[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 19, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3626-H3627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     AMERICA'S FAILED TRADE POLICY

  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, how many millions more jobs have to be 
outsourced before Washington wakes up? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce 
this week released a report claiming that U.S. trade agreements have 
support 5.4 million jobs. More than 90 percent of the jobs, according 
to the Chamber, can be attributed to NAFTA and our NAFTA trading 
partners, Mexico and Canada. Are we talking about the same country in 
the same continent?
  In the United States I know and the district I return to every 
weekend, the battering effects of NAFTA and NAFTA-like trade agreements 
are still being felt: lost jobs, shuttered factories, and beleaguered 
communities. I can't help but wonder if the Chamber of Commerce is some 
sort of cruel joke: 5.4 million jobs? No way. Try 1 million jobs lost 
due to NAFTA. Try 2 million manufacturing jobs lost because of all of 
the off-shoring that has gone on in this country in the last quarter 
century. Or how about 12,000 to 20,000 service-sector jobs lost every 
month, many of which have simply been outsourced overseas.
  In Ohio, employment just in the manufacturing sector has declined by 
a third. Companies like Silgan Holdings, Delphi, Georgia Pacific, 
General Motors, Dixon Ticonderoga, Champion Spark Plug, all have moved 
to Mexico. Things are not much better in Mexico. By the 10th 
anniversary of NAFTA, The Washington Post reported that 19 million more 
Mexicans were living in poverty than 20 years ago; 2 million peasant 
farmers alone were dispossessed from their land with no adjustment 
inside that country. So guess what they are doing. They are seeking to 
live anywhere, including crossing our border because they simply have 
no other choice. NAFTA didn't take care of them in their home country.
  Now over half of the Mexican population is considered poor, while one 
in four is considered extremely poor and unable to even afford adequate 
food. The illegal drug trade has swept across that country and locked 
in fully at our border and across our country. Remember when NAFTA was 
held out as the ticket to the promised land with millions of new jobs 
and a rising standard of living? Right here in this very Chamber, 
Members voted to outsource America's job to a low-wage country with a 
state-managed economy.
  Ross Perot was right: NAFTA has been a giant sucking sound of jobs 
leaving our country, leaving us behind with a NAFTA trade deficit of 
over $1.3 trillion since 1994. The deficits from NAFTA and NAFTA-like 
trade agreements have caused the great manufacturing that our Nation 
knew to wither as we saw our companies compete against state-managed 
capitalism in places like Mexico, China, Japan and so many others. 
Trade deficits are at the heart of our economic challenge. They 
destroyed jobs, millions and millions and millions of good jobs. We 
will never get our economy out of the ditch without fundamental changes 
in our trade policy.
  When trade accounts began their downward spiral, America's economy 
started to deteriorate. Do you remember the last time we had a balanced 
trade account? It was 1974 when we had a thriving middle class.
  Is it any wonder that our Nation is paying the price of economic 
policies that led to the current deep recession that Brad DeLong 
estimates has put a third of our Nation in depression. This was no 
accident. It is the direct result of over a quarter century of 
outsourcing U.S. jobs to penny-wage environments and of allowing other 
nations to keep their markets closed through managed trade practices, 
substandard environmental systems, and many undemocratic political 
systems able to exploit their workforces for the benefit of a few 
owners.
  In essence, our market capitalism is forced to compete with state-
managed

[[Page H3627]]

capitalism. From Mexico to China to Japan, it is just not a fair fight. 
These unfair trade agreements have been draining the economic lifeblood 
of our Nation, and every single American knows it to be true. Free 
trade among free people should be a bedrock principle on which any 
trade policy is based. And without it, our workers and companies stand 
no chance.
  It is time to wake up, stand up for this country, and renegotiate 
those trade agreements that keep moving jobs offshore and take more and 
more and more of our jobs every single year. The same countries block 
access of our goods into those countries. It hurts our workers, it 
hurts our communities, and it has hurt this country deeply.

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