[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21850]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION MEETING IN QATAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to draw my colleagues' 
attention to yesterday's New York Times, the front page. There are some 
stories there that bear an interrelationship that is important.
  There was a major story about the World Trade Organization's upcoming 
meeting in Qatar in the Middle East, the first meeting that the WTO 
will be holding since Seattle; and the story talks about the World 
Trade Organization and some of the difficulties that it has been having 
in gaining broad-based public support for its activities and 
deliberations; and in fact, the story implies that if these meetings in 
Qatar are not successful, it might spell the demise of the WTO and the 
type of globalization initiatives that have ensued since this Congress 
passed GATT just a few years ago when the WTO was set up.
  One of the reasons it says that these talks are having difficulty is 
because of the fact that the world trade system has resulted in 
widening disparities between the very rich and the very poor, and it is 
very interesting that the meeting is being held in a part of the world 
which demonstrates the wide disparity in incomes between the very rich 
and the very poor.
  On the same front page there was a story about the rumblings in South 
Africa that have come since independence was granted, and what does it 
talk about? It talks about the growing disparity in South Africa 
between the very rich and the very poor and the fact that thousands and 
thousands of people are having their electricity shut off, are not able 
to earn a living, rising unemployment levels and that globalization 
without a social contract, and those are my words, not the words of the 
New York Times, creates a rising poverty and rising wealth for only the 
few, and that our globe is being affected by these forces, these 
powerful economic forces in all regions.
  Recently, this week, Secretary Powell has met with the top leaders of 
Bangladesh, Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations in the world, which 
has a $2 billion trade deficit with the United States.
  How do these stories connect? These stories connect because in 
Bangladesh over 3,500 contract shops operate, producing over a billion 
garments for the world, half of which come here to the United States.
  Women in that country make caps that are worn by athletic teams at 
all of our major universities, for example. They are forced to sew 320 
caps per hour if they want to keep their job, and their bosses want 
them to increase it to 370 caps per hour. For each cap, they are paid a 
penny and a half. Those caps arrive in our country for a total of $1 
for total costs of production and shipment, material, labor and 
transportation. And then they are sold, on average, inside this economy 
for $17 to $19 a cap.
  Now, the foreign minister of Bangladesh wants us to remove further 
tariffs on these items coming to our country. And what I am thinking 
is, even if we remove the tariffs, what guarantees are there that the 
women of that country would get a living wage? There is absolutely no 
guarantee.
  The trading system that this globalization regimen has put in place 
has put a downward pressure on workers across this world; and they are 
rising up in South Africa, in the Middle East, in South America. We saw 
their faces in Seattle. Somebody had better pay attention to what is 
wrong with this global trading system. It works to the benefit of the 
few at the cost of the many.
  I am for trade. I have a trading district, but I am for the dignity 
of the working person whether they work on the farm or whether they 
work in the factory, wherever in the world they exist. This world 
trading system must have a social contract, and without that we are 
going to have political tremors across this world, the likes of which 
the free nations have never experienced before.
  I would say that you must have free trade among free people. And that 
trade regimen that is put in place by the laws we pass and by the 
institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund 
and the Export-Import Bank, if they do not give credence to democratic 
rights and freedoms then, my goodness, what are we doing?
  So I would commend to my colleagues, take a look at the New York 
Times. Think about the connection between WTO and Qatar this week and 
what is going on in South Africa, and what is going on in Mexico where 
wages have been cut in half, and what went on in Seattle when people 
did not earn enough for the work they do.
  What kind of system is this country promoting?

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