[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15501]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  U.S.-AUSTRALIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  (Mr. CRANE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, when my colleagues and I vote on the U.S.-
Australia Free Trade Agreement later today, I hope we do so 
understanding that trade with Australia currently supports over 235,000 
jobs here in the United States, including over 4,400 in my home State 
of Illinois.
  Illinois exports about $1 billion in goods and services to Australia 
each year, from agricultural and construction machinery, to engines, 
turbines and power transmission equipment, to motor vehicle parts, to 
general purpose machinery and to agricultural products. In short, 
people through nearly every sector of our economy will benefit from 
this agreement.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a commitment to our citizens to enforce our 
trade agreements, which is why legislation I have authored which we 
will also consider today, the Customs Border Protection Act, increases 
by $2 million the resources USTR has to monitor and enforce our trade 
agreements. I think we can all agree that this is very important. 
However, some will argue that we should shut our borders and build a 
wall around our country. That would be devastating to our economy, and 
I hope a strong bipartisan vote on passage of the Australia FTA today 
will demonstrate that conclusively.

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