[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 152 (Wednesday, October 12, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H6794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OPPOSING THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS
(Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut asked and was given permission to address
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, free trade deals are not an
industrial policy. Unlike most industrial countries in the world, the
United States is the only one that has no overall strategy for bringing
back the 5 million manufacturing jobs that we've lost in the last
decade or reopening the 50,000 factories that have been shuttered.
Without enforcing current trade laws, or pressuring China to adopt
fair currency policies, or using U.S. taxpayer dollars to benefit U.S.
companies, we are on the losing end of free trade before the deals are
even negotiated. Where's the focus on industrial education? Where's the
focus on requiring other countries to live up to their trade
obligations? Where's the focus on making sure that U.S. taxpayer
dollars are spent on U.S. jobs?
Now, I get the benefits of free trade, but come to Waterbury,
Connecticut; New Britain, Connecticut; and Meriden, Connecticut, and
what you will hear is a cry for help, not for more trade deals, but for
a country that recognizes what every other developing industrial
country has in this world, that we need a domestic industrial policy to
protect and support our manufacturers here before we engage in free
trade deals abroad.
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