[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17041-17047]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 TO AUTHORIZE EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT TO THE PEOPLE'S 
                  REPUBLIC OF CHINA--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate now 
resumes postcloture debate on H.R. 4444, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A motion to proceed to the bill (H.R. 4444) to authorize 
     extension of nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade 
     relations treatment) to the People's Republic of China, and 
     to establish a framework for relations with the United States 
     and the People's Republic of China.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I yield to my friend from Minnesota for purposes of 
making a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to 
follow the Senator from Montana in this debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, as we begin the debate about whether to 
grant China Permanent Normal Trade Relations status, PNTR, we need to 
remind ourselves what the Senate vote is all about and what it is not 
about.
  We are voting on whether American companies, American farmers, 
American workers, and American consumers will be able to take advantage 
of the new market opportunities afforded by changes that China will 
make over the next 5 years once it becomes a member of the World Trade 
Organization, the WTO. If we grant PNTR, China will have to give 
Americans all the benefits that we, and other WTO members, successfully 
negotiated after an arduous 13 years. If we fail to grant China PNTR 
status, then our Japanese and European competitors will be able to do 
business in China in ways that will be unavailable to us and at the 
expense of our exporters, our farmers, our manufacturers, our financial 
service companies, our Internet companies.
  During the Senate debate this month, we will hear a lot about other 
issues, with Senators offering a plethora of amendments. The list will 
probably include human rights, worker rights, religious freedom, prison 
labor, Taiwan security, arms proliferation, and export of American 
jobs, among others.
  Most, if not all, of these subjects are important. They should be of 
concern to the United States Senate, and to all Americans. A number of 
issues that go beyond the strict granting of PNTR to China, such as 
human rights, monitoring and enforcement of Chinese commitments at the 
WTO, promotion of the rule of law, and Taiwan's accession to the WTO, 
are included in the bill we are considering. Other issues, such as 
proliferation and Taiwan security, are best dealt with apart from this 
legislation.
  I share many of the concerns that some of my Senate colleagues will 
express over the coming days. But we are not voting on whether China is 
our friend. We are not voting about whether China should be an ally of 
the United States. And we are not voting about whether China should be 
a democracy or not.
  To repeat, we are voting about whether American workers, farmers, and 
businesses will benefit from a decade-long negotiation, or whether we 
will allow our competitors in Japan and Europe to benefit while 
Americans do not.
  That said, there are also broader implications involved in the Senate 
vote on PNTR. Let me mention a few.
  First, a rejection of PNTR will be seen by China as an American 
policy decision to isolate them, to impair their growth and 
development, and to prevent China from emerging as a great regional 
power. That is how they will see it. Our intention should be to 
incorporate China into the global trading system, to get them to follow 
the same rules that we all use in international trade, and to make them 
accountable to an international institution for their trade policies 
and trade actions. The more China is integrated into the global system, 
the more responsibly they will act. It is that simple.
  Second, a rejection of PNTR will likely lead to an indefinite delay 
in Taiwan's accession to the WTO. On the

[[Page 17042]]

other hand, passage of PNTR will result in Taiwan's accession. What 
will happen after both China and Taiwan accede to--that is, are members 
of--the WTO?
  They will participate together, along with all other WTO members, in 
meetings ranging from detailed technical sessions to Ministerials. 
There will be countless opportunities for interaction. Under the WTO's 
most-favored-nation rule, they will have to provide each other the same 
benefits that they grant to other members.
  Taiwan's current policy limiting direct transportation, 
communication, and investment with the mainland will likely be found to 
violate WTO rules. Both will be able to use the WTO dispute settlement 
mechanism against the other. And WTO-induced liberalization, in both 
Taiwan and the PRC, will increase and deepen ties between them in 
trade, investment, technology, transportation, information, 
communications, and travel. It will promote stability across the Taiwan 
Strait.
  Third, consider Chinese behavior once it joins the WTO. We should not 
expect to see changes overnight; nobody does. Those people in business 
and government fighting to maintain their vested interests in the 
status quo will not disappear. The reformers will be strengthened, but 
they will still be under constant attack as the battle between the 
forces of reform and the forces of reaction continues. But it is 
certainly a vital interest of the United States to do everything we can 
to support those who favor reform over totalitarianism, to support 
those who favor private enterprise over state-owned enterprises, to 
support those who favor incorporating China into the global trading 
community over autarky.
  We need to engage China to promote responsible behavior internally 
and externally, to encourage them to play by international rules, to 
integrate the Chinese economy into the market-driven, middle-class-
participatory economies of the West. China's entry into the WTO will 
help anchor and sustain these economic reform efforts and empower 
economic reformers. China will not become a market-driven economy 
overnight, but it is in our interest that they move in this direction, 
and WTO will help.
  I look forward to a vigorous debate in the best tradition of the 
Senate. I urge all my colleagues to support this PNTR legislation 
without amendments.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. L. Chafee). The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Montana for his remarks. We 
are not in agreement on this question, but I have a tremendous amount 
of respect for his work in the Senate.
  Let me, first of all, state at the beginning of this debate that it 
is commonly assumed the Senate is going to pass PNTR. For most, this is 
a foregone conclusion, but I think this is an extremely important 
debate and, as a matter of fact, one of the reasons I am very proud to 
be a Senator from Minnesota is that, unlike the House of 
Representatives where it was really difficult to have an extensive 
debate, we will have that debate in the Senate. I will have a number of 
amendments I will bring to the floor. They will be substantive. I think 
my colleagues will believe they are thoughtful, and we will have up-or-
down votes.
  I also echo the remarks of my colleague from Montana when he says we 
should be very clear about what this debate is about and what it is not 
about. This debate is not about whether or not we have trade with 
China. We do have trade with China. We will have trade with China. It 
is not about whether or not we communicate with China. We most 
definitely will. It is not about whether we isolate China. We are not 
going to do that. It is not about whether we should have an embargo of 
China, as we do with Cuba. That is not even on the radar screen.
  Nobody is talking about any of that. The question before us is 
whether or not we in the Congress give up our right to have annual 
review of normal trade relations with China--we used to call it most-
favored-nation status--whether or not we give up what has been our only 
leverage to promote noncommercial values--I emphasize that, I say to my 
colleagues--noncommercial values in our trading relationships, such as 
human rights, labor rights, and environmental protection. Do we put 
human rights, labor rights, environmental protection, religious rights, 
the right not to be persecuted for practicing one's religious beliefs 
or exercising one's religious beliefs in parentheses, of no interest or 
concern to us, or do we maintain some leverage as a country to speak 
out on this?
  The larger question is not whether China is integrated into the world 
economy. China is a part of the world economy. The questions are: Under 
what terms will China be integrated? what will the rules be? who will 
decide those rules? who will benefit from these decisions? and who will 
be harmed by them?
  The trade agreement negotiated by the United States and China last 
November and the PNTR legislation currently before the Senate provide 
very discouraging answers to these questions as to who will decide, who 
will benefit, and exactly who is going to be asked to sacrifice.
  Our bilateral agreement contains page after page of protections for 
U.S. investors. It is a virtual wish list for multinational 
corporations operating in China and for those who wish to relocate 
their production there, but it contains not a word about human rights, 
nothing about religious freedom, nothing on labor rights, and nothing 
on the environment.
  It has been said that the United States could not demand such things 
because we have conceded nothing in our deal with China. That is far 
from the truth. With PNTR, the United States gives up our annual review 
of China most-favored-nation trading privileges, as well as our 
bilateral trade remedies.
  MFN review has not been used as effectively as it should be, I grant 
that, but it is about the only leverage we have left to speak up for 
human rights, and when we as a nation do not speak up for human rights 
in other countries, we diminish ourselves. Just ask Wei Jingsheng, who 
I hope will receive the Nobel Prize for his courageous speaking out for 
democracy in China. Ask him the difference it made when every year 
normal trade relations with China came up for review here while he was 
in prison. The treatment was better. The Government was worried about 
what we would do. Now we give up that leverage.
  It is also true that our bilateral trade remedies have not been used 
as effectively as they should, but section 301 remains our only 
explicit remedy against China's violation of core labor standards.
  The United States right now absorbs 40 percent of China's exports. 
The argument that we could not have done better by way of some 
concessions on these basic issues falls on its face. In exchange for 
the concessions we have made to China, could we not have at least 
exacted some concessions with regard to human rights? We did not. Yet 
this year's annual report by the State Department says China's human 
rights performance continued to worsen in 1999.
  Today in the New York Times there is another State Department report 
which we called for, we required, on the whole question of religious 
freedom or lack of religious freedom. I quote from just the first two 
paragraphs of today's New York Times:

       As more and more Chinese seek to practice faiths including 
     Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, government 
     officials have increasingly responded with harassment, 
     extortion, detention, and even torture, the State Department 
     said today.
       As a result, a ``marked deterioration'' in religious 
     freedom has occurred in China during the last year, enabled 
     by a new law granting state and local officials broad 
     authority to suppress 14 minority religions, including the 
     Falun Gong movement, the State Department said in its second 
     annual report on religious freedom around the world.

  We have had more relations, more trade, and this vote is coming up 
this year, and when it comes to the question of whether people can 
exercise the right to practice their own religion, there is more 
persecution.

[[Page 17043]]

  I will have an amendment that will deal with the whole question of 
religious freedom. It will mirror the conclusions of a commission we 
set up to look at religious freedom throughout the world, to look at 
religious freedom in China, a commission which recommended to the 
Congress that we not grant automatic trade relations with China unless 
the Chinese Government meets essential minimum decency requirements 
when it comes to not persecuting people because of their religious 
practice.
  According to the State Department's report:

       The government's poor human rights record deteriorated 
     markedly throughout the year as the government intensified 
     efforts to suppress dissent, particularly organized dissent. 
     Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, torture, 
     mistreatment of prisoners, and denial of due process.

  We are talking about hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in China 
sentenced to long prison terms where they have been beaten, tortured, 
and denied medical care.
  According to Amnesty International, throughout China, mass summary 
executions continue to be carried out. At least 6,000 death sentences 
and 3,500 executions were officially recorded last year. The real 
figures are believed to be much higher. Nor did we obtain any 
concessions on religious freedom in our negotiations with China. Scores 
of Roman Catholics and Protestants--I speak as a Jew--have been 
arrested. A crackdown on Tibet was carried out during the ``strike 
hard'' campaign. Authorities ordered the closure of monasteries in 
Tibet and banned the Dalai Lama's image. At one monastery which was 
closed, over 90 monks and novices were detained or ``disappeared.'' 
That is why the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom 
recommended delaying PNTR until China makes ``substantial improvement 
in allowing people the freedom to worship.'' I say to my colleagues, do 
you just want to turn your gaze away from this question?
  We obtained no concessions from China on complying with their 
existing commitments on forced prison labor which they have not lived 
up to. Harry Wu, a man of extraordinary courage and character, has 
documented China's extensive forced labor system. His research has 
identified more than 1,100 labor camps across China, many of which 
produce products for export to dozens of countries around the world, 
including the United States.
  We demanded no concessions from the Chinese on their persecution of 
labor organizers. If you try to form an independent union, if you 
should want to make more than 3 cents an hour, or 14 cents an hour, if 
you should not want to work 16 and 18 hours a day, if you should want 
to be treated with some dignity, and you try to organize a union, then 
you are faced with 3 to 8 years in a hard labor camp. We pay no 
attention to this question at all, I say to Senators, Democrats and 
Republicans alike.
  Absent any minimum standards for human rights, for labor, or for the 
environment, the most likely scenario is for China to become an export 
platform, attracting foreign manufacturers, with lax regulations, and 
wages as low as 3 cents an hour.
  Unfortunately, many of the concessions that we chose to demand from 
China will only make it easier for the United States, for multinational 
corporations to relocate there, paying people 10 cents an hour, 3 cents 
an hour, 13 cents an hour--I am going to give examples in my opening 
statement in just a few minutes--in competition with American workers 
and ordinary people in our country, who, by the way, if they oppose our 
trade agreements, are accused of being backward, are accused of not 
being sophisticated, are accused of not understanding this new global 
economy in which we live.
  Please forgive ordinary citizens and wage earners for their 
skepticism that without some basic standards, what you are going to see 
is China becoming a magnet for more and more companies to go there and 
pay people deplorable wages, with deplorable working conditions, while 
we lose our jobs.
  I believe the time has come for a different approach in negotiating 
our trade agreements and for reforming the rules of the global economy. 
I want to make it very clear at the beginning of my opening statement, 
I say to my colleagues, I am an internationalist. I am a fierce 
internationalist. I am the son of a Jewish immigrant who fled 
persecution from the Ukraine, who was born in the Ukraine, and then 
lived in Russia, who spoke 10 languages fluently. I am not an 
isolationist.
  But I will say today on the floor of the Senate that we should be 
looking forward, and we should be looking to how we participate in this 
new global economy, and how we can have some rules, some edifice, some 
kind of framework so this new global economy works for working people 
and the environment and human rights. Too many of my colleagues want to 
put all of these concerns in parenthesis.
  I think we need to be clear about what is at stake. My colleague from 
Montana, Senator Baucus, said that as well. That is why so many people 
in this country are concerned about passage of this legislation.
  The PNTR is being sold as an agreement to increase U.S. exports. I 
have heard this said a million times: If we pass PNTR, we will 
dramatically increase U.S. exports to China, and it will be a win-win--
a win-win for agriculture, a win-win for business, a win-win for labor.
  This legislation and trade deal with China is much more about 
investment than it is about exports. It is much more about making it 
easier for U.S. firms to relocate jobs in China than it is about 
exports.
  First of all, the argument that this debate is all about exports and 
reducing our trade deficit falls on its face. I say to my colleagues, 
last August the U.S. International Trade Commission, the ITC, completed 
a study on the effects of the China deal on our trade balance. The ITC 
found that the China deal will increase our trade deficit with China, 
not lower it.
  Second of all, it is not at all true that we need PNTR to be able to 
have trade with China. China is already obligated, under the 1979 
bilateral trade agreement, according to our own General Accounting 
Office, the GAO, to give us all of the benefits by way of tariff 
reductions that it gives any of the other WTO countries. Even the 
administration concedes this point.
  Third of all, PNTR will lead to more imports from China by 
encouraging multinationals to invest in China manufacturing to export 
to the U.S. market. That is what this is all about. Big companies could 
go to China--I will give many examples--they would not have to worry 
any longer about annual reviews, about normal trade relations. They 
could go there.
  People can't organize a union. They are thrown in prison. There is no 
respect for human rights. There is no respect for people to practice 
their religion. As a result, they could go there and pay people 
deplorable wages, under deplorable conditions, and then export back to 
our country.
  Let me just be real clear about it. Before the House vote on PNTR--
and I hope colleagues will listen--few noticed that the ITC had 
predicted that the trade deal with China would significantly increase 
investment of multinational corporations in China. But after the House 
vote, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street 
Journal all carried articles laying out what this legislation is really 
about.
  Now, as it is in the Senate, and we have the benefit of a little bit 
more wisdom and knowledge, let me just quote, first of all, an article 
entitled, ``Playing the China Card,'' from the New York Times:

       Although the Clinton Administration often listed exports as 
     the headline benefit of broadening trade with China, the real 
     advantage for U.S. companies is probably enhanced rights of 
     investment and ownership there. . . . Most companies try to 
     crack the difficult China market by setting up local 
     operations, often using those plants as export production 
     bases as well.

  Here is what the Wall Street Journal had to say the day after PNTR 
passed the House in an article entitled, ``House Vote Primes U.S. Firms 
to Boost Investments in China'':

       While the debate in Washington focused mainly on the 
     probable lift for U.S. exports

[[Page 17044]]

     to China, many U.S. multinationals have something different 
     in mind. ``This deal is about investment, not exports,'' says 
     Joseph Quinlan, an economist with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter 
     & Co. . . .
       In the tense weeks leading up to last night's vote, 
     business lobbyists emphasized the beneficial effect the 
     agreement would have on U.S. exports to China. They played 
     down its likely impact on investment, leery of sounding 
     supportive of labor union arguments that the deal would 
     prompt companies to move U.S. production to China. But many 
     businessmen concede that investment in China is the prize. . 
     . .

  Then finally, after the House vote, the U.S. Business and Industrial 
Council surveyed the web sites of dozens of U.S. multinationals who 
have been lobbying for PNTR, and they reached similar conclusions:

       In contrast to the focus in their congressional lobbying 
     and their advertisements, American multinationals say almost 
     nothing about exports when they describe their China business 
     on their web sites. There, the overwhelming emphasis is on 
     supplying the China market--and often other markets, like the 
     U.S. market--from factories they build or acquire or work 
     with in China. . . .

  Mr. President, this should come as no surprise to colleagues. 
According to the Economic Policy Institute, U.S. investment in Chinese 
manufacturing--I am talking about before this vote--shot up from $123 
million in 1988 to $4 billion in 1998.
  The number of U.S. affiliates manufacturing in China rose from 64 in 
1989 to 350 in 1997, and the value of their sales rose from $121 
million in 1989 to $8 billion in 1997. That is before we pass normal 
trade relations with China. U.S. agribusiness conglomerates that have 
been promoting U.S. exports to China as much as anyone are also 
investing in production facilities there in China. As the Wall Street 
Journal noted the day after the House vote:

       Even agriculture companies are getting in on the act. 
     Poultry giant Purdue Farms, Inc. is ratcheting up its 
     investment in China with a joint venture for a processing 
     plant and hatchery near Shanghai.

  Purdue isn't the only one. Cargill operates a fertilizer blending 
plant and a malt plant and two feed mills in different areas of China 
and boasted in a press release last year that it is a ``major exporter 
of Chinese corn and steel.''
  I urge farmers in Minnesota to listen to that. Cargill says: We set 
up operations in China; we are a major exporter of corn. Steel workers 
in the Iron Range, listen to that. They don't have to worry about 
environmental rules and regulations. They don't have to worry about 
fair labor standards. They don't have to worry about human rights 
standards that the Chinese Government will impose. They can produce 
corn well below the cost of production of corn growers in Minnesota, 
and they themselves brag about the fact that they are a major exporter 
of Chinese corn.
  Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midland, and ConAgra, which have operated in 
China for years, lobbied hard for a provision in the China trade deal 
that will let them set up distribution networks that can be used for 
exports as well as imports. And John Deere has a joint venture with one 
of China's state-owned companies that sells tractors.
  If we look at our trade deficit with China, it tells the story. Our 
trade deficit with China rose 256 percent from 1992 to 1999. Imports 
from China more than tripled in real terms, while exports grew only 69 
percent. Our trade deficit with China jumped $11 billion last year to 
$68 billion. In 1999, we had a 6-to-1 ratio of imports to exports.
  We do trade with China. There is a huge trade imbalance. And as U.S. 
investment in China goes up, that is what is going to happen. As our 
trade deficit gets worse, China is developing into an export platform 
for foreign firms that seek the world's cheapest labor and access to 
the world's largest consumer market--not China but ours. People in 
China are, by and large, very poor. The market is not China. The market 
is in this country. The U.S. today absorbs about 40 percent of China's 
exports, and about 40 percent of China's exports, more than $200 
billion in 1998, came from multinational firms operating in China.
  If this debate is really about investment and not exports, then the 
question is, Why are so many U.S. corporations so eager to invest in 
China? The answer that many of these corporations will give is that 
they want access to China's huge internal market. But as we have seen, 
most of the production they are investing in is for export to the 
United States and other foreign markets. There is a good reason for 
that. This was the same argument made about NAFTA--we want to have this 
market in Mexico. But the problem is, the wages are so low in these 
countries, the poverty is so great, we don't have the market.
  So why are U.S. corporations so interested in relocating production 
in China? Why are they so interested that we no longer reserve for 
ourselves the right to annually review normal trade relations with 
China? The most important reason is they are interested in low cost, 
and that is a euphemism. What I really mean to say is, they are 
interested in low wages and the repression of worker rights. That is 
what is so attractive about investment in China.
  The year 1994 is the last data we have. I am trying to bring to the 
floor of the Senate in this debate as much empirical data as I can. 
Chinese production workers who worked in the factories of the U.S. 
multinationals earned on average of 83 cents an hour. That is the last 
year for which the data is available. By way of comparison, the average 
manufacturing worker today in our country makes $16.87.
  The State Department human rights report last year confirms the 
appalling state of labor rights in China. I will quote a few sections.

       Independent trade unions are illegal. . . The government 
     has not approved the establishment of any independent unions 
     to date.
       The government continues its effort to stamp out union 
     activity, including through detention or arrest of labor 
     activists.

  The State Department then goes on to list a number of labor activists 
who have been imprisoned because they did nothing more than demand the 
right to be able to form a union so they could bargain collectively and 
get better wages. They are in prison, and we pay no attention to that.
  I cite a recent report by the National Labor Committee which should 
dispel any doubts whether there are irresponsible U.S. corporations 
taking advantage of these appalling labor conditions. By the way, there 
are responsible U.S. corporations as well. However, the shame of it is, 
without any kind of standards, it is what the irresponsible U.S. 
corporations get away with.
  The conclusion of the NLC:

       Recent in-depth investigations of 16 factories in China 
     producing car-stereos, brakes, shoes, sneakers, clothing, 
     TVs, hats, and bags for some of the largest U.S. companies 
     clearly demonstrate that [these corporations] and their 
     contractors in China continue to systematically violate the 
     most fundamental human and worker rights while paying below 
     subsistence wages. The U.S. companies and their contractors 
     operate with impunity in China, often in collaboration with 
     repressive and corrupt local government authorities.

  NLC investigators found brand name--Kathie Lee/Wal-Mart--handbags 
being made in a factory ``where 1,000 workers were held under 
conditions of indentured servitude, forced to work 12 to 14 hours a 
day, seven days a week, with only one day off a month, while earning an 
average of 3 cents an hour.''
  I hope my colleagues are not going to vote against an amendment that 
I am going to bring to the floor that is going to deal with basic human 
rights and another amendment I will bring to the floor dealing with the 
problem of religious persecution.
   Continuing from the NLC report:

       However, after months of work, 46 percent of the workers 
     surveyed earned nothing at all--

  They didn't even make 3 cents an hour.

       in fact, they owed money to the company. The workers were 
     allowed out of the factory for just an hour and a half a day. 
     The workers were fed two dismal meals a day and housed 16 
     people to one small, crammed dorm room. Many of the workers 
     did not even have enough money to pay for bus fare to leave 
     the factory to look for other work. When the workers 
     protested being forced to work from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. 
     seven days a week, for literally pennies an hour, 800 workers 
     were fired.


[[Page 17045]]


  Do Members not think in this trade agreement we might not want to 
have some conditions calling on the Chinese Government to live up to 
basic standards of decency?
  One factory producing brand name sneakers for the U.S. market hires 
only females between the ages of 18 and 25--another U.S. company in 
China.

       The base wage at the factory is 18 cents an hour, and 
     workers need permission to leave the factory grounds. Factory 
     and dorms--where 20 women share one small dorm room, sleeping 
     on triple-level bunk beds--are locked down at 9:00 p.m. every 
     night. When workers in the polishing section could no longer 
     stand the grueling overtime hours and low pay and went on 
     strike, they were all fired. Factory management then lectured 
     the remaining workers that they would not tolerate unions, 
     strikes, bad behavior, or the raising of grievances.

  I will have an amendment that will say we should condition automatic 
normal trade relations with China on their living up to the basic 
standard that people should be able to form an independent union if 
that is what they believe they should do without being imprisoned.
  At a plant making brand name--Nike--clothing for American consumers, 
young workers worked from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., 7 days a week. They 
made 22 cents an hour. Wal-Mart, by the way, is in China. I think they 
are paying 14 cents an hour. And another factory manufacturing for 
export to the U.S. market does not hire anyone older than 25; workers 
are paid 20 cents an hour and work 11- to 12-hour shifts.
  I have no doubt that some of our companies--I hope many--want to be 
responsible employers. But when we don't have any standards and we sign 
onto trade agreements without any standards whatsoever, we create 
economic incentives that push in the wrong direction, where the 
companies wanting to do well by workers are at a competitive 
disadvantage and it becomes a race to the bottom.
  In our country--I am proud to say as a former college teacher--among 
young people is the best organizing of justice, idealism, and activism 
I have seen in many years. But how can you support the anti-sweatshop 
campaign, denounce the rapid proliferation of sweatshops all over the 
world, and denounce the resurgence of sweatshops here in the U.S. and 
then turn around and promote unregulated investment in China without 
any conditions whatsoever?
  I simply say that I seriously question, on the basis of some pretty 
solid empirical evidence, whether this China deal is going to lift 
living standards overseas to our levels or whether this China deal and 
some of our other trade policy is going to lower living standards down 
to theirs. It is not very hard to figure out what this deal is about. 
It is going to encourage more investment in China under the conditions 
I have described.
  I wish to give two case studies. On July 7, the New York Times ran a 
story about Zebco Corporation, world-famous makers of fishing reel, 
which moved most of its production to China in June. Most of Zebco's 
240 workers will eventually lose their jobs. They said:

       With most of Zebco's competitors having already set up 
     fishing tackle plants in China, allowing them to undercut 
     Zebco's prices at Wal-Marts everywhere, Zebco began a year 
     ago to explore the possibility of moving its own lines to 
     China. The company found that it could commission Chinese 
     factories to produce and deliver reels to the United States 
     for one-third less than it could make them at home, company 
     officials said.
       As assembly-line factory jobs go, Zebco offers ordinary pay 
     but solid benefits, including Christmas gifts of stock 
     certificates. Workers returned the loyalty. Turnover was low.

  This is what it was all about.

       Then, earlier this year, the company pushed assembly-line 
     workers to raise their output by at least 10 percent a month, 
     and China became a cattle prod.

  That is in the New York Times piece.

       Still, the shop floor fell into stunned silence one Monday 
     afternoon when the president of the company read a brief 
     statement as first-shift workers finished their day. Zebco 
     was moving some production to China. Many of those listening 
     would lose their jobs. Zebco reels no longer commanded an 
     ``adequate profit,'' the statement said.
       Many leading United States companies are like Zebco. They 
     face competitive pressure to save money by producing in 
     China--often exporting back to the United States--rather than 
     making goods here to sell in China.

  The workers as Zebco are not alone. Warren Davis is a courageous, 
outspoken United Auto Workers leader. He is their regional director for 
Ohio and Pennsylvania. In a recent letter, he told me about 90 workers 
at a plant he represents who are all going to lose their jobs because 
of the conditions that I have described. He writes:

       Nestaway Corporation has been under contract with the 
     Rubbermaid Corporation of Wooster, Ohio. It is losing its 
     critical contract because Rubbermaid claims it can no longer 
     afford to buy Nestaway's sink strainers. . . .
       The victims are the workers at Nestaway Corporation in 
     Garfield Heights, Ohio. They are mainly single parents with 
     poor prospects for finding any other job that pay a wage 
     comparable to the $9 an hour they had been paid. . . .

  Basically, it is the same thing. They can't compete. I continue to 
quote from him:

       My question to you is, for whom does the bell toll? Because 
     this is not just about the jobs of Region 2 members of the 
     United Auto Workers. This is about all of American 
     manufacturing. And it is about the debate in the Senate.

  The stories of workers at Zebco and Nestaway tell a larger story. We 
have an exploding trade deficit with China, and it is only going to get 
worse because without any kind of conditions, without any kind of human 
rights standards, without any kind of fair labor standards, without any 
kind of minimal standards for human rights, what we are going to see is 
more and more companies not exporting but investing in China, going to 
China, paying low wages. This becomes the export platform, and then the 
products are exported back to our country. According to the EPI, our 
exploding trade deficit with China cost over 683,000 jobs between 1992 
and 1999. This trade deal with China will cost even more--over 870,000 
jobs, just looking into the immediate future.
  Well, let me now make two final points in my opening statement. It is 
commonly argued that everybody benefits, that it is exports, and I have 
tried to take that on. We get the arguments of the trade agreement, and 
I have tried to take that on. It is argued that, in fact, this is a 
policy that will help people in China. I have tried to take that 
argument on. Let me simply talk about the inequality in our country. 
Even free trade economists have now concluded that existing trade 
policy is the single largest cause of growing inequality since 1979. We 
have a booming economy, but we have the widest gap between the rich and 
the poor of any industrialized nation in the world. Inequality, both 
within countries and between countries, has dramatically increased.
  When we went through the debate on NAFTA, the argument was there will 
be winners and losers, but we will be better off as a country, and we 
certainly will be there to compensate the losers; we will have job 
training and education programs and all of the rest. But do you know 
what? That was fine sentiment expressed on the floor of the Senate, but 
after NAFTA was passed and we lost hundreds of thousands of jobs, 
support for the training and assistance suddenly dried up. All of the 
Senators and all of the Representatives who I hear say, ``Yes, there 
will be losers and we are certainly going to have to do better''--I 
would like to hear those Senators and Representatives talk about health 
security for people in this country, affordable child care, good 
education for their children, increasing the minimum wage. But quite 
often you find just the opposite.
  I wish to talk about an amendment I am going to bring to the floor of 
the Senate, which I think is terribly important. Part of what is going 
on, unfortunately, with our trade policy--and given the size of China, 
this will sharply widen the inequality. This will exacerbate this, I 
think, most serious question of all.
  The message is, if you organize, we are gone; we will go to these 
other countries. The message is that if you want to work for more than 
3 cents an hour, you don't get our investment.
  But if this is all about workers, and if this is all about coming 
through for

[[Page 17046]]

working people in our country--making sure that the jobs we have in our 
country are good jobs, and there are decent health care benefits for 
people, and they can support their families--I think we will have to 
look at the very strong correlation between unionization and good jobs 
and good working benefits--and that is a well established correlation--
and, therefore, the need to give people the right to organize.
  Right now in the country during an organizing drive, in 91 percent of 
the cases employers require employees to listen to the companies but 
deny the employees any opportunity to listen to both sides. I am going 
to introduce a right-to-organize amendment. That should no longer be 
the case. Employees should be allowed to hear from both sides.
  In 31 percent of all the organizing campaigns, employers illegally 
fire union sympathizers with virtual impunity. Ten thousand workers are 
fired illegally every year. It is profitable to do so. In this 
amendment, I say if a company breaks the law and illegally fires that 
worker, that company is going to be faced with stiff financial 
penalties.
  In one-third of the cases, even after the employees say they want to 
join a union so they can make better wages, the companies refuse to 
negotiate. This amendment will call, therefore, for mediation to be 
followed by binding arbitration.
  I hope my colleagues will support this right-to-organize amendment.
  I think the way our country is going is that people and families are 
more concerned about the right to be able to organize and bargain 
collectively, earn a decent living, and support their families.
  I say especially to the Democrats that you ought to support this 
amendment. You ought to support this amendment because this is all 
about the basic right of people to be able to organize and to do better 
for themselves and their families. This is all about being on the side 
of working people. Do I not hear that the Democratic Party is on the 
side of working people? I have an amendment that will give Democrats, 
and I hope Republicans, an opportunity to be on the side of working 
people.
  In conclusion, we have a choice. I think the choice is really clear. 
We are in a global economy. We are in an international economy. The 
question is, Are there going to be any new rules?
  We live in a democracy. My father taught me more than anything else 
to love my country, and I love my country because we live in a 
democracy. I get to speak on the floor of the Senate. Citizens get to 
speak up. We have a voice.
  On the one hand, we have the current model of a business trade policy 
designed to serve mainly the interests of multinational corporations, 
Wall Street financial institutions, and global business conglomerates. 
This is the model of globalization that has generated such outrage and 
certainly skepticism on the part of most ordinary citizens in the 
country. Good for them.
  I think there is a 2-to-1 margin--as I remember the recent polling 
data--of people who say they don't believe these trading agreements are 
going to lead to good job prospects but are going to more likely take 
away good jobs for Americans.
  Just think about it for a moment. We passed not too long ago the CBI 
initiative. That is all about, as my colleague said, helping poor 
working people in the Caribbean countries. How do you help poor working 
people in the Caribbean countries where they don't even have the right 
to work? They can't join a union. The Caribbean countries with the 
fastest growing exports have experienced--are you ready for this?--the 
steepest decline in wages.
  So often I hear from my colleagues: Well, Paul, we know you support 
working people but do not seem to be supporting the poor in these 
developing nations. I say to my colleagues that every time I go to a 
trade conference, I look for the poor. I never see the poor at these 
trade conferences. I see the elites from these countries. I don't see 
the poor represented.
  In any case, with the Caribbean countries, let me cite one very 
interesting correlation. Those countries with the fastest growing 
exports and that have the lowest wages have seen the steepest decline 
in wages.
  The question is, Who benefits from expanding trade benefits without 
any enforceable labor standards? Who benefits from trade and investment 
policies that discourage rather than encourage the right to organize? 
Not American workers; not workers in the other countries; not the poor 
in other countries. This is not win-win; this is lose-lose.
  I will not cite a lot of statistics about the global economy, but for 
a moment I want to cite a few to point out to colleagues that many 
foreign countries have not fared so well under this ``Washington 
consensus trade and investment policy'' of recent decades.
  More than 80 countries have per capita income lower than they did in 
1970, lower in 1999 than in 1978 by 200 million poor people living in 
abject poverty.
  Only 33 countries have achieved and sustained 3-percent growth 
between 1980 and 1996, and in 59 countries the per capita GNP actually 
declined.
  The number of poor continues to grow throughout the world.
  There are 100 million people in industrialized countries living below 
the poverty line, and 35 million of them are unemployed.
  There are 1.3 billion people in the developing world earning less 
than $1 per day and who have no access to clean water for themselves or 
their children.
  You are coming out here on the floor of the Senate and trying to 
argue that trade policy has been a great benefit for the poor in the 
world. I don't think the empirical data support that.
  Let me conclude where I started.
  I am an internationalist. I hear all this discussion about how this 
debate and this vote is all about whether or not you believe we live 
and work in a global economy. I take seriously those words that we live 
and work in a global economy. It certainly is true. But may I point out 
to my colleagues the implications of this point of view.
  If we live in a global economy and if we are truly concerned about 
human rights, then we can no longer concern ourselves only with human 
rights at home.
  If we live in a global economy and we truly care about religious 
freedom, then we can no longer concern ourselves only with religious 
freedom at home.
  If we live in a global economy and work in a global economy and we 
care about the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively 
and earn a better standard of living for themselves and their children, 
then we can no longer concern ourselves with labor rates only at home.
  If we truly care about the environment and we live in a global 
economy, then we can no longer concern ourselves with environmental 
protection only at home.
  Raising living standards is not only the right thing to do, it is 
necessary if we are to maintain our own living standard. We need to 
ensure that prosperity is shared more broadly so that the world economy 
is stabilized and that healthy and sustainable products are created for 
our exporters. When people make 3 cents an hour and are poor, they 
cannot buy what we produce in our country.
  I am proud to associate myself with those who have been engaged in 
human rights work. I think I care more about human rights issues than 
almost any other set of issues in my family background. They have 
understood a basic truth; it is this: That Americans can never be 
indifferent to the circumstances of exploited and abused people in the 
far reaches of the globe. When the most basic human rights and freedoms 
of others are infringed upon or endangered, we are diminished by our 
failure to speak out for human rights.
  When we embrace the cause of human rights, we reaffirm one of the 
greatest traditions of American democracy, but we are not embracing the 
cause of human rights with this trade bill.
  There is another truth, and it is reaching a larger and larger 
public. The well-being of our families, the well-being of ordinary wage 
earners in

[[Page 17047]]

the United States of America, depends to a considerable degree on the 
welfare of people who we have never met, people who live halfway across 
the planet. Our fates are intertwined.
  Some of my colleagues say the global markets will take care of 
themselves; they cannot be tamed; there is nothing we should do; this 
is laissez faire economics at its best.
  I point my colleagues to the lessons of our own economic history. As 
we debate this piece of legislation on the floor of the Senate--and I 
will have an amendment that will deal with religious freedom, an 
amendment that deals with human rights; I will have an amendment that 
deals with exports from China from forced prison labor; I will have an 
amendment that deals with a right to organize in China; and I will have 
an amendment that deals with the right to organize in our own country--
let Members for a moment think about this debate in an historic 
context. I heard my colleague, Senator Baucus, for whom I have great 
respect, say this is a very important debate. Senator Moynihan, who 
will retire--and the Senate and our country will miss him--believes 
this is one of the most important votes we will cast. I agree. I think 
this is one of the most important debates that has taken place in the 
Senate.
  I deal with a sense of history. One-hundred years ago, our country 
moved from an economy of local economic units to an industrialized 
economy. It was a wrenching economic transformation, a major seismic 
change in our economy. We were moving toward a national, industrialized 
economy 100 years ago, at the beginning of the last century.
  As that happened, there was a coalition--some of them were 
evangelical, some were populist, some were farmers, some were women, 
some were working people--that made a set of demands. The farmers said: 
We want antitrust action because these big conglomerates are pushing us 
off the land or they were exploiting the consumers. They want a 40-hour 
workweek. We want the right to organize. We want some protections 
against exploiting children, child labor. Women said: We want the right 
to vote. We want direct election of the U.S. Senators. They made those 
demands, and nobody thought they had a chance.
  The Pinkertons killed anyone trying to organize a union. All too 
often that happened. The media was hostile to this set of demands, by 
and large. Journalists followed this debate. I am not bashing all 
journalists, but in general the media was not supportive. And believe 
it or not, money probably dominated politics even more than it does 
today.
  However, those women and men felt, as citizens of a democracy, they 
had the right to demand for themselves and their families all they 
thought was right and all they had the courage to demand. They didn't 
win everything, but a lot of their demands became the law of the land 
and their collective efforts made our country better. Their efforts 
amounted to an effort to civilize a new national economy.
  So it is today, 100 years later. These amendments I will bring to the 
floor of the Senate reflect an effort on the part of people in the 
United States of America and others throughout the world to say, yes, 
we live in a new global economy, but just as 100 years ago men and 
women organized and had the courage to make that new national economy 
work for them, we make a set of demands. We bring a set of issues 
before the Senate. We call for votes on amendments which basically say 
that we need to make sure that this new global economy works for 
working people, works for family farmers, works for the environment, 
works for human rights.
  Mr. President, we want to make sure we can civilize this new global 
economy so that it works for most of the people.
  I ask unanimous consent that the next two Democratic speakers be 
Senator Dorgan and Senator Torricelli, and that Senator Torricelli's 
statement be considered a morning business statement, after Senator 
Gorton speaks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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