[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13002-13003]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 CENTRAL AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, soon the House of Representatives will 
bring before it legislation to clear the way for the Central American 
Free Trade Agreement to not only be discussed but, in my view, to be 
challenged.
  Earlier my colleague the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) spoke about 
the loss of manufacturing jobs. I come from the Cleveland area, where 
we know that these trade agreements, NAFTA, GATT, the WTO which 
followed, have all worked against the American working people. We were 
told when these agreements were formed that it would mean more jobs in 
the United States because people in other countries would be buying our 
goods.
  Well, let us look at the facts. Let us look at what the actual wages 
are and the purchasing power of people in various countries.
  How, for example, can people in Honduras, $2,600 a year, be able to 
buy something that is made in the United States that has any powerful 
commercial value, like a car or like a washing machine? How could 
someone living in El Salvador, $4,800 a year, be able to purchase 
something, some manufactured product in the United States, that costs 
hundreds or thousands of dollars?
  What is happening is that trade agreements are seeking cheaper labor 
where they can go to countries where the labor is cheap, but they are 
not selling American goods there. So we are seeing that we are not 
finding new markets for our goods; yet, we are finding markets for 
cheap labor. That is what these trade agreements do. They open up 
markets for cheap labor.
  Keep in mind, the workers in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, 
Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and others represented on this chart, 
they do not have any rights. They do not have a right under these trade 
agreements, an inherent right for collective bargaining, a right to 
organize, a right to strike, a right to decent wages and benefits.
  No. As these corporations get more power, they force upon the workers 
a take-it-or-leave-it proposition where people are basically left to 
accept working under conditions that are awful, for wages that are 
miserably low, and if they do not like it, they do not have any kind of 
a job at all.
  Meanwhile, what happens in the United States? We are losing jobs by 
the millions. The trade agreements, which we have seen this country 
pass over the last 12 years, have resulted in a destruction of 
America's basic manufacturing capability.
  Remember, our national security has depended on our strategic 
industrial base of steel, automotive and aerospace, and yet, we are 
seeing that base decline because of these trade agreements. We are 
giving away our ability to even defend our country. We are giving away 
our ability to create good-paying jobs.
  Henry Ford understood more than 100 years ago that you had to be able 
to pay people a good wage so they could buy the things they make. These 
trade agreements turn all that on its head. Now, American workers are 
seeing their jobs exported to countries where people make low wages and 
countries where people cannot by American goods. That is where we are.
  CAFTA is another in a long series of trade agreements which have 
worked against the interests of the American people. We have welcomed 
representatives of Central America to this Congress in the last week. 
They have communicated to us. These Members of Congress of Central 
American countries have communicated to us that this trade agreement 
was passed in the dead of night in their countries; that this trade 
agreement was passed without the representatives even knowing what was 
in the bill; that this trade agreement was passed and set the stage for 
the privatization of public services. This trade agreement was passed 
and set the stage for higher taxes, with people already living very 
humbly with the lowest wages.
  We are here to stand up for the American worker, stand up for 
American manufacturing, to stand up for the future of this country and 
to stand up for international solidarity on questions of human rights, 
workers rights and environmental quality principles.

                              {time}  2230

  It is time for us to say that CAFTA must be defeated; that we must go 
back to a whole new trade structure that is based on workers' rights, 
that is based on human rights, that is based on environmental quality 
principles.
  Commerce essentially depends on the agreements which we come up with 
in this House of Representatives. But commerce without economic justice 
is tyranny. Commerce without morality is a degradation of the human 
spirit. Commerce without basic principles which can strengthen a 
society is commerce that erodes the social compact of a society.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having this opportunity to share with the 
American people the urgency of seeing CAFTA defeated.

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