[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16719]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1900
                                DR-CAFTA

  (Mr. BRADY of Texas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the world has changed. It is no 
longer enough to just buy American; we have to sell American. We have 
to tear down these ``America Need Not Apply'' signs that are throughout 
the world and give us a chance to sell our products and our goods from 
around this Nation that are as good as anybody's in the world.
  My frustration, Mr. Speaker, is that the whole world is able to sell 
into the United States. We can go down the street here into stores and 
buy anything we want, but too much of the world is cut off to America, 
to our goods and services, especially from Texas, where we produce good 
products, like other States.
  The Central American Free Trade Agreement reverses that. They have 
been able to sell into our country for 20 years, and for good reason, 
to help them move out of communism and socialism. But now it is our 
turn to sell our products to Central America. They are not large 
countries by our standards, but they are large by world standards. They 
are our tenth largest customer. They buy more from us than Italy does, 
which is a major economic power. They are a good customer. They can buy 
more and more of our goods and services.
  That is just one of a number of reasons, including national security 
and winning the textile war against China, that we ought to be 
supporting the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

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