[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 13, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H574]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               OFFSHORING JOBS AND OUR PRODUCTIVE WEALTH

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, why does our country have a budget deficit? 
Answer: Because America over the last three decades has been offshoring 
jobs and our productive wealth.
  The people of Ohio and the industrial Midwest overwhelmingly oppose 
ill-conceived foreign trade deals that have harmed millions of them.
  The harm began in 1993 when NAFTA was enacted. It deepened in 1994 
when we joined the World Trade Organization, and the bottom dropped out 
in 2000 when the U.S. helped China get WTO benefits without trade 
reciprocity. Math tells the rest.
  Our trade deficit with the world racked up to $15 trillion since 
1994, as our real wealth drained out. American manufacturing plunged by 
a third from 370,000 facilities in 1992 to 250,000 in 2017. From 1993 
to 2024, we lost 5.6 million manufacturing jobs.
  NAFTA, moreover, hurt our neighbors just as much. It stimulated 
massive undocumented immigration from Mexico and Latin America. The 
pact pitted millions of unsubsidized Mexican white corn farmers against 
subsidized U.S. yellow corn.
  What America makes and grows, makes and grows America. Our challenge 
is to stay the course of small business creation and investment right 
here in the USA.

                          ____________________