[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 13 (Tuesday, January 27, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H632-H636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Katko). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2015, the Speaker recognizes the gentleman from
New York (Mr. Tonko) for 30 minutes.
Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, we thank you for the opportunity to gather as
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Democrats in this 30-minute Special Order opportunity to discuss our
Nation's recent free trade agreements. And I will note that
nomenclature: free trade. There are concerns about fair trade being the
outcome, and we will be talking about that here in this format.
This is more important now than ever before as our United States
Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman testified before the
House and Senate today. The Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations are
being held as we speak this week in New York City. And some Members of
Congress have suggested a trade promotion authority bill, better
referenced as a ``fast track,'' that may be introduced in the near
future, a fast track that would deny the checks and balances of
Congress, one that would not allow us to actively overview the impact
of these negotiated settlements, these contracts, and would require a
simple thumbs up-thumbs down vote without, again, that interactive
quality that serves that responsibility to the Members of Congress.
But before we give away Congress' ability to conduct proper oversight
and review these trade agreements that are currently being negotiated,
including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we need to discuss how free
trade agreements from the past two decades have not delivered on their
promises.
These trade deals will have far-reaching impacts on American life.
They could include impacts on food safety or perhaps affordable
medicine or perhaps regulations with the banking industry, the
financial industry.
Let's not be reckless and allow these deals to move forward without
thorough and proper consideration by Congress. Frankly, these deals
have not lived up to the hype. President Obama indicated as much in his
recent State of the Union message: ``I'm the first one to admit that
past trade deals haven't always lived up to the hype.''
So whether it was NAFTA--the North America Free Trade Agreement--or
the Korean Free Trade Agreement, supporters of our past FTAs have
promised these deals would create a good outcome, create United States
jobs, create a lesser trade deficit, and improve global labor and
global environmental standards.
{time} 1845
Tragically, sadly, this has not been the outcome.
TPP supporters have said this one will be different. The Trans-
Pacific Partnership, which could cover a great majority of the
international economy, has its supporters saying that this will be a
21st century agreement, far different from those that have preceded it.
Leaked information from the TPP negotiators shows that it is being
modeled by the negotiations, themselves, not by the negotiators,
showing that it has been modeled on trade policies that have proven to
offshore good-paying jobs in our economy and to force wages down for
America's working families. That is why respected economists, including
many who have previously supported free trade, such as Jeffrey Sachs,
as well as Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, have
expressed skepticism about the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation.
They are coming to realize what many of our constituents have long
known: these trade agreements do not respond favorably to the American
middle class.
Sachs' speech at a trade forum on Capitol Hill included comments that
indicated:
I don't think TPP and TTIP rise close to the standard of
being 21st century trade and investment agreements, not even
close. They are very much 20th century agreements which were
already out of date by the time they were negotiated. This is
a NAFTA treaty writ large or these are the same negotiations
that we have had in many other cases.
In the New York Times, Mr. Krugman indicated:
I am, in general, a free trader, but I will be undismayed
and even a bit relieved if the TPP just fades away. The first
thing you need to know about trade deals in general is that
they aren't what they used to be. The glory days of trade
negotiations and the days of deals like the Kennedy Round of
the 1960s, which sharply reduced tariffs around the world,
are long behind us.
Then Mr. Stiglitz, in the New York Times, is quoted as saying:
Based on the leaks--and the history of arrangements in past
trade pacts--it is easy to infer the shape of the whole TPP,
and it doesn't look good. There is a real risk that it will
benefit the wealthiest sliver of the American and global
elite at the expense of everyone else.
Tonight, I hope we can have a thoughtful discussion about jobs, about
wages, about environmental standards that could be impacted, about
child labor laws that could, perhaps, be thrust upon us that have been
promised for every FTA in the past two decades. Sadly, our constituents
are looking for that sort of progressive outcome that has not been
realized, and, certainly, our workers have been impacted. I represent a
district that is tremendously impacted by these trade negotiations.
So, tonight, it is a pleasure to work with my colleagues in order to
get out the message about the broken promises of our trade agreements.
I see my good friend and colleague who has been a very passionate
voice on speaking out about these issues. He is Tim Ryan, our
Representative from Ohio's 13th District. Let me yield to Mr. Ryan so
he can share some thoughts with us.
Welcome.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Thank you so much. I want to thank the gentleman
from New York. It is always fun to be here with you in the later
evening hours.
As I am listening to you talk about fair trade versus free trade and
about some of these agreements, you have just got to go to the
communities. I mean, this is not rocket science. Go to the communities
that have been impacted over the last 20 or 30 years, going back to
NAFTA and CAFTA and all of these other agreements, and look at them.
Look at what has happened in places like Youngstown, Ohio, or in
upstate New York or in Connecticut or up and down the east coast.
Mr. Speaker, we have, in Ohio, several companies that, after the
NAFTA agreement, started moving, wholesale, their manufacturing
facilities from Warren, Ohio, or Youngstown, Ohio, to just over the
border in Mexico--to just over the border with cheaper labor and no
environmental or labor standards to be seen--and shipping the products
right back over, decimating communities across Ohio, like the ones that
we represent.
There is a State route in Ohio, State Route 7. It goes from the lake
all the way down the Ohio River. If you want to see what these trade
agreements have done in the heartland, go take a ride down Route 7,
especially the southern part. Go through Steubenville and East
Liverpool, Ohio; go down to Portsmouth; go through Athens County, and
you will see the erosion of what used to be the industrial might of the
United States of America. They have eroded communities.
The ripple effect--the job aspect of it--is of unemployed people. Now
there is no one to support the schools. Now there is no one to support
the mental health levy. Now there is no one to support the libraries.
Now there is no one to throw $20 in the basket at church on Sunday. The
ripple effect throughout these communities has decimated the middle
class, our communities, and has reduced opportunity for our young
people, whom we want to thrive in manufacturing in the United States.
I don't want to see the GDP. I don't want to see numbers. I want to
see what it is doing for average Americans and middle class people--
period, end of story. How does it help them? Drive through the
communities, and you are going to see the evidence that we have not
negotiated these agreements. If there is growth and if there are
increased profits and if the stock market is going up, where is that
money going? It is not going to the middle class people. There used to
be middle class people in our congressional districts, and I have told
this story before.
We have a $1 billion steel mill that is located in Youngstown now.
Why? The company asked us to fight to put tariffs on the dumped Chinese
steel tubing that was coming in, and the President, to his credit, put
the tariffs on. They built the steel mill.
So, when you level the playing field--if you are dumping or if you
are manipulating your currency, which is something that we have got to
get in this agreement: real teeth into the currency manipulation
issue--or the environment or labor, then people and companies will
reinvest back in the United
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States, and you can reinvigorate State Route 7, going north and south
in Ohio. To me, that is the most important part. What are we going to
do? How are we going to write agreements? How are we going to structure
our trade to operate in a way that draws investment into the United
States?
One last piece.
The small- and medium-sized manufacturers get hammered in this. Do
you want to be pro business? Do you want to be pro middle class, small
business, medium-sized businesses, tool and dye makers, mom-and-pop
manufacturers that operate in communities like ours--the people who
treat their employees like they are family and are the ones who sponsor
the Little League team or the soccer team? They are getting wiped out
in these agreements, and we are not factoring them in.
If we want a small, robust middle class, business community in the
smaller and mid-sized cities in America, these are the kinds of things
we need to factor in when we are operating. Yes, we have got to invest
in roads and bridges. Yes, we have got to invest in infrastructure. We
have got to do research. We have got to make sure that we have an
educated, skilled workforce, and we should invest in manufacturing and
all the rest; but the trade agreements are key. If you look at what
Korea has done to our auto industry and to our trade deficit with
Korea--just those two things--we have lost tens of thousands of jobs
because of the Korea trade agreement, and our trade deficit with them
has skyrocketed.
The proof is in the pudding. If we want to bring back the State Route
7s in the Ohios of America, then we need to do exactly what you are
saying, Mr. Tonko, and what Rosa DeLauro is going to say and what
others are going to say tonight. We need to reframe the way we talk
about this.
I am very thankful for the invite here, and I appreciate your passion
and how you believe and understand we have got to do real economic
development in upstate New York and in places like my communities.
Thank you for being a leader on this issue.
Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Ryan, for bringing it right down
to the basic, core ingredient, and that is the dignity of work for
American families. You speak it so well for those you represent in
Ohio.
This is about broken promises. It is about promises for jobs,
promises for worker opportunity, promises for environmental standards,
promises for labor standards. We need to let the American public know
exactly what is happening. If you are a believer in fair trade--not
necessarily in free trade. If you believe in fair trade and if you
don't think of fast track, which is when we circumvent the authorities
and responsibilities of Congress, then let your voice in Congress know
that. Let everyone know what you are thinking, because these are
critical moments.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to a good friend and colleague who is a very
outspoken voice for social and economic justice, who has spoken to the
unfairness of these negotiated arrangements for trade, and who has led
us as a Democratic Caucus in this House to speak out forcefully about
the fast-track process and about fair trade versus free trade. She is
none other than my good friend and colleague from the Third District of
the State of Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro.
Ms. DeLAURO. Thank you so much to my colleague from New York and to
my colleague from Ohio, Tim Ryan, who is just leaving the floor, and we
have got Wisconsin in the House with Mr. Pocan.
Mr. Tonko, thank you for taking the lead on this effort. I can't tell
you how proud I am to join with men and women in this body who
understand what is going on in the lives of working families today.
Mr. Speaker, they are struggling. We need to walk in their shoes.
That is what our job is--to represent their interests in this body.
What do we know? We know that, in fact, they are in jobs today that
don't pay them enough money to survive. That is why we are organized
and are taking on a process which can do nothing but harm them in the
future.
All of us who are engaged in this effort have been long supporters of
the President's and the administration's, and we believe genuinely that
he wants to improve the lives of working Americans; but on the issue of
trade, I and all of us will oppose the administration because they are
following the exact same trade policy that has failed in the past.
The administration claims that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will
bring jobs back to the United States, will raise our wages, but
experience tells us that far too many trade agreements have done the
exact opposite. The TPP is based on the same model as the Korea free
trade agreement, negotiated just 2 years ago. Since that time, the
United States' trade deficit with South Korea has exploded by 50
percent. That translates into 60,000 lost jobs. This is a familiar
picture: Korean products flood in, and American jobs flood out. When
adjusted for inflation, our wages continue to slide.
Princeton economist Alan Blinder estimates that as many as a quarter
of American jobs will be offshored in the foreseeable future, and we
know from past experience that the people who are laid off will see a
significant drop in their wages--that is, if they are able to find
another job.
The trade agreements we have signed over the last 25 years have done
nothing to ensure fair competition. Let's take one example. The deals
have failed to address the problem, which our colleague Congressman
Ryan mentioned, of currency manipulation. It is an unfair, artificial
practice that has been devastating our automotive industry for a
generation.
Morgan Stanley estimates that currency manipulation gives each
imported Japanese car an effective subsidy of between $1,500 and
$5,700. That is neither free nor fair.
Leading economist Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute wrote in
Foreign Affairs just within the last several days:
The United States has paid a major economic price for never
having established an effective currency manipulation policy.
In the last Congress, 230 Members--both Republicans and Democrats--
wrote to the United States Trade Representative to demand the inclusion
of a strong and an enforceable currency manipulation chapter in the
Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. So far, we have been ignored and
dismissed. Put simply, if the agreement does not address currency
manipulation, it will not be worth the paper that it is written on. It
will be a green light to those who seek to compete unfairly with
American manufacturing, and it will take away American jobs.
The administration's arguments about jobs have failed. They know that
experience and the numbers are against them. So, instead, as with past
trade agreements, we hear the fallback arguments based on foreign
policy.
{time} 1900
If you listened to the Trade Representative today in the Senate
Finance Committee, Mr. Froman, he talked about the danger of China, the
specter of China. In the State of the Union, the President said that
the TPP would help us counter China's growing influence. This is
clearly not the case.
As the economist and Reagan appointee Clyde Prestowitz pointed out in
the Los Angeles Times last week, ``The ever-closing linking of the U.S.
economy to those of the TPP countries over the last 35 years has not
prevented the rise of Chinese power.''
He continued, ``nor has it deterred U.S. trade partners and allies
from developing ever closer ties with China.''
They will not stop doing so just because we sign a trade agreement.
In reality, the argument about China is nothing more than an attempt to
distract the American public with scare tactics and that we are going
to take on China. The administration should be above this kind of fear-
mongering.
Throughout this process, the administration has chosen not to consult
the Congress fully. Members of Congress have been denied access to the
full text of the agreement. The American people have been cut out of
the negotiation; yet in the State of the Union, the President asked the
Congress for fast-track promotion authority.
A key part of granting that authority has always been the negotiating
guidelines that Congress gives to the administration. That is our job--
to provide the negotiating guidelines--but the Trans-Pacific
Partnership has already been under negotiations for years, first under
President Bush and now under President Obama.
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Earlier today, the U.S. Trade Representative told our colleagues in
the Senate that he expected a deal ``in the next small number of
months.'' How can the Congress give guidance on a deal that we have
never seen, a deal that is, for all intents and purposes, already done?
Once again, we see fast track for what it really is. It is an attempt
to cut the Congress out of the process altogether. We should not stand
for this, and when we get that fast-track bill, we should vote it down.
Bitter experience tells us that bad trade deals devastate jobs,
devastate wages. That is why we should say ``no'' to this deeply flawed
Trans-Pacific Partnership.
I can't thank you enough for taking on this job of being here at 7 at
night, all of us together, to say ``no.'' I think what we want to
convey to the American public is that we are committed to work on their
behalf and to make sure that they have a decent shot at a decent job
with good wages.
Thank you so much, Mr. Tonko, for listening.
Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative DeLauro. You strike a very
encouraging cord at the end of your comments.
The American public needs to be engaged, if you believe that Congress
should have overview responsibility, a checks and balances agenda,
because these agreements need to be front and center about the well-
being of American workers, and so call into this process, reach into
this process, and share your opinion with those who speak for you in
the House.
Is a fast track a thing you want to see--without the information
exchange--or do you want Congress to review these contracts and
understand what impact there will be on the American economy, on
American jobs, on standards for the environment, for public safety, for
child labor laws, a number of things?
We appreciate your comments.
Ms. DeLAURO. I would just make one other point. So many years ago,
when we were discussing the Affordable Care Act, the American public
said: Read the bill.
That is what we are asking to do, very simply, to read the bill
before we vote on it.
Mr. TONKO. Very well stated. Every bit of American style is about
tethering the American Dream. The people come here to have the right to
the dignity of work and to pursue that American Dream.
One of our newest faces in Congress in his second term, I believe,
has been an outspoken voice for the American Dream. I yield to the
Representative from Wisconsin's Second District to share his thoughts
about the process here for fast track and free versus fair trade.
Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Representative Tonko, for your leadership. I
really enjoyed working with you over the last several years. We are
actually getting to the point that it looks like this may be coming to
a vote in Congress.
This is perfect timing, with another round of negotiations upon us. I
am so glad we are on the floor tonight talking about this and trying to
channel the energy from the gentlewoman from Connecticut. I love her
passion.
This is an issue that goes far back for me. When I was 23, I started
a small business in Madison, Wisconsin, a specialty printing business.
One of the things we did is source American-made and union-made
products. We screen-printed T-shirts and did promotional items like
pens and lapel pins we wear as Members of Congress, all things that
were done in the United States.
Over the last almost 28 years, trade deal after trade deal, I have
watched the number of products made in the United States diminish. T-
shirts, it is almost impossible to find a mill that still makes T-
shirts and apparel in the United States. Almost everything is done in
other countries or overseas, things like pens and our emblem pins. It
is almost impossible to find American-made pens.
In my area, just 45 minutes south from Madison, is the city of
Janesville, where Representative Paul Ryan is from and represents. That
town used to have a thousand good, family-supporting wages at a company
called Parker Pen which made quality, American-made pens. At one point,
that was a thousand jobs in that region.
With trade deal after trade deal, finally, a few years ago, we
watched the last 150 of those jobs go to Mexico, those family-
supporting wages that no longer exist in the company. They were then
hit by GM closing down, which allowed even further job loss in that
community.
As Representative DeLauro said, it is those people that used to make
$25 an hour in a manufacturing job who lost their job and, now, the
best that might be available to them is a $10-an-hour job. You can't
pay your mortgage when you go from $25 an hour to $10 an hour. You
can't send your kids to college when you used to make $25 an hour and,
now, you are making $10 an hour.
Those are the jobs we have seen all too often leave because of bad
trade deals; whether it be New York, Connecticut, Ohio, or Wisconsin,
we have all seen the same thing happen across our communities.
As much as I do agree with the President when he said in the State of
the Union, Look, I'm the first one to admit that past trade deals
haven't always lived up to the hype--I think we all agree on that. We
have seen that. We have seen that the jobs promised don't happen, and
that is why we have concern.
Tonight, I want to talk specifically about fast-track authority. That
is where we give up our right as Members of Congress, which means we
give up our constituents' right--a say--in these trade deals. This
isn't a Democratic issue. It isn't a Republican issue. It isn't an
Independent issue. It is in the Constitution. Article I, section 8 of
the Constitution says the Congress has the sole power ``to regulate
commerce with foreign nations.''
For 200 years, that is the way it was, but President Nixon changed
that when he seized those powers through a mechanism called fast track.
It is a legislative technique used to kind of skid the way through for
these trade deals.
The problem with that is when we do fast-track authority, we give up
our rights as Members of Congress and, therefore, the public's right to
question what is in one of these trade deals, the next trade deal that
can have even more jobs leave the United States.
We give up our ability to debate and to amend these agreements, and
that is what fast-track authority is. That is very likely the first
vote we would see on the floor of Congress, which the President asked
for in the State of the Union, but that gives our sole authority to the
President.
Now, I have a lot of respect and I agree with so much of what
President Obama has done, but this isn't about President Obama, and it
is not about President George W. Bush and not about President Nixon or
any other President who has tried to get these powers. It is about our
ability as Members of Congress and the public to have a say through
these trade deals.
When you look at this and you think about the history of the fast-
track process, the last time we authorized fast track was in 2002, at
3:30 in the morning, right before a congressional recess, to bring this
antiquated mechanism into place, and it was approved by only three
votes.
Since 2007, Congress has refused this extreme procedure, even after
it was getting renamed to try to make it sound a little more palatable.
There are so many reasons why we shouldn't give up our authority. If
you think about it, people say: If we don't give the President
authority, we won't get trade expansion.
Well, fast track isn't needed for that. In fact, President Bill
Clinton was denied fast-track authority for 6 of his 8 years in his
office, but he completed more than 100 trade investment pacts without
fast track.
We are giving away our ability to actually see this document which,
as you know, we haven't seen. There are 29 chapters, only of which
about five affect trade, and everything else from currency manipulation
to medicines to food safety, all those things now are thrown into these
deals that go way beyond what it was originally in place for, and we
would have no say in that.
Fast track has been used 16 times in the history of this country, and
usually, it is to enact more controversial trade pacts.
Bottom line, we know that the U.S. Trade Representative right now is
redoing their Web site to make it more transparent. Here is
transparency to
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me: show us the text, show Members of Congress the text, show our staff
the text, show the public the text.
If this deal is as good as they have promised, then show us how great
it is; but if this is nothing more than warmed over fast track or
something else that is going to cost us jobs and depress our wages,
then that is usually when this procedure is put in place. No offense to
this President or to any President, but Congress has to have its say on
fast track.
I just want to commend you, again, for doing this. I just wanted to
come by for a very few minutes to talk about that, but as this
procedure could be coming before us in the coming month or months, we
have to be ready.
We are going to work together, as we have been, to make sure we do
everything possible to make sure the public knows what is in this deal,
and that means Congress has to have our say, and that is why we have to
oppose fast track.
Again, I thank the gentleman for this time. I continue to look
forward to working with you on this issue.
Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Pocan. I again urge the general
public out there to engage in this process. Let your Representative
know if you believe we should have overview authority and that we
should have the chance to know what is in these negotiated agreements.
This affects our American economy, the American Dream. It is about
jobs. It is about wages. It is about critical labor standards. It is
about critical environmental standards. We can make it happen. We can
work on trade issues and have fair trade out there that will grow our
economy and grow the American Dream for America's working families.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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