[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 23280]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               FAST TRACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, many people in the Chamber know about 
the problems of LTV, one of the third-largest integrated steel-makers 
in the United States, and its announcement that it may in fact close 
operations in Cleveland and other places across the country.
  Despite the overwhelming passage of a sense of Congress urging the 
President to keep U.S. antidumping laws off of the negotiating table, 
the World Trade Organization in Qatar, U.S. Trade Representative Bob 
Zoellick did just the opposite. We needed help in this country from the 
USTR, the steel industry needed help from the USTR, LTV needed help 
from the USTR, but the United States Trade Representative, President 
Bush's man in Qatar, has remained open to further weakening the rules 
on trade dumping, further jeopardizing American steel, further 
threatening American jobs.
  Many of us have been concerned about Qatar long before these 
negotiations began. It is a country that does not allow free elections, 
it is a country that does not allow freedom of expression, it is a 
country where women are treated not much differently from the way women 
have been treated by the Taliban, and it is a country where public 
worship by non-Muslims is banned.
  The message that that meeting of the World Trade Organization sends 
to people around the world, the trade ministers are meeting in a city 
and country where public protest is not allowed, where free speech is 
not allowed, public expression is not allowed, freedom of worship is 
not allowed, where free election is not allowed, and that message is 
quite troubling.
  It is troubling because all too often our own trade minister, 
President Bush's Bob Zoellick, has used language to suggest that those 
of us who do not support his free trade agenda, his agenda to weaken 
environmental and labor standards, and environmental and labor 
standards around the world, that those of us who do not support his 
trade agenda are simply not concerned about terrorism.
  He has questioned our patriotism by pointing out that most of us that 
oppose fast track are indifferent to terrorism, saying we do not share 
American values if we do not support fast track because that is the 
way, he says, to combat terrorism.
  Mr. Speaker, fast track, to be sure, does not embody those American 
values that our trade rep has indicated. In fact, his claims that the 
President needs fast track are also simply not true. President Bush 
already has the authority to negotiate trade deals on behalf of the 
United States. Instead of simply dealing with tariffs and quotas, 
modern trade agreements contemplate issues as wide-ranging as 
environmental law, food safety, worker safety, local banking and tax 
standards.
  Congress must not shirk its responsibility for trade agreements when 
so much is at stake. Supporters of fast track tell us the U.S. is being 
left behind. They tell us we need fast track to increase American 
exports and to bring new jobs to American workers. But our history of 
flawed trade agreements has led to a trade deficit with the rest of the 
world that surged to a record $370 billion.
  The deficit last year is 40 percent higher than the deficit, the 
record-setting deficit, of the year before. The Department of Labor 
reported that NAFTA alone has been responsible, and these are the pro-
NAFTA government statistics, that NAFTA alone has been responsible for 
the loss of 300,000 U.S. jobs.
  While our trade agreements go to great lengths to protect investors 
and protect property rights, these agreements do not include 
enforceable provisions to protect workers or to protect the 
environment.
  CEOs of America's biggest corporations tell us that globalization 
stimulates development and allows nations to improve labor and 
environmental standards. They say interaction with the developing world 
spreads democracy.
  But as we engage with the developing countries in trade and 
investment, democratic developing countries are losing ground to 
authoritarian developing countries; in other words, democratic nations 
such as India are losing out to more totalitarian nations such as 
China. Democratic nations such as Taiwan are losing out to more 
authoritarian regimes such as Indonesia.
  Why is that? Why are 65 percent of developing country exports coming 
from authoritarian countries? It is clear corporations locate their 
manufacturing bases in more authoritarian regimes where the most 
minimal standards are often ignored. Western investors want to go to 
China, want to go to Indonesia, want to go to countries which are 
dictatorships because they have docile workforces, because they do not 
allow trade unions to organize, because they have authoritarian 
governments, because they are predictable for western business, because 
they do not have environmental laws, because they do not have labor 
standards.
  They do not want to go to India, they do not want to go to Taiwan, to 
South Korea. They do not want to stay even in this country, many times, 
because we have strong environmental laws, because we have labor 
protections, because labor unions can organize and bargain 
collectively, because we have free elections.
  Western corporations want to invest in countries that have poor 
environmental standards and below-poverty wages, that have no worker 
benefits, that have no opportunities to bargain collectively. Mr. 
Speaker, that is why fast track is a very bad idea.

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