[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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