[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11759-11760]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          RENEGOTIATING CAFTA

  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, at a White House news conference last 
week President Bush, called on this Congress to pass the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement this summer.
  This morning in this Chamber, next to me, the most powerful 
Republican in the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), once 
again promised a vote, this time by July 4. Actually, a month or so ago 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) promised that there would be a 
vote in May, but this time he says he actually means it.
  Mr. Speaker, those of us who have been speaking out against the 
Central American Free Trade Agreement have a message in return. Let us 
scrap this agreement. Clearly, this Congress does not support it. And 
let us renegotiate a better Central American Free Trade Agreement.
  President Bush signed this agreement fully 1 year and 2 weeks ago. 
Every trade agreement negotiated by this administration, Morocco, 
Singapore, Chile, Australia, all trade agreements negotiated by this 
administration have been ratified by Congress within 65 days of the 
President affixing his signature to them. CAFTA has languished in 
Congress now for 54 weeks without a vote because this wrong-headed 
trade agreement offends Republicans and Democrats alike.
  Just look at what has happened with our trade policy in the last 
decade. 1992, the year I ran for Congress, we had a trade deficit in 
this country of $38 billion. Today, a dozen years later, last year 
actually, in 2004, our trade deficit was $618 billion.
  From $38 billion, when the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and 
others of us in this Chamber opposed the North American Free Trade 
Agreement, from $38 billion a dozen years ago to $618 billion today.
  It is clear our trade policy is not working. Mr. Speaker, opponents 
of CAFTA know that it is simply an extension of the North American Free 
Trade Agreement, actually a dysfunctional cousin of NAFTA, which 
clearly did not work for our country.
  Look at the chart. Look at the number of jobs we have seen lost in 
this country as a result of trade policy.
  In the last 5 years, not all of these jobs are trade policy, but many 
of them are. In the last 5 years, the States in red have lost more than 
20 percent of their manufacturing jobs. New York, 222,000. Pennsylvania 
200,000. Ohio, 217,000. Michigan, 210,000. North and South Carolina, 
306,000 combined. Alabama and Mississippi, another 125,000. State after 
State after State has lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
  It is the same old story. Every time there is a trade agreement, 
every time there is a trade agreement, the President says it will mean 
more jobs for Americans, it will mean more exports for the U.S., it 
will mean more manufacturing done in our country and selling those 
products overseas, and the President promises it will be better wages 
for workers in the developing countries.
  Mr. Speaker, Ben Franklin said the definition of insanity is doing 
the same

[[Page 11760]]

thing over and over and over again and expecting a different outcome. 
The President makes the same promises on NAFTA, on PNTR, on trade 
promotion authority, the same promises, every trade agreement. And 
every time it comes out exactly the opposite. That is why there is 
overwhelming bipartisan opposition to the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement.
  Since then, the administration and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
DeLay) and Republican leadership have tried every trick in the book to 
pass CAFTA. The administration started off by linking CAFTA to helping 
democracy in the developing world. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy 
Secretary of State Zoellick both have said CAFTA will help on the war 
on terrorism. I am not really sure why, but they said that we need to 
pass this agreement with Central America to help us in the war on 
terrorism. But we know 10 years of NAFTA has done nothing to improve 
security between Mexico and the United States, so that argument simply 
does not sell.
  In May, then, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce set up a junket for the 
six presidents from Central America and the Dominican Republic, taking 
them to Cincinnati and Los Angeles and Washington and Albuquerque and 
around the United States, hoping they might be able to sell the 
American people the press and the Congress on CAFTA. Again they failed.
  Earlier this year, the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
DeLay), and the Ways and Means Chairman, the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Thomas), said there would be a vote on CAFTA by Memorial Day. 
Memorial Day came and went without a vote. Why? Because they did not 
have the votes.
  Now we have a new deadline for this failed trade agreement. It is 
July 4th.
  Mr. Speaker, Republicans and Democrats, business and labor groups, 
farmers, ranchers, faith-based groups, the National Council of 
Churches, the Latin American Council of Churches, churches, business 
groups, religious leaders environmental groups, all have said, if CAFTA 
countries and the U.S. renegotiate CAFTA, we can get a better agreement 
next time.

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