[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16725]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      OPPOSING THE SO-CALLED CENTRAL AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the so-called Central 
American Free Trade Agreement, also called CAFTA.
  Mr. Speaker, I address this House from the perspective of the 
American worker. Prior to my election to Congress, I had a chance to 
view the effect of U.S. trade policy at its most basic level, that of 
the American worker.
  Prior to coming to this Congress, I worked for about 20 years as an 
ironworker and a welder. I worked at the General Motors assembly plant 
in Framingham, Massachusetts, prior to GM's decision to close the 
Framingham plant and several Michigan plants and instead expand their 
plants in Mexico.
  I also worked as a welder at the General Dynamics shipyard in Quincy, 
Massachusetts, before foreign competition and misguided trade policy 
moved that work overseas.
  I worked at the U.S. steel mill in Gary, Indiana, and at the Inland 
steel plant in East Chicago, Indiana, as an ironworker prior to the 
steel industry moving to Third World countries in order to escape 
responsible labor and environmental standards.
  I have seen firsthand the effect of anti-worker trade policies on the 
American workers and their families. I have seen the devastation that 
occurs in American cities and towns when we adopt trade policies that 
encourage U.S. companies to relocate jobs overseas. And I have seen 
what the impact is on our schools and the fabric of our very 
communities when large employers shut down the largest plants in town.
  I have been impressed since coming to Congress with how people talk 
about job loss. People in Washington talk about job loss like they are 
talking about the weather or some natural occurrence, like a giant cold 
front moved through here and took about 3 million American jobs with 
it.
  Well, American job loss is the result of deliberate policies that 
have been misguided and have encouraged U.S. employers to locate their 
jobs overseas. It is time to stop these U.S. policies that simply 
exploit foreign workers by adopting trade agreements and that have no 
labor or environmental standards.
  Our experience with NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, 
should inform our decision today. At the time of NAFTA's passage in 
1993, the U.S. trade deficit was about $39 billion. Since then, it has 
soared to about $617 billion in 2004. That is a whopping 1,600 percent 
increase and more than 5 percent of our national GDP.
  It is ironic indeed today when we talk so much about exporting 
democracy because of our situation in Iraq, that what we are doing here 
is exporting U.S. jobs, and at the same time endorsing the creation of 
$2-a-day jobs in Central America.
  I think we have a fatal flaw in our foreign policy, in our trade 
policy. First of all, you do not export democracy through the Defense 
Department, you do it through the U.S. Trade Representative and through 
our trade agreements; and you do not export democracy by forcing 
workers to work for $2 a day. For if you follow the path of 
exploitation fostered by mercenary and winner-take-all trade agreements 
that set worker against worker in a race to the bottom, in the end you 
will in those countries see a retrenchment of hope and a rejection of 
democracy.
  I have seen firsthand the effects of an errant trade policy. It is 
time today to reject this current CAFTA and to ask our U.S. Trade 
Representative to go back to the drawing board and come up with a CAFTA 
that is truly good for the American worker and good for the workers in 
Central America.

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