[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 3 (Tuesday, January 7, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S60-S61]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              UNITED STATES-MEXICO-CANADA TRADE AGREEMENT

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, 3\1/2\ years or so ago, I live in 
Cleveland, and I was in my State watching the Presidential campaign. I 
heard Candidate Trump repeatedly talking about renegotiating NAFTA or 
getting rid of the North America Free Trade Agreement. While I did not 
support his candidacy and have generally disagreed with most of what he 
has said and done, it was a bit of music to my ears to hear Candidate 
Trump talk about renegotiating or getting rid of NAFTA.
  I have voted, in my time in the Senate and before this, every single 
trade agreement starting with the North America Free Trade Agreement of 
two-plus decades ago, I have voted no in these trade agreements. I 
never voted for a trade agreement because, frankly, every trade 
agreement coming in front of the House or Senate has been a corporate 
trade agreement. It has been written by corporate lobbyists to serve 
corporate executives to serve their biggest stockholders. That is what 
these trade agreements are about. In every case, it was an attack on 
the middle class. In every case, it undermined worker protections. It 
depressed wages. It meant loss of jobs.
  I know what these corporate trade agreements did to my hometown of 
Mansfield. I know what it did in Mansfield, OH. I know what they have 
done to my adoptive city of Cleveland, OH, and I know what they have 
done to the entire industrial Midwest--well beyond that, too, in places 
like Arizona and elsewhere. I have seen what these corporate trade 
deals do.
  So Candidate Trump is elected President. He then says he is going to 
do away, back out, or renegotiate NAFTA. I looked at that with 
optimism. I talked to the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador 
Lighthizer, a number of times. I spoke with the President about it. I 
offered my assistance, and then, lo and behold, about a year ago, the 
President came out with a renegotiated NAFTA. It was the same old, same 
old. It was another corporate trade agreement that served his corporate 
interests, that served the drug companies, and that served those 
companies that are looking for cheap labor across the Rio Grande River.
  Under the President's new NAFTA--he called it USMCA--United States-
Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement--under the President's new NAFTA, it was 
the same corporate template, the same corporate trade agreement that 
helps corporate investors, that undermines workers, that gives 
incentives to companies to shut down production in Zanesville, in 
Gallipolis, in Marietta, in Cleveland, in Lima, in Toledo, and in Bryan 
and move their jobs to Mexico.
  So what did we do? Instead, initially, I continued to talk to the 
U.S. Trade Representative, as did some of my colleagues, knowing this 
first NAFTA draft was unacceptable and was not nearly what the 
President said he would do for workers. In fact, it was more than that. 
It was another betrayal of workers. This same President has betrayed 
low-income workers by refusing to raise the minimum wage. It has been 
more than a decade. This same President took away the new overtime 
rule, costing at least 50,000 Ohioans--that is just 50,000 in my State, 
thousands in Arizona, probably 100,000 in California, tens of thousands 
around the country and different States--cost them their overtime pay, 
meaning they would work 50 hours a week, and they would only get paid 
for 40. We saw that this President again was betraying workers.
  It has taken us months and months and months of fighting alongside 
Speaker Pelosi and Senator Wyden--the senior Democrat of the Finance 
Committee--and unions and organized labor to secure the Brown-Wyden 
provisions that now, with USMCA, amount to the strongest labor 
enforcement in a U.S. trade agreement ever.
  It means that wages will go up in Mexico, which is good news for 
American workers because fewer jobs will move to Mexico. A worker in 
Mexico now will be able to report a company that violates her labor 
rights or worker rights. Within months, we can determine whether worker 
rights have been violated and can take action against that company.
  Now, for the first time in my whole career, I will vote for a trade 
agreement. I wouldn't have voted for the Trump trade. I didn't vote for 
NAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, PNTR with China and 
South Korea, and all these other trade agreements. I would not have 
voted against the Trump USMCA because it didn't look out for workers.
  Instead of putting workers at the center of trade agreements, which 
is what we should do, it was a trade agreement written by and for 
corporate interests. What Senator Wyden and I did and others is we are 
now about to pass a trade agreement that puts workers in the center of 
the trade agreement, meaning a stronger middle class and meaning 
workers will get a fair shake. It means that Ohio workers will be able 
to compete.
  We know why companies took advantage of these corporate trade 
agreements. They shut down production in Ohio and moved to Mexico so 
they can pay lower wages and they can take advantage of workers who 
don't have rights. American workers can't compete with that when it is 
a race to the bottom on wages. Brown-Wyden will work to stop that, and 
for the first time ever, as I said, it will put workers in the center 
of a trade agreement.
  We must be straight with American workers. This isn't a perfect trade 
agreement. One trade deal the Democrats fixed--even though the 
President resisted it, finally gave in--a trade deal that Democrats 
fixed will not undo the rest of Trump's economic policies that puts 
corporations over workers and appoints judges who put their thumbs on 
the scales of justice to support corporations over workers and to 
support Wall Street over consumers. I voted yes. I voted yes today in 
the Finance Committee. It is the first time I ever have on a trade deal 
because, by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have made this agreement 
much more pro-worker, and, equally as important, we set an important 
precedent that Brown-Wyden must be included in every future trade 
agreement that comes in front of this body.
  I yield the floor.

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