheap labor and a very personal threat
to their wages and jobs. According to a poll this spring by
The New York Times and CBS News, 68 percent of Americans
favor putting restrictions on free trade to protect domestic
industries. That is the highest share since they began asking
the question in the 1980s, and 12 percentage points more than
in 2000.
Workers in other rich nations feel less threatened. Only 14
percent of Americans surveyed last year by the Pew Global
Attitudes Project said increasing trade was ``very good'' for
the country. That's less than half the share in Canada,
Germany or Sweden. Even among the French, who tend to see
capitalism as gauche and occasionally drive tractors into
their local McDonalds, 22 percent said more trade was very
good.
The issue isn't the amount of trade. European countries
actually trade much more than the United States. But their
citizens appear to be more comfortable with the idea because
their governments provide a stronger safety net to catch
workers undercut by foreign competition and redistribute the
gains from trade more equitably.
In the United States, public spending on social programs,
from unemployment insurance to health care, amounts to about
17 percent of the overall economy. This is about half the
level in Germany and less than almost every other rich
nation. America's meager social safety net and its winner-
take-all distribution of riches means workers have less to
gain from trade's benefits and more to lose from any
disruption.
Most economists agree that trade plays a small role in the
deteriorating fortunes of less educated American workers. But
as their wages have sagged, their pensions have shrunk and
their health insurance has disappeared, trade has become the
scapegoat. Politicians, especially but not solely from the
Democratic Party, have been eager to capitalize on those
anxieties.
Just this week, Democrats in the House and Senate proposed
a bill that would require the president to submit plans to
renegotiate all current trade agreements--before Congress
considered any pending agreements and before the president
negotiated any new ones. In April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
decided to change the rules guiding approval of free trade
agreements to stall the approval of one with Colombia.
The United States has an enormous stake in maintaining an
open global economy. Trade means export markets for American
products, as well as cheap imports for American companies and
consumers. Foreign competition helps spur productivity, which
has driven the spectacular increase in American living
standards since World War II.
Before this country stumbles into a trade war, all
political leaders would benefit from a careful examination of
how other wealthy democracies have found ways to cushion
economic blows on the most vulnerable and make trade more
palatable to their workers.
More generous social policies are a far better choice than
protectionism.
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