[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25338-25339]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         CORRECTING AMERICA'S IMBALANCED TRADING RELATIONSHIPS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the heels of President 
Bush's failed trade trip to Latin America to discuss our Nation's trade 
policy, a policy that continues to ship out American jobs, a policy 
that opens our doors to imports while other markets remain closed to 
us. Markets like Japan, markets like China, they keep their doors shut 
tight.
  This is a policy that is hurting our country, not just today, but for 
tomorrow. It hurts our workers. It hurts our farmers; and, indeed, it 
truly hurts our future.
  Our latest trade deficit numbers released last month for the month of 
August show yet another increase in America's trade deficit. The trade 
deficit for the month of August alone was $59 billion. For every 
billion dollars of deficit, we incur another 20,000 lost jobs. In a 
year, the loss to us is over three-quarters of a trillion dollars of 
more imports coming in than exports going out.
  Last year our trade deficit was $668 billion; and in the first half 
of this year, this number clearly was increasing. This chart summarizes 
what has been happening with the rise in imports over exports over the 
last 20 years. Every single year, after every single one of these trade 
agreements gets signed, the red ink gets deeper and deeper. It will not 
take long to reach a trillion dollars, which lops real economic growth 
off our gross domestic product.
  According to one report, the higher price of oil this year alone 
could add an estimated 60 to $90 billion more to the trade deficit of 
2006. The deficit represents jobs lost in our communities, lives 
changed forever, as well as a very real threat to the economic security 
of our country.
  Trade agreements like, and Members know the names, NAFTA, CAFTA, 
PNTR, normal trade relations with China. I do not know what is normal 
about having hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit with any 
country where our jobs have been shipped elsewhere. We can see the 
cashing out of America.
  The latest company that tells us they are ready to leave is Delphi, 
based in Flint, Michigan, a corporation that employs over 50,000 people 
nationwide, telling workers they have to take a two-thirds cut in 
wages, pensions gone, health benefit gone. And what they are basically 
doing, they are following their major customer, which is General 
Motors, which has cashed out to Mexico, and now the suppliers are 
following suit.
  Here is how the trade model works: half of Delphi's sales go to 
General Motors. Therefore, if General Motors outsources, so will 
Delphi. If General Motors goes to Mexico, which is has, it is the 
largest employer in Mexico after the government of Mexico and the oil 
industry, so will Delphi go. How destructive this trend is to our 
future as we see our workers work for lower wages and our families 
shopping now at Wal-Mart to get bargain prices. Imagine, Wal-Mart, the 
largest employer in the United States of America. We are becoming a 
distributor not a manufacturer, and our people are not earning enough 
to shop at the department stores that they used to. Many of those have 
closed in the major metropolitan areas of our country.
  What we find are the Wall Street investors, who have a global reach 
and love to get richer than any of us could ever imagine, are taking 
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[[Page 25339]]

around the world. Franklin Roosevelt had it right: he called them the 
malefactors of great wealth. They do great damage in their path.
  Today I do not want to just draw attention to what has been happening 
to our economy and working people, but I want to draw attention to what 
we can do. Sadly, President Bush appears to be trying to expand NAFTA 
with his recent trip down to Latin America, and the people down there 
have awakened to what these trade agreements really mean to them. The 
Free Trade Agreement of the Americas appears to be dying a slow death.
  But I have a different idea, and so do some of my colleagues. This 
week we are introducing a bill, the Balancing Trade Act of 2005, which 
will require action on the part of the President when America faces 
deficits like we see today. It would require the President to take 
action to correct these imbalanced trading relationships with any 
nation where our deficit with them would equal $10 billion in any 3-
year period, in other words, where that $10 billion would exist for 3 
consecutive years.
  Our trade balance, for example, with both of our NAFTA trading 
partners has been more than $10 billion in deficit for the last 3 
years. NAFTA has basically been a great sucking sound of jobs out of 
this country.
  Our trade deficit with China has been greater than $100 billion this 
year and over the last 3 years, and rising every single year. It is 
more lost jobs, and this bill says it is time to stop the music; it is 
time to start doing something about this.
  In order to correct accounts that are seriously in the red, someone 
has to go back and look at the books. It is a responsible approach, one 
that the executive branch should be taking and one that is long 
overdue. I ask my colleagues to look at the Balancing Trade Act of 2005 
and join us as cosponsors to right America's very imbalanced trading 
relations with the world.

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