[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 65 (Thursday, April 30, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H5044]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      PANAMA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Kirkpatrick of Arizona). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Madam Speaker, I rise with sadness at the news that this 
administration intends to follow the broken trade agenda of the 
previous administration by pushing Congress to approve the United 
States-Panamanian Free Trade Agreement.
  How many American jobs must be lost, how many businesses must be 
closed, how many towns across this Nation must be hollowed out before 
the government realizes that our trade policy is broken? We have had 15 
years of the NAFTA-based trade model on which the Panamanian agreement 
is based, and the results are in: we now have a $127 billion annual 
trade deficit with Mexico and the other 15 nations with which we have 
free trade agreements. Since the passage of NAFTA, the United States 
has lost 4.5 million manufacturing jobs, over 364,000 in my home State 
of North Carolina alone.
  We are in the worst recession since the Great Depression. 
Unemployment is rising and it may soon be over 10 percent. The last 
thing this country needs is another free trade agreement that will 
cause more good-paying American jobs to be outsourced.
  Most of us would agree that America will not recover until we reduce 
our reliance on imports and produce more of what we consume right here 
at home. The insanity of this agreement is that it will do just the 
opposite. In fact, this agreement actually obligates U.S. taxpayers to 
fund a New Committee on Trade Capacity building, one of the primary 
goals of which, according to CRS, is to help Panamanian businesses in 
``increasing exports to the United States.''
  Well, isn't that nice? At a time when this government is running a $2 
trillion annual deficit, this agreement will use U.S. taxpayers' money 
not to help U.S. companies but to help Panamanian companies take market 
share and jobs from domestic employers.
  One last point, Madam Speaker. President Obama campaigned on and, in 
my opinion, carried several States because of his pledge to stop the 
incentives for companies to outsource jobs and dodge U.S. taxation by 
moving operations offshore to tax-haven jurisdictions like Panama. 
Unfortunately, this trade agreement would tear that pledge to pieces.
  The reality is that Panama is known internationally as one of the 
leading tax havens in the world. Corporations from the United States 
and around the globe set up shop in Panama in order to dodge taxes in 
their home countries. Sadly, this agreement does nothing to stop that 
activity.
  Madam Speaker, this agreement is bad for America, especially at this 
perilous economic time for our Nation, and I would encourage the 
administration to rethink its position before it asks Congress to 
approve it.
  And with that, Madam Speaker, before I close, with our men and women 
fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, I ask God to please bless our men and 
women in uniform, and I ask God three times, God please, God please, 
God please continue to bless America.

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