[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 77 (Tuesday, May 19, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5770-H5771]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      PANAMA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  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. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the proposed United 
States-Panama Free Trade Agreement.
  It is very disappointing to see that the President intends to follow 
the broken trade agreement of the previous administration by pushing 
Congress to approve the Panama Free Trade Agreement.
  We've had 15 years of the ``NAFTA-based'' trade model on which the 
Panama 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 over 4.5 million manufacturing jobs, over 
364,000 in my home State of North Carolina alone.
  We're in the worst recession since the Great Depression. Unemployment 
is rising and 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. But sadly, that's exactly what the 
Panama agreement will do.
  Why is that the case? One of the primary reasons is because the deal 
fails to level the playing field for U.S. producers. Let me give you 
one product as an example: seafood.
  One of the biggest industries in my district is commercial fishing. 
The sector has been hammered by a flood of imports from overseas, 
including Panama. Panama's number one export to the United States is 
fish and seafood. They export over $100 million worth of fish and 
seafood to the United States each year. That's more than 50 times the 
amount that the United States exports to Panama. Their top exports 
include products that compete with seafood caught by North Carolina 
fishermen, including shrimp and yellow fin tuna.
  With the Panamanians already having a huge advantage over United 
States fishermen in terms of balance of trade, one would think that the 
least that the United States negotiators could insist upon would be a 
level playing field so that our fishermen could have the same ability 
to access the Panamanian market as their fishermen have to our markets. 
Sadly, that is not the case.
  According to the United States International Trade Administration, 
``while 100 percent of U.S. imports from Panama will receive duty-free 
treatment immediately upon implementation of the agreement, only 82 
percent of U.S. exports to Panama will receive duty-free treatment 
immediately upon implementation.'' Duties on most of the remaining 18 
percent of U.S. exports to Panama would not be eliminated for 10 years.

[[Page H5771]]

  Now, how is that a level playing field? The simple answer is it is 
not a level playing field, and the unfortunate result of provisions 
like this would be the loss of even more United States jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, poorly negotiated trade deals with Panama are one of the 
main reasons our country finds its production base shriveling, our 
unemployment rolls rising, and our economy in shambles.
  Passing this agreement is bad for America, especially at this 
perilous economic time, and I would encourage this administration to 
rethink its position before it asks Congress to approve this Panamanian 
trade agreement.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, before I close, I do want to ask God to 
continue to bless our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
I want to ask God to please bless the families who have given a child 
dying for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I close by asking God to 
give wisdom and strength to the President of the United States. And I 
ask God to continue to bless America.

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