[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 151 (Tuesday, October 11, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H6678]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1210
               TRADE POLICY THAT CREATES JOBS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, at last, it's been a long year. The House this 
week is finally getting around to considering legislation to create 
jobs. You have got to admit, their objective, and the dream of Grover 
Norquist, of delivering a government so small that you can drown it in 
a bathtub has kind of a depressive effect on investment in the economy.
  Cutting investment in education has lost jobs; it hasn't created 
jobs. Cutting investment in infrastructure--28 percent unemployment in 
construction, allied trades, small businesses that provide the work and 
the equipment, which are all private sector jobs--is not too good. So 
their pursuit of these goals so far this year has had a bit of a 
depressive and negative effect on the economy.
  But to congratulate the Republican leaders, finally they've turned to 
creating jobs this week. Three trade agreements. Now, these are kind of 
musty, dusty trade agreements. They were negotiated by the Bush 
administration. Unfortunately, they have been adopted by the Obama 
administration. Nothing ever changes down at the Trade Representative's 
office. It doesn't matter who's in charge--Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, 
George Bush, Barack Obama. People in the Trade Office push the same 
policies. So these are job-creating trade agreements. Congratulations. 
We're building upon the success of the past. NAFTA, great success. The 
WTO, great success. Job creation. Phenomenal job creation. The only 
problem is the jobs are being created in foreign nations because of our 
failed trade policies in this country. We are hemorrhaging jobs.
  This is the record over a decade:
  We lost 15 factories a day--15. Now, some of them were kind of small, 
local small businesses, but Republicans love to talk about their 
advocacy for small business. Fifteen a day for 10 years, that's our 
current trade policy. So what else? Well, that figures out to about 
1,370 manufacturing jobs a day over the last decade.
  So, learning from past experience, we are now going to do exactly the 
same thing yet again. We are going to adopt--I can predict the future. 
The Republicans will all vote for it and a substantial number of my 
colleagues, a minority of Democrats, but they'll sign on too, to this 
false promise of job creation under the guise of free trade.
  According to the Economic Policy Institute, for starters, the Korea 
Free Trade Agreement will cost us 160,000 jobs. Bye-bye to the last 
vestiges of the auto parts industry. They have little provisions, like 
35 percent Korean content requirement, which means they can source all 
their stuff from China, or maybe even better, North Korea, where they 
use slave labor. It will be really cheap. And we're going to ask our 
workers to compete with that. There goes another industry.
  Now, Colombia and Panama. Well, EPI estimates they're kind of dinky 
economies. That will only lose us about 55,000 jobs to start. So, for 
starters, we're creating a quarter of a million jobs overseas with more 
failed trade policies.
  There are other minor problems. Colombia: they kill labor organizers. 
But, hey, they promised they won't do that anymore.
  Panama: a huge haven for drug smugglers, terrorist money, and others. 
They launder money, but they promised the Obama administration, even 
though Bush said they could keep doing it, they promised the Obama 
administration they won't do it. They will no longer allow people to 
secret ill-gotten gains in Panama unless it's in their national 
interest. That's a little bit of a loophole.
  So these are a great deal for the American people. How's that? I 
don't know. Because the special Trade Representative's office, 
unfortunately, rather meekly and quietly, the President, and the 
Republican leadership say these are a good deal for the American people 
because, yes, they will benefit Wall Street and a few multinational 
corporations. They'll just cost another quarter of a million Americans 
their jobs.
  It's time to put an end to this craziness. I can hope--but it won't 
happen--that we can stop these trade agreements here this week on the 
floor and look for a new trade policy, a trade policy that creates and 
brings jobs home to the United States of America. I thought that's who 
we were here to represent.

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