[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 2 (Monday, January 6, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S22-S23]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              UNITED STATES-MEXICO-CANADA TRADE AGREEMENT

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that the 
Senate may address on the floor this week.
  Tomorrow in the Senate Finance Committee, we are going to take up the 
renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement.
  One of my proudest votes as a Member of the House a long time ago was 
to vote against the North American Free Trade Agreement, to vote 
against NAFTA. I have voted no on every trade agreement since then 
because every trade agreement that has come in front of this body was 
written by corporate interests for their corporate executives and 
stockholders. They maximize profits always--every one of these trade 
agreements--CAFTA, NAFTA, PNTR with China, which is not technically a 
trade agreement, but it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck. Every 
one of these trade agreements, in every case, has looked out for 
corporate interests and jettisoned the interests of workers.
  We see the consequences. Corporate profits soar every time. Executive 
compensation explodes upward every time. Workers continue to produce 
more than ever before. Even though corporate profits are up and 
executive compensation is up, workers' wages are flat. Often, they 
can't join a union, and the middle class continues to shrink.
  I know what that has meant in the Presiding Officer's State of 
Arkansas. I know what it has meant in Ohio. I know what it has done to 
my hometown of Mansfield. I know what these trade agreements do to 
Dayton and Cleveland and Cincinnati and Canton and Youngstown and 
Toledo.
  Then-Candidate Trump said that he was going to renegotiate NAFTA. 
Well, that was his promise. He did, but he gave us the same thing. His 
economic policies overall have been that, but his renegotiated NAFTA, 
which he brought to this Congress originally--the negotiation that he 
made with Mexico and Canada--was another corporate trade agreement 
written for corporate interests.
  Again, this President betrays workers with his tax giveaways to 
corporations, to his judges who put their thumbs on the scale, choosing 
corporations over workers, choosing Wall Street over consumers.
  Then, last year, as he has done one betrayal of workers after 
another, squeezing the middle class even more--last year, when we got 
the initial draft of this agreement from the administration, the 
renegotiated NAFTA was another betrayal.
  His first NAFTA draft was nowhere near the good deal for workers that 
President Trump promised. He had fundamentally negotiated another 
corporate trade deal--a deal that helps corporate executives, that 
helps stockholders, that betrays workers again and again, another trade 
deal just like that. It meant nothing for workers. It meant a sellout 
to drug companies. It took us months of fighting alongside Speaker 
Pelosi and Senator Wyden and trade unions to improve this deal and take 
the real and important steps toward putting workers at the center of 
our trade policies.

  These trade policies should be written for workers so that they 
increase their income and expand the middle class, not written for 
corporations in trickle-down economics. We know what happens on every 
tax bill that comes before this Congress, written by the administration 
and Senator McConnell. We know it is the same thing. Instead of 
building the economy from the middle out so that the middle class grows 
and America overwhelmingly prospers, just like the tax cuts--the tax 
cuts for the rich that may, they tell us, trickle down and help the 
middle class--that is the way this trade agreement was written. That is 
the way these tax bills in this Congress were written.
  It took months of fighting alongside Senator Wyden and organized 
labor and Speaker Pelosi. We now have a provision in the labor chapter, 
and the President has finally agreed to this provision. He knew he 
wasn't going to get a renegotiated NAFTA unless he followed what we 
said on workers. For the first time, we have a provision in the labor 
chapter.
  For instance, it says that violence against workers is always a 
violation of the agreement. The language the President gave us said: 
Well, the first time you commit violence against workers, we might fine 
you. The second time, we might fine you. Only if you do it over and 
over is it a violation. Really? If there is violence against workers, 
the people who committed that violence ought to pay for it. So we fixed 
that in this agreement.
  We have improved some of the legalese that since the beginning has 
been included in trade agreements to make it nearly impossible to 
successfully win a case when a country violates its labor commitments.
  We secured the Wyden provision, which amounts to, by far, the 
strongest ever labor enforcement in the U.S. trade deal. This provision 
that Senator Wyden and I wrote and fought for is the first improvement 
to enforcing labor standards in our trade agreements since we have been 
negotiating them.
  We know why companies closed factories in Ohio and opened them in 
Mexico. They can pay lower wages. They can take advantage of workers 
who don't have rights. They can keep unions from organizing. American 
workers can't compete with that kind of low-wage lack of enforcement of 
labor laws. What happens? There is a race to the bottom on wages. So if 
a company threatens to move to Mexico and they tell their workforce 
``We are going to move unless you do some wage givebacks,'' they either 
move and the American workers lose their jobs or they use that as a way 
to put downward pressure on wages for American workers.
  I know what that has done to Mansfield, OH. I know what it has done 
to Gallipolis, Chillicothe, Zanesville, Dayton, Huber Heights, and 
every other community. The only way to stop this is by raising labor 
standards in every country we trade with and, most importantly, making 
sure those standards are actually enforced. If corporations are forced 
to pay workers a living wage and treat them with dignity no matter 
where the workers are, we take away the incentive for those companies 
to move jobs abroad. That is what the Brown-Wyden provision does.
  A worker in Mexico now, under this agreement--the reason I am 
supporting this, the first-ever trade agreement that I am supporting--
workers in Mexico will be able to report a company that is violating 
their rights. They can actually call a toll-free number and report 
violations against the workers. A

[[Page S23]]

worker can actually make that request. They have never had that right 
in Mexico. They, often enough, don't have it here. We can then 
determine whether worker rights have been violated and then take action 
against the company that did it. We have never done it that way. We 
haven't had good results because of that.
  We can apply punitive damages when companies stop workers from 
organizing. If they keep doing it, we stop their goods from coming into 
the United States. You enforce it at the factory level by saying: If 
you keep violating this trade agreement, you are not sending your 
products into the United States. That will make them behave.
  When Mexican workers have the power to form real unions and negotiate 
for higher wages, it helps our workers. Right now, Mexican workers can 
be paid as little as $6.50--not an hour but a day. We have been asking 
American workers to compete with that. We have already heard some 
critics say that Brown-Wyden will force Mexican wages to rise. I plead 
guilty. That is the entire point--to take away the incentive. If 
Mexican wages go up, it makes U.S. companies less likely to shut down 
production in Steubenville or Lisbon or in Bryan, OH, and move 
overseas. It takes away the incentive for those companies to relocate.
  I want to be clear. I will always be straight with American workers. 
This is not a perfect agreement. One trade deal that Democrats fixed 
will not undo the rest of Trump's economic policies that put 
corporations over workers.
  This deal will not stop outsourcing when we have President Trump's 
tax plan that gives companies a tax break to send American jobs to 
Mexico. Here is how the President's tax bill that was rammed through 
this Senate a year or so ago works: If you are in Springfield, OH, your 
corporate tax rate is 21 percent. If you move--pull up stakes and move 
to Mexico or anywhere else--your tax rate is 10.5 percent. Even with 
this good trade agreement, we cannot stop that kind of outsourcing 
because the President insists on helping his corporate buddies.
  I will keep fighting his corporate trade policies and tax policies 
just as we did in this agreement. We have a lot more work to do to make 
our trade agreements more pro-worker.
  I will vote yes for the first time ever on a trade agreement because, 
by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have made this agreement much more 
pro-worker. We set an important precedent for the future that Brown-
Wyden must now be included in every trade agreement in the years ahead.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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