[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 58 (Tuesday, April 4, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H2680-H2686]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1715
JOBS AND TRADE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gaetz). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Rush) in the beginning of our Special Order this evening.
Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the Anniversary of His
Death
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I commend Representative Kaptur for her
outstanding leadership in this Congress and past Congresses. She has
been a beacon of hope for so many of my constituents and so many poor
and disenfranchised Americans. She never cowered in the face of those
who restrict the rights of all.
Ms. Kaptur has been my friend and someone whom I have shared so many
conversations with about justice and fighting for justice, creating a
nation where all people have the opportunity to have freedom, justice,
and equality. I want to commend her for being such a stalwart battler
for the people of America.
Mr. Speaker, today marks the 49th anniversary of one of the darkest
days in the history of this Nation: the day that Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., America's drum major for justice, was assassinated.
Dr. King was murdered while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine
Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was there to advocate
for the rights of Black sanitation workers who were fighting for their
dignity: for equal pay, for equal treatment, and for racial justice in
the American workplace.
In one of the dimmest hours in our history, a voice of reason, a
voice of mercy, a voice of compassion, a voice for justice, a voice of
the beloved community was silenced. Yet, Mr. Speaker, his work to hold
the United States to its constitutional promises that are rooted in the
very fabric of our Declaration of Independence remains largely
incomplete.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, America remains a divided nation, even more
so now. We are tremendously disconnected from the ideals set forth by
Dr. King's monumental ``I Have a Dream'' speech. Today, we still live
in two Americas: one white and privileged, another filled with people
of color, the poor, the disabled, and those lost in the margins, where
people of color--Black and Brown--continue to be judged by the color of
their skin rather than the content of their character.
In the year 2017, Mr. Speaker, we find the names of countless men and
women who have lost their lives at the hands of too many law
enforcement officials and too many police departments all across this
country. Those individuals, Mr. Speaker, are now etched in the social
justice history of this Nation because they were first judged by the
color of their skin and not by the content of their character.
The list is far-reaching, Mr. Speaker. I am speaking of Michael
Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald, Alton Sterling,
Philando Castile, Rekia Boyd, Tanisha Anderson, Yvette Smith, Shereese
Francis, and, lastly, 4-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones and so many, many
others. I could go on and on and on, but the names of the men, women,
and children victimized by errant and wayward police departments all
across this Nation would keep us here for days, even months, if we were
to recite them all.
These stalwart young citizens are joined also by the many martyrs who
lost their lives in the struggle for American justice, just like Dr.
King: Viola Liuzzo; Emmett Till; Jimmie Lee Jackson; Medgar Evers;
Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner; the four little girls in Birmingham,
Alabama; Fred Hampton; and many, many others who gave their lives
during the fifties and sixties.
In my hometown of Chicago, Mr. Speaker, the killing of Laquan
McDonald rocked our city and the Nation by pulling the scab off a
festering wound of police relations and the Black community.
McDonald's death by 16 shots from a single police weapon fired by a
police officer led to multiple investigations of previous police-
involved shootings and also sparked the investigation by the United
States Department of Justice under then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch
and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
That investigation concluded that the Chicago Police Department
officers engage ``in a pattern or practice of using force, including
deadly force,'' that is a unreasonable. This report also found the
Chicago Police Department has failed to hold officers accountable when
they use force contrary to Department policy or otherwise commit
misconduct.
To put it bluntly, Mr. Speaker, the Department of Justice found and
reported that the Chicago Police Department engages in force in
violation of the United States Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, I am here today because I am just beside myself. I am
angry. I am so fed up, Mr. Speaker, because I learned recently that
Attorney General Jefferson Sessions has issued a memorandum ordering
officials at the Justice Department to review police reform consent
agreements all across the country, including the agreement that is
being negotiated with the City of Chicago.
Mr. Speaker, our Nation has fallen so very, very far. Dr. King's
dream has not been realized in this Nation. The day before his
assassination--this Attorney General has retreated so very, very far
from the high ideals of American justice.
It is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that police agencies--not all
police officers, not all agencies, not all departments--but there are
too many police departments, too many law enforcement officials, too
many police officers who have wantonly killed innocent young men of
color in this Nation, and it did not just begin in this year. It has
been going on for decades. We are now at a point where some departments
have been placed under a consent decree. The U.S. Attorney is now
trying to retreat from that pattern.
I am here, Mr. Speaker, to ask--to demand--that Attorney General
Sessions retreat from his position, that he stop this memorandum from
circulating in the department, and that he see the light of day that
many innocent American citizens are being killed because of the wayward
actions of those police officers who think that they are above the law.
They can't just continue to kill wantonly and think that they are above
the American law and the American Constitution.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, Congressman Rush is always calling the
Nation to its higher principles. I thank him so very much for sharing
our Special Order this evening.
Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode Island is here on the floor. I
also want to thank Congressman John Garamendi for sharing his hour with
us.
The focus tonight really is on jobs and trade, an issue on the mind
of millions and millions of Americans. We have been joined by
Congressman Brendan Boyle of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well.
I will place this up for the Nation to see. It is a chart showing
just U.S. trade relations with Mexico and Canada and what has happened
since the deal was negotiated back in the early 1990s. It was also
prepared before that, during the 1980s, when the United States actually
had some trade surpluses on this continent with both Canada and Mexico.
This shows, in 1994, when NAFTA was actually enacted. You could see
the United States begin to kind of fall into deficit. Then we had just
a precipitous trade deficit, including the collapse of the peso after
the NAFTA trade agreement was signed.
[[Page H2681]]
This is serious business for our country because this red ink
represents lost jobs, lost productive power, and communities in
disrepair across this country, where production units were just picked
up and put either north or south of the border.
Tonight, we want to focus on President Trump's Manufacturing Jobs
Initiative, which he announced during the campaign and afterwards. Here
were his words:
Everything is going to be based on bringing our jobs back,
the good jobs, the real jobs. They have to come back.
Well, after all we have lost, we certainly do need job creation in
this country.
{time} 1730
We are now into the third month of Mr. Trump's Presidency and closing
in on his first 100 days in office, a period when most Presidents are
able to pass something through this Congress that really matters to the
American people. I remember when we were able to save Social Security
back during the 1980s and when a Congress was elected in response to
Ronald Reagan's excesses, and it was in the first quarter of the year
that that was done. So we are waiting. It is 100 days now, and nothing
significant has been done on the jobs and trade front.
Candidate Donald Trump's campaign for President in my region of
America was actually founded on the principle of fixing jobs and trade.
People listened. But if we look at this first 100 days, we see that he
has really taken a back seat to his billionaire donors and their
interests and a staff that seems to be more and more peopled with
individuals who spent a whole lot of time at Goldman Sachs, which is a
company that has been notorious in helping to outsource jobs.
Throughout the campaign, Mr. Trump touted his trade policies,
assuring voters he would renegotiate NAFTA. Well, we have been waiting.
During a debate, he said: ``NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever
signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.''
I would say that that agreement is the foundational agreement, the
precepts on which all subsequent trade deals have been negotiated that
have placed America in a red ink position: many more imports coming
into this country, many more of our jobs being outsourced elsewhere
than our exports going out.
So I ask: Are the strong planks for a new NAFTA part of what the
Trump administration is proposing?
Well, no. A leaked draft notice last week revealed a tepid agenda on
trade that is little more than a rehash of what the President said in
his campaign rhetoric. It is not a real plan. The one action item
identified in the Trump trade agenda is the announcement of a study to
find out why the United States is losing in global trade. It actually
doesn't focus completely on NAFTA itself, and we need healing in this
hemisphere before we start looking around the world.
The reality is we know why the deficit is so bad. Bad trade deals
have led to a loss of nearly 4 million American jobs and a deficit just
last month of $43.6 billion. President Trump promised a trade deal that
would get Americans back to work and reduce our deficit. Instead, our
deficit with NAFTA and Mexico and Canada is 31 percent higher. It got
worse than a year ago. So I hope the President understands the real
urgency of stopping U.S. job outsourcing, especially in the
manufacturing sector. He should do more than pay lipservice. He should
really take a look at how thin his administration proposals have been
on renegotiating this agreement. He should establish real goals and
timetables for U.S. trade to drive policy that will fix these job-
killing trade agreements and deliver real benefits for the American
people.
Now, we have Members who have been very active on this trade issue
since being sworn in here in Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I yield now to Congressman David Cicilline, former mayor
of Providence, Rhode Island, and a very strong leader for working men
and women across this country.
Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I
want to begin by thanking her for her extraordinary leadership on this
issue. From the very day that I arrived in Congress, she has been a
passionate, articulate, effective voice for working men and women and
for the impact that bad trade agreements have had on the economy of
this country and on her region, but on working families all across
America. She has done it consistently and relentlessly. It has been a
privilege to work with her, but I really do want to acknowledge her
extraordinary leadership and thank her for convening this Special Order
hour tonight.
As Ms. Kaptur mentioned, the consequences of bad trade agreements
have been felt by many regions throughout the country, but in my home
State of Rhode Island, as an example, we lost more than 41,000 jobs
since NAFTA was enacted. These are good wages. These are jobs that pay,
on average, above nonmanufacturing jobs--jobs that really help build
the economy of our State and of this country.
When President Trump was elected, as Ms. Kaptur mentioned, during the
course of his campaign he promised that he would do something different
with our trade deals. He promised hardworking Americans that he would
deliver results, but we are now 10 weeks into his Presidency, and we
have seen a lot of talk and no action on fair trade.
The President promised to label China a currency manipulator on day
one. He hasn't done that.
The President promised to use American steel for the pipelines. He
hasn't done that.
The President promised to make NAFTA work for American workers, but
as Congresswoman Kaptur mentioned, there is a leaked letter from the
White House that shows he is already looking to implement the same
failed policies that are good for corporate America and bad for
American workers.
The executive orders that President Trump signed failed to address
the real challenges that are facing hard working Rhode Islanders and
hardworking Americans.
Let's be very clear, Mr. Speaker, we don't need another report on
trade policy. We need concrete actions that create good-paying jobs,
that honor hard work with good wages and grow our economy. We need to
end incentives that encourage corporations to ship jobs overseas and
raise the Federal minimum wage. And while we should collect unpaid
penalties, that is only going to happen if the President takes real
action to clamp down on cheating, end job-killing trade deals, and
create new standards that benefit working Americans.
It already seems that President Trump's campaign promises to get
tough on trade were all bark and no bite. If President Trump does
indeed deliver on his promise to renegotiate NAFTA, any new agreement
must include strong labor and environmental standards, strong Buy
America provisions, prescription drug cost reductions, enforceable
currency manipulation standards, and other pro-worker, pro-consumer
requirements.
Mr. Speaker, there is a terrific publication that I know you are
aware of entitled ``The New Rules of the Road: A Progressive Approach
to Globalization,'' prepared by Jared Bernstein, who is a senior fellow
at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a former chief economist
and economic adviser to Vice President Biden; and Lori Wallach, a
lawyer and someone who has been director of Public Citizen's Global
Trade Watch since 1995.
It really sets forth the kind of principles that should guide a new
trade deal: that we need to ensure that, first of all, the way it is
negotiated ensures that it is going to benefit working men and women.
We cannot allow corporate elites to dictate how NAFTA is renegotiated.
The agreement could potentially become more damaging for working
families and for our environment in the countries that we work with. If
done wrong, it could increase job offshoring, push down wages, and
expand the special power and protections that NAFTA provides to
corporate interests that are reflected in the original deal.
What we have to ensure is that what President Trump doesn't do is
make a bad trade deal worse and pander to corporate and multinational
corporations and his sort of crony friends, and the process by which
this will be renegotiated will help to determine that. The provisions
that are in it need to be
[[Page H2682]]
guided by what is good for American workers and what is good to help
grow American jobs.
So not unlike so many other areas, it is disappointing because there
has been a lot of good rhetoric about this, but very little action by
the administration. I think we are all here tonight to participate in
this Special Order led by the gentlewoman from Ohio to let the
administration know that we are not going anywhere, that we are going
to demand that NAFTA be renegotiated, that it be a trade deal that
works for American jobs and American workers, and we are not going to
allow the President to simply use rhetoric but actually not do the hard
work to strike a better deal for American jobs and American workers.
I want to just end where I began, by thanking the gentlewoman for
yielding. This is an issue of tremendous importance to my home State,
where manufacturing is so important, the birthplace of the American
industrial revolution, and one of the reasons I continue to work hard
on the whole Make It In America agenda. We need to start creating
conditions for the creation of good manufacturing jobs here in America
so we can export American-made goods, not American jobs. I thank again
the gentlewoman for yielding.
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank Congressman Cicilline. He hit it right on the
head. We ought to be exporting goods, not importing this many more than
we export, and we ought to be creating jobs right here. I am sure he
has seen companies from his community, from his State, literally picked
up and then magically transported to some other environment, like
Mexico, in one of the maquiladoras, and maybe windshield wipers or
plastic parts or auto parts that used to be made in the United States
then are made down there. I certainly have seen it.
Mr. CICILLINE. Absolutely.
Ms. KAPTUR. If we look at this chart, just for those who are
listening to us this evening, if you go back to the mid-1970s, as
Congressman Cicilline pointed out, you will see the United States was
pretty buoyant. We were actually exporting more than we were importing.
But then when China Most Favored Nation passed in 1979, 1994 NAFTA
passed, and all of a sudden what was happening is the reverse flow
started. We started importing more than we were exporting, and every
time you get a billion dollars of red ink, you lose 5,000 more jobs in
this country.
Well, my gosh, as NAFTA actually took full bore and then China
permanent normal trade relations took effect here, CAFTA, which was the
Central American Free Trade Agreement, here was the Colombian Free
Trade Agreement, here was the Korean Free Trade Agreement, every single
agreement that happened, we ended up getting more imports into our
country than exports out, and promises were not kept.
Our focus tonight is mainly on NAFTA, but if we look at Korea, they
were supposed to be taking 50,000 cars from us. We were supposed to
have more balanced trade. Well, guess what, they didn't keep up their
end of the bargain. Other markets around the world, such as Japan,
remain closed to this day to cars from other places in the world.
You say: Congresswoman, that can't be possible.
I have seen it with my own eyes. I have visited there many times.
When I first began my career, Japan had about--oh, 3 percent of the
cars on their streets were from anyplace else in the world. Today maybe
it is 4 percent, maybe it is 3.5 percent, but there are all kinds of
nontariff barriers where they keep cars out. Yet you look at our
country, they have put manufacturing plants here, they send product
over here. It simply isn't a two-way street, and Japan is the second
largest market in the world for automobiles. So the trade isn't fair.
The American people know this. They are trying to fix this. It really
requires the President's leadership to do it.
Congressman Cicilline talked about steel trade--I just want to put on
the Record--with China, and we see what a big player she is in the
market and doesn't play fair. I just want to put some numbers on the
Record. China's expansion of steel since 2000 has grown to over 2,300
million metric tons. That is a big number to imagine. But only 1,500
million metric tons are needed to actually serve the global
marketplace. So what you have got is over 800 million metric tons of
steel just floating around the world in warehouses and stored up in
provinces in China, and they are dumping the steel.
Why does that matter?
Because in places like I represent, Lorain, Ohio, U.S. Steel just
pink-slipped hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of more workers.
Republic Steel, which sits next door to U.S. Steel, has shuttered their
plant because of imported steel.
The President could do something about that. He could have done
something about that the second day he was in office. Nothing has been
done. All these workers, some of whom have worked in these plants for
28 years, in modernized plants where hundreds of millions of dollars of
investment have been made to upgrade the capacity of these plants,
rather than save that capacity for our country for the years ahead and
to try to deal with this Chinese dumping, they are allowing more
workers and more companies to go belly up in this country. It is wrong.
It is wrong. This needs to be fixed. This is big time for jobs and
economic growth in our country.
I want to thank Congressman Brendan F. Boyle, who understands this
problem full well. As a younger Member of Congress and one who really
speaks on behalf of working men and women in Pennsylvania and coast to
coast, I thank him so much for taking time and joining us tonight. I
yield to the gentleman.
Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the
gentlewoman for yielding. I have to say that the working people of not
just Ohio but this country are very lucky to have Marcy Kaptur fighting
for them and for her years of service. There is not a more passionate
champion for working Americans in this House than the gentlewoman from
Ohio.
Mr. Speaker, I come here not with a prepared text, but really to
speak from my heart. As the son of two hardworking parents who were
working in industries that were supported by organized labor, and it
depresses me to see the great decline in our workforce today that is in
a union.
Now, the subject that we are speaking about tonight is about the
trade deficit, and I just started talking about unions. To some that
might seem as if I am off topic, but there is no question the two are
absolutely related.
{time} 1745
Mr. Speaker, I want to correct a fallacy that sometimes is out there
about those of us who may be critical about NAFTA and other trade
deals. I am not antitrade. I recognize that the United States of
America, despite being a large country of over 320 million people, we
are only 5 percent of the world's population. We must engage in trade
with the rest of the world. I also look at those economic statistics
that tell us, without question, the most productive workforce in the
world today is the American worker.
So if the grounds of trade are fair and if the rules of the game are
fair, we can compete with anyone. Our workers can compete and
outcompete anyone in the world. But, Mr. Speaker, they have not been
fighting on a fair playing field.
Now, let's not forget that over the last 20 to 23 years or so since
NAFTA was passed, that happens to also coincide with this point in
American history in which most wages have been stagnant. Indeed, for
middle class people and lower middle class folks, their real wages have
declined, not to mention the most lower income quintile, which has seen
a dramatic drop in real wages.
I think that it would be unfair for any of us to say that this is
because of NAFTA or that this is because of any specific trade deal.
But it is also very fair for us to point out that none of these trade
deals did anything to raise the living standards and wages of American
workers. Here we are in an environment in Congress in which, recently,
we were talking about the TPP and moving forward with other trade deals
and talking about nothing really to raise wages and living standards
for our own workers here at home.
Look at the example of NAFTA, something that was promised to raise
wage standards in Mexico, that we would benefit from having on our
[[Page H2683]]
southern border a country with a rising middle class population. There
is no question that would be in the best interest of the United States
and, obviously, in the best interest of Mexico.
However, Mr. Speaker, here we are in the last few years with more
jobs going to Mexico, including the closing of the Nabisco plant in my
district that I stood on the well of the House floor and protested
against. It goes to a nice new facility in Monterrey, Mexico. Is that
helping to raise wages in Mexico? Actually, wages are lower today in
Mexico than they were 3 years ago. That is an economic fact.
Under the letter of the law of NAFTA, that is something that our
administration could take up with our Mexican counterparts, but they
don't. Instead, we see Nabisco. And I am taking one specific example
because it affected my district. We see them closing a plant that had
existed in Philadelphia since before my parents were born lay off 325
workers, lay off double that in Chicago, and move to Monterrey, Mexico,
which they can do in accordance with NAFTA.
If we are going to move forward with new trade deals, which
inevitably at some point in years moving forward we will, I would
simply ask--and strongly suggest--that we look out not just for the
corporate interest, not just for what is in the best interest of
consumers, but also what is in the best interest of American workers.
We should not be surprised that we see this tumult in the United
States politically at the same time that we are seeing stagnant wages
and stagnant benefits for decades. Those two are inextricably linked.
Mr. Speaker, finally, let me say to all those who are interested in
working on this trade issue on both sides of the aisle: You have
committed and passionate public servants on this side of the aisle who
want to get it right, who want to ensure that we finally have trade
deals that put American workers first and foremost.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Boyle. He has raised so
many important issues tonight on jobs and trade and how we fix this
problem for the people of our country and, frankly, the world.
One of the issues is which banks are actually financing this
outsourcing. I can tell you, they are not banks in the communities that
I represent. They are not big enough to put all that money, to actually
take these big companies and move them out of the United States and
plunk them down in a Third World environment. It is largely Wall Street
banks that do that. So they fly over the heads of people that live in
communities across this country.
The gentleman talked about Nabisco moving. I had an experience. I
went out to Newton, Iowa, a few years ago when Maytag was closing. I
felt so bad as an American that a gold star label company that had
manufactured reliable, high-quality products in our country was
closing. I learned what was happening. What I didn't realize was that
the production that closed in Newton, Iowa, large parts of it were
moved south of the border.
I was traveling down to Monterrey, Mexico. I was going down there,
actually, to find out what had happened to someone who was murdered,
who had been a student in our community and was murdered in Monterrey,
Mexico. We went by this big complex that said Maytag, Amana, all of
these American companies that had been outsourced to Monterrey. I said:
Stop the cab. I am taking a picture. This is exactly what I am talking
about.
I said: Let me ask a question to some of the people that were walking
by and living in the area. I said: Can the people who work in that
Maytag plant in Monterrey, can they afford to buy the washers they
make?
Guess what? No. In fact, where they lived, there was no running
water. There was no decent water to drink.
I thought: This is what we stand for as a country? What is wrong with
this picture? For our country, in districts like mine, the results of
all this lopsided trade are that citizens in northern Ohio, on average,
are earning $7,000 less than they did when this century began, because
of this. The playing field is simply not level.
Several years ago, I was visited by a group of United Automobile
Workers from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They told me--and I just love these
wonderful, generous human beings. They had all been pink-slipped. They
had just lost their jobs. They came to see me to tell me their stories
on trade and what it had done to them.
They said: Marcy, we are training those who are going to replace us
in Mexico. But we went down to Mexico, and we felt so sorry to see
where the people lived and the conditions under which they were working
that we are collecting medical items, and we are doing humanitarian
shipments to that town.
I thought: Oh, my goodness, what a generous group of Americans who
are facing such horror in their own lives and yet they were doing that
for people who live on this continent--and were, by the way, going to
be earning, like, one-twentieth of what the workers in Milwaukee
earned. So it was all about cheap labor.
I really felt bad for the cheapening of the Maytag product. I am
probably going to get in trouble for saying that, but it is the truth.
I certainly learned a lesson by traveling to Newton, Iowa.
Now, another story, this is on plastic seals. I happened to visit a
plant in the Tijuana area, and I walked through the plant in Mexico.
This company had been moved from Ohio and its equipment shipped down to
Mexico.
I walked through this plant. It was about 100 degrees that particular
day. I turned the corner. There were no fans taking out the exhaust. It
was bloody hot, and it had to be 110 degrees. These men were working.
They had T-shirts on. It was very hot that summer. They were pulling
down these large levers because they were melting plastic and rubber. I
witnessed this.
I thought: Boy, that really looks dangerous with that thing that they
are pulling down because it was moving like this. I thought: Boy, they
have got to really pay attention every time they move that steam press
down so they don't catch their arm in there.
I took pictures, and I sent them back to Ohio. I got a letter from
one of my constituents. This constituent said: Congresswoman, did you
really take a look at the picture you took?
I thought: Well, yeah, I was looking at the workers.
He said: No. No. Look at the machine, the machine, up in the right-
hand corner, the button with the tape over it.
I said: Oh, yeah.
He said: I used to do that job. Do you know what that button is?
I said: No.
He said: That is the safety button.
In other words, when the equipment was shipped and the machine
started, life wasn't worth as much in Mexico, so these workers were
working with much greater risk of injury to themselves because the
equipment had been tinkered with in a way that told me a lot about
health and safety standards and how they are really not enforced in
places like Mexico.
I finally want to end with a story that relates to trade. It doesn't
just have to do with goods. It has to do with human beings, with
people, and why renegotiating trade deals is so important for what our
Constitution says we stand for: life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. This is a country that believes in liberty and justice for
all. It has to do with the undocumented workers in our country who are
coming from south of our border.
We hear all kinds of rhetoric about that, but the truth is that I
face the reality of what happened in the agricultural sector with
NAFTA. What happened is we wanted two-way trade with Mexico, but what
the trade agreement did is it caused great problems in Mexico in that
over 2 million small farmers in Mexico were displaced by the NAFTA
agreement because our country was 18 times more efficient in corn
agriculture than the Mexican people. These workers and owners of these
little ejidos, these little, tiny farms that were subsistence farms,
they were just completely obliterated--2 million or more people.
Well, guess what? When you lose your livelihood and the trade
agreement doesn't provide for readjustment, what do you think desperate
people do? They run anywhere to eat, and north of the border looks
pretty attractive.
As I heard all of these speeches during the campaign about what we
are going to do on trade and how we are going to fix everything, I have
never heard any of the major candidates talk
[[Page H2684]]
about: How are you going to fix the problem for the people in Mexico
who lost their livelihoods, their ability to produce for themselves?
The undocumented worker problem has a big, big root in Mexico. It was
an uncaring set of governments that negotiated these agreements that
caused that hemorrhage that creates an endless flow of people who are
desperate, who will do anything to survive. You wouldn't want this to
happen to your family.
I am all for yellow corn from the United States. I eat corn. I just
served it the other night to our family. But when a trade agreement
wipes out the livelihoods of millions of people, it upsets an entire
continent. So now the solution is not to figure out a way to have
readjustment in agriculture in Mexico as part of a renegotiated NAFTA
agreement; the answer is supposed to be a wall.
Do you know what? Walls don't feed people. Proper trade agreements
feed people when they are done the right way and you don't obliterate
people's lives. That is what really matters.
When I see what the White House is producing, I haven't seen anything
yet that really gets us to balanced trade accounts in a way that people
matter and the communities in which they live matter. And it isn't
always a default to what Wall Street wants and cheap labor and
substandard working conditions and substandard living conditions.
We have to do better than that. We have to aspire to a system where
people are invited into a trade union in which we have rising standards
of living, where we have balanced trade accounts again, and where
people's incomes and living standards rise. If we don't get there, we
are going to have even greater social problems on this continent.
Today, I met with El Salvadoran workers, talking about the conditions
in that country, what has happened there with the maquiladoras and the
situations that people face in their daily lives. This race to the
bottom is not working. It is not working in our country. It is not
working in the Latin American countries or in Canada. We simply have to
aspire to the highest values that founded this country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms.
DeLauro), someone who knows all about those values. Congresswoman Rosa
DeLauro is a true leader of our trade efforts to reform this really
terrible trade regimen that isn't helping anyone but the wealthiest
investors who have invested in the movement of these companies abroad.
Connecticut we think of as an eastern State close to New York, but
Connecticut has been battered in so many corners by trade.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is an indefatigable Member of the House. I
don't know how the people of Connecticut found her, but keep sending
her here because she really does her job with distinction. I thank her
so much for joining us this evening.
{time} 1800
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, what a great compliment from someone who is
a tigress when it comes to making sure that the working people in her
community are represented--that their interests, their families, and
their economic security are represented--and who fights on a daily
basis to make sure that our families have the economic wherewithal with
which to succeed.
The gentlewoman from Ohio is someone who really knows that the
biggest problem that we face today in this Nation is that people are in
jobs that just don't pay them enough; and that they can't make it, that
they are struggling.
When you lay on top of that the direction that our trade agreements
have taken us, it reinforces the fact of their lack of wages and of
income inequality. And you can't have a discussion about income
inequality in this Nation today without starting with wages.
I am struck by those people who tell us that all of this wage
stagnation and income inequality is the fault of globalization and
technology. No, that is not the case. You just listen to Nobel Laureate
Joseph Stiglitz, who said that this inequality and the depression of
wages has come from public policy choices. And we have made the wrong
public policy choices, as has been evidenced by my colleague's
comments.
We support a trade policy that puts American workers before corporate
interests. And although President Trump made trade a central focus of
his campaign and he promised to fight for working men and women, the
broken promises are piling up.
I am deeply disturbed--I know my colleague is--that President Trump's
Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, has suggested that the Trans-Pacific
Partnership Agreement is a good place to start for the NAFTA
renegotiations. Working men and women deserve a new North American Free
Trade Agreement, not more of the same corporate-driven trade policies
of the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership--an agreement, as I said, that,
as a candidate, President Trump opposed. He spoke all over the country
and told people that it had to go, that he was going to renegotiate
NAFTA.
This is not the only about-face that this administration has taken on
trade. If you listen to the Economic Policy Institute, China's past
cheating to manipulate the value of their money has left over 5 million
Americans without good-paying jobs. Yet, President Trump has failed to
deliver on declaring China a currency manipulator. He said he was going
to do that on day one. And he has yet to act on countering our massive
$347 billion trade deficit with China.
He missed his promised deadline to start NAFTA renegotiation in his
first 100 days. He has already reneged on his Buy American promise that
American steel would be required for the Keystone XL pipeline. They
have waived that requirement, and my colleague knows deeply what has
happened to steel workers.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to mention that hundreds and
hundreds of steel workers in my district are getting laid off right
now, as the gentlewoman from Connecticut speaks.
We are facing complete closure of two plants. One has already been
idled, Republic Steel; and the other, the U.S. Steel plant in Lorain,
Ohio, will be by early June.
If the President really wanted to do something to make a statement,
what he would do is put an embargo on the products that are being
dumped by China and Korea on our market that are forcing this to happen
at our steel companies.
There is a glut in the steel market globally. We have about 800
million metric tons of steel that are out there.
What China has been doing is building a steel company in every
province to put people to work. Then, what do they do with the steel?
They have been storing it because there is so much that the global
market can't absorb 800 million more metric tons.
So companies like those I represent get hurt because they are trying
to play by the rules; but the rules aren't being enforced properly, so
they end up with the short end of the deal that is absolutely
backwards. So what the gentlewoman says about steel is right on.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, this has been happening all along in so
many sectors. When you talk about the various agreements and NAFTA--and
actually with regard to currency--what we fought for in the Trans-
Pacific Partnership Agreement was to do something about currency
manipulation because everything that may have been negotiated in the
NAFTA agreement with tariffs and lowering them and all of that, all of
that was for naught when Mexico devalued the peso. Once you do that,
then your goods are cheaper than our goods and we suffer. It is the
same thing that has happened in Korea, and this is what we were looking
at in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
Despite the Oval Office fanfare last Friday, President Trump's recent
executive orders are, frankly, nothing but window dressing. While
initiating a new Federal report--a new Federal report, God, there must
be unbelievable cavernous institutions and places where we have Federal
reports which go nowhere--what they are about is a common way to avoid
fixing any problems that we have. The real test is going to be whether
or not the Trump administration takes action to create jobs and to
reduce the trade deficit.
Improving our trade policy requires new rules, not more of the status
quo. And it was Mr. Ross who, I believe, said
[[Page H2685]]
that: My gosh, you can't throw out the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement. You have to fiddle around the edges with it.
That is where they are going. Again, they are betraying the promises
that were made to those workers in your district, those workers in my
district, and workers all across the country.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, what the gentlewoman from Connecticut is
saying is very important because certain States hung in the balance in
this past election. Ohio was one of them. Michigan, Pennsylvania,
obviously Indiana next door was constant. If you look at each one of
those States, those were the ones that actually carried for President
Trump in the end because of the jobs and trade issue.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely right. That was a
central part of the election last November.
Improving our trade policy requires new rules, as I said, not more
status quo. We have to push a trade agenda that will create good-paying
jobs and that is going to raise wages here at home. And our coalition
is going to continue to hold this administration accountable. What we
need to do is to try to reshape the trajectory of modern globalization,
one that doesn't exacerbate that economic problem that I spoke about
people being in jobs that just don't pay them enough money. The NAFTA
agreement put people at such grave risk.
I know that the gentlewoman can recall this as well: we both stood on
this House floor all those years ago and we said we were going to lose
jobs, that we were going to increase the trade deficit, and that this
was not an agreement that would benefit the working men and women of
this country.
At that time, quite frankly, we were told by the then-Clinton
administration that we were thugs, that we did not understand what was
happening, that we were protectionist, all kinds of labels against the
thinking that we said that this was not going to benefit us.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, does the gentlewoman from Connecticut
remember when Gary Hufbauer said we would have trade surpluses? In
other words, this is upside down. It should actually be like this. We
would have surpluses then. Well, it is exactly the opposite he
testified back then. I will never forget that.
The Peterson Institute said we would have jobs, we would have rising
incomes, we would have more benefits for workers. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, we said it then.
What we didn't have at that time was the data, which is now right
here on this floor of the House, which is why we were able to defeat
the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, because they couldn't fool us
again. They could not fool us again. Not us. They couldn't fool the
American people again.
We are not going down that road, not with a reheated Trans-Pacific
Partnership Agreement or a tweaked North American Free Trade Agreement.
I said we have to reshape that trajectory of modern globalization. It
is a trajectory that needs to benefit American workers. It has to
foster inclusive growth.
This is not just about large corporations and special interests that
will be the beneficiaries of trade agreements. It is about trade
agreements that grow our economy, that grow the economic security of
the people of this country.
Implementing a new model is not going to be easy. It isn't going to
be easy; we know that. But with so much on the line, we understand that
it is our obligation to put the American people first, to set those new
rules for a 21st century economy and give it our all.
We are going to be absolutely vigilant with where the discussions and
the negotiations go on a renegotiated NAFTA agreement and future trade
agreements that we may embark on.
We are not afraid of trade. We just want it to work for the people of
this country, and we don't want to do what has happened to the folks in
Mexico and to other countries as well.
First and foremost, I will just say that we have to be cognizant of
the repercussions on the standard of living and the quality of life
that our people in the United States have. These trade agreements have
worked against that, and it is not going to happen again.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congresswoman DeLauro for
her stellar leadership on the trade task force and the work that it has
done. The hours and hours of effort on defeating the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, the great assemblage that she gathered and the persistence
with which she approached that, seeking to defeat that trade model,
which has now been done, and to go back to the drawing board and to fix
what is wrong with these, Representative DeLauro has been
extraordinary.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, it has been a remarkable coalition, and it
is standing strong. It stands strong.
I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for being a central and integral
part of this effort. I appreciate that.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for
coming down this evening.
As we complete our work here this evening, I wanted to reissue our
invitation to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to travel to Ohio to
come to U.S. Steel in Lorain to really see what is happening there to
the workers; and not just Lorain--we are not selfish--but all over this
country where steel companies are being harmed because of imports and
the fact that China, Korea, and Russia are dumping on the international
market.
We need to have an embargo. We need to let our industry survive and
get over this hump of overcapacity.
We are going to need that production in the years ahead, for example,
in the natural gas industry for piping and so forth. These are modern
plants. America should not lose them. We have lost so many steel
plants. We can't afford to lose many more for the sake of the Nation's
defense.
I also wanted to invite the President to Ohio. I hope that somebody
is listening. He campaigned a great deal in Ohio. I know he likes
meeting people, and it certainly would be a good way to see the
immediate challenge on the trade front where real lives and livelihoods
are at stake in this country.
{time} 1815
I also just wanted to end by saying this: When you create a system of
trade where people are exploited in our country, or in other countries,
that really isn't the best face that America can put forward. And
unfortunately, what happens too often in our country now, for example,
in trade with Mexico, when you have undocumented workers who come here,
many in desperation, many of them are being trafficked across the
continent. You say: Oh, Congresswoman, what do you mean trafficked? I
mean, some of them come here because they are desperate, and they end
up paying sometimes as much as $8,000 to come here and work at a very
low-wage job. They never get out of debt.
We have to take that system and move it into the sunlight out of the
doldrums, because we can't treat people like chattel. There are
millions of agricultural workers, for example, who come to this country
with no contract. They are completely indentured to whatever coyote
brings them across the border. That is not the system I want for this
country. That is not fair to those families. It is not fair to their
children. It is not fair to the places to which they come in our
country.
They always feel uncomfortable. What kind of a system, what kind of a
trade system would subject them to that? We are a different kind of
country. We aspire to higher values. We aspire to treating people and
elevating their worth, not diminishing their worth as human beings.
We have a lot to fix in these trade agreements, and I hope that
President Trump will join us. I would like to tell him about what
coyotes do. I would like to tell him how they behave, how some of them
have been involved in murder of individuals from my district who fight
for labor rights so that no one is afraid, that people feel that they
have a legal system that will defend them.
We need to get to that world. Our Constitution intends it for all of
the people of our country. We should behave no differently
internationally.
[[Page H2686]]
So in closing tonight, I agree with the President. We need good jobs.
We need real jobs. They have to come back to this country, and we have
to treat people in other countries with worth, with their worth as
human beings. We need to get back to trade balances, not trade
deficits.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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