[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21894]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



             PNTR AGREEMENT WITH CHINA NOT GOOD FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, today they are going to have a ceremony 
to celebrate the signing of the PNTR agreement with China downtown at 
the White House. It would be better if they held a wake to mourn the 
loss of U.S. jobs and complete capitulation of U.S. interests to the 
dictators in Beijing.
  The 1999 trade deficit with China was $68.7 billion. It is headed 
toward $80 billion this year. The trade deficit with China currently 
reflects a 6 to 1 ratio of imports to exports, but they only talk about 
the few goods we export, not about the flood of imports and the value 
of those imports and the lost jobs from China.
  The United States International Trade Commission acknowledges that 
with the adoption of PNTR, and if China joins the WTO, which is 
becoming very unlikely, they still estimate an increase in the trade 
deficit with China. Using their model, the Economic Policy Institute 
estimates the deficits will continue to grow for the next 50 years, 
reaching a peak of $649 billion in 2048. Our trade deficit with China 
would not fall below the current level until 2060, 60 years from now, 
when every currently employed American worker is retired or dead.
  Even if the trends predicted by EPI only persisted for a decade, our 
deficit with China would reach $131 billion in 2010. The growth in 
exports would generate 325,000 jobs, but, unfortunately, the growth in 
imports would lose 1.14 million jobs. That is a net loss of 817,000 
jobs, and those job losses would be reflected across the United States.
  Let us not kid ourselves: PNTR with China was never about expanding 
U.S. exports to the Chinese, which would improve our global trade 
balance; it was about access by large multinational corporations to a 
low wage, brutalized labor force of 1.3 billion people, in a country 
with lax environmental standards.
  The day after the vote, the day after the vote in the House of 
Representatives, the Wall Street Journal admitted this in a headline: 
``This deal is about investment, not exports. U.S. foreign investment 
is about to overtake U.S. exports as the primary means by which U.S. 
companies deliver goods to China.''
  They went on in the article to quote the chief representative of 
Rockwell International. ``In China, that is the direction we are going. 
We are looking for predictability, reliability. With that, Rockwell 
expects to set up more factories in China.''
  The list goes on. GM expects to go from 40 percent Chinese parts to 
80 percent Chinese parts. Procter & Gamble, Motorola, Eastman Kodak, 
Compaq, Coca Cola, a who's who of American businesses are saying this 
was about them building plants in China with U.S. capital, not about 
exporting U.S. manufactured goods to China.
  They talk about all the concessions China made to join the WTO. But 
China has, as we pointed out during the debate, violated every major 
trade agreement for the last two decades on trade; all the 
nonproliferation agreements that they have had; the memorandum of 
understanding in 1992 on prison labor; in 1996, the bilateral agreement 
on intellectual property; the bilateral agreement on textiles; and the 
1992 memorandum of understanding on market access. Why do we believe 
them this time?
  In fact, they are already backtracking. Just after the negotiations, 
their chief negotiator said that these were only theoretical 
opportunities for U.S. exports, explaining the incongruity by saying, 
``During diplomatic negotiations, it is imperative to use beautiful 
words.''
  China says they still intend to protect machine, electronic, 
chemical, medical, military, telecommunications, energy, 
transportation, automobile and agriculture industries, even if they get 
in the WTO, and now they are saying they will not join the WTO because 
we are actually asking them to make some changes in their exclusionary 
practices, to actually begin to allow foreign goods into their country.
  No, this is a sad day, and not a day to celebrate. A few large 
multinational corporations based in the U.S. have tilted U.S. policy in 
a way that is to the detriment of our workers, our national security, 
the global environment and the people of China and their workers and 
their rights and any improvement in human rights and labor rights in 
China. This should not be celebrated; it should be mourned.

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