[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18407-18409]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       OMAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose the 
so-called Oman Free Trade Agreement. There are two primary reasons that 
I oppose this agreement. First, the Oman agreement is a continuation of 
an utterly failed trade policy. I believe we must change direction, and 
we need to change direction now before our record trade and budget 
deficits cripple our economy.
  Mr. President, this chart shows the trend in the U.S. trade deficit. 
This chart shows the trade deficit per month, and if we go back to 
1992, we can see the trade deficit was running about $3 billion a 
month--a little over that. The total trade deficit that year for the 
entire year was $40 billion.
  Now we fast track to this year. After 10 trade agreements and 14 
years, we are now at a trade deficit, as of last year, of $718 billion. 
And we are headed for a trade deficit of over $800 billion based on the 
most recent trade deficit. In July, we saw a trade deficit approaching 
$70 billion for the month.
  When are we going to conclude that we are on a course that is leading 
nowhere?
  Mr. President, NAFTA provides one vivid example of how these trade 
deals have affected our trade deficits. In 1993, the year before NAFTA 
took effect, we had a small trade surplus with Mexico--as this chart 
shows, about $1.7 billion. Last year, after 12 years of NAFTA, our 
trade deficit with Mexico exceeded $50 billion. In other words, before 
NAFTA, we had a trade surplus, albeit a small one. Now we have a 
massive trade deficit, and some say this is a success. I would hate to 
see a failure. If this is a success, what would be a failure?
  Agriculture provides another clear example. When this administration 
took office, we had a trade balance in agriculture of a positive $15 
billion. That was in 2001. Every year, this balance has gone down: to 
$13 billion in 2002, $10 billion in 2003, just under $10 billion in 
2004, last year it slipped to under $5 billion, and this year they are 
now anticipating a trade balance in agriculture of only $2 billion. 
That is stunning, absolutely stunning. We used to run a trade surplus 
in agriculture of over $25 billion a year. Now we are very close to 
having no trade balance in agriculture. Yet we keep going down the same 
path, trumpeting every one of these trade deals as another great 
success.
  I do not think there is much credibility left in that argument. I 
would be the first to admit I have voted for some of these trade 
agreements. I voted against NAFTA, and I voted against the CAFTA 
agreement, the most recent agreement entered into here. I voted against 
the so-called Canadian Free Trade Agreement, but I supported the 
agreement with China, I supported WPO, and I believed that it would 
advance the cause that is so important to the international economy.
  At some point we have to deal with facts. We have to deal with 
reality. We have to deal with what is really happening, not some 
academic argument. We have to deal with the reality that our country is 
going deeper and deeper into debt. We are now the world's largest 
debtor nation, and by a large margin.
  I believe the Oman agreement continues that failed trade policy. We 
are now getting more than we are giving. When you read the fine print 
in the study that was done by the U.S. International Trade Commission, 
the nonpartisan U.S. agency in charge of analyzing trade agreements, 
you discover that this agreement will increase our trade deficit with 
Oman. So here we go again, one more time of failed negotiations leading 
to more deficit, more debt, and the United States borrowing more money.
  In the fine print of the analysis that has been done what you find is 
that imports of apparel from Oman will increase by more than $42 
million a year, but the exports of all products to Oman will increase 
only between $14 to $41 million. So, once again, we are asked to 
approve a deal that is the product of a failed negotiation. Once again 
those who negotiated on behalf of the United States have brought back a 
loser, claiming all the while it is a great success.
  At some point you have to check the record. At some point you look at 
what has actually happened, and you compare the claims to the results. 
When we do that on the trade agreements, what we find is that they have 
been a miserable failure for this country. Perhaps it should not be 
surprising that this agreement would increase our trade deficit. It is 
produced by the administration, an administration that has said at 
various times that outsourcing is a good thing. It is produced by an 
administration that does not believe in having other countries improve 
their labor standards so that it is fair competition. In fact, this 
administration has repeatedly rebuffed the efforts of the House of 
Representatives to strengthen labor laws in Oman so that they meet the 
core international standards.
  I do not believe this is a good agreement on the merits. But in 
addition, this process is horribly flawed. The way this bill has been 
brought to the Senate floor makes a complete mockery of the fast-track 
process.
  Why do I say that? Well, as every Member of this body knows, the 
Constitution gives the Congress, not the President, the responsibility 
for regulating foreign trade. Yet in recognition that we cannot have 
535 trade negotiators--435 Members of the House and 100 Members here--
Congress has agreed

[[Page 18408]]

to the fast-track process for considering trade agreements.
  In agreeing to fast track, each Senator gives up the most fundamental 
rights of a U.S. Senator. The most fundamental rights of any Senator 
are the right to amend and the right to extended debate. Those are the 
two things that distinguish this body from any other parliamentary body 
in the world. And most analysts have said it is a key to the importance 
of the U.S. Senate.
  In return for our giving up those core rights of any Senator--the 
right to amend, the right to extended debate--there is supposed to be a 
detailed consultation with the Congress in negotiating trade agreements 
and developing the implementing legislation.
  In practice, the Finance Committee, of which I am a member, is the 
focus of this consultation because the Finance Committee has 
jurisdiction over trade policy. In theory, the committee has extensive 
input during the process of negotiating agreements. Theoretically, it 
does not then need to amend the implementing bill once it is formally 
introduced.
  When it comes to developing the implementing bill, this consultation 
occurs through what is known as the mock markup process. It is like a 
regular legislative markup, only it is a mock markup in that it is not 
proceeding under the regular legislative course. The mock markup is the 
Finance Committee's opportunity to amend the implementing bill before 
it is formally introduced and then cannot be amended under fast-track 
rules. This informal process has a long history. During consideration 
of previous trade agreements, the process has lasted months and 
produced a host of changes.
  On the Oman agreement, I offered an amendment to prevent products 
made with slave labor, or under sweatshop conditions so egregious as to 
be tantamount to slave labor, from benefiting from the agreement. I did 
so because of a sad history, a sad history with the agreement with 
Jordan that failed to prevent horrific sweatshops in that country. I 
did so because it is not free trade when foreign workers are locked in 
factories and forced to work 100 hours a week for pennies an hour. Can 
anybody argue that represents free trade? That is not what Members of 
this body support when they vote in favor of free trade, but a recent 
study in Jordan found that is precisely what is happening.
  Workers from Bangladesh, China, and other parts of Southeast Asia 
were promised much greater pay than they could earn in their home 
countries. Not surprising, thousands went to Jordan. They paid hundreds 
of dollars to recruiters to get the jobs in the Jordanian apparel 
industry, but when they got to Jordan, their passports were taken away 
so they could not leave or change jobs. They were then forced to work 
90 to 120 hours a week. They were paid far less than Jordan's minimum 
wage and were denied what they had been promised. And if they 
complained, they were beaten or jailed.
  Now, these are unpleasant facts, but they are facts, and we can 
either choose to turn away or be condemned by history for allowing this 
to occur when we served in a position of responsibility.
  Here is what the workers reported, according to the New York Times 
earlier this year:

       We used to start at 8 in the morning, and we'd work until 
     midnight, 1 or [even] 2 a.m., seven days a week. . . . When 
     we were in Bangladesh they promised us we would receive $120 
     a month, but in the five months I was there I only got one 
     month's salary--and that was $50.''

  These stories are repeated over and over and over.

       Mohammed Saiful Islam, a Bangladeshi, said that several 
     times the workers had to work until 4 a.m., then sleep on the 
     factory's floor for a few hours, before resuming work at 8 
     a.m. ``The workers got so exhausted they became sick,'' he 
     said. ``They could hardly stay awake at their machines.''
       Several workers said that when they were sick they did not 
     receive medical care, but were instead punished and had their 
     pay docked.
       Hazrat Ali said he sometimes worked 48 hours in a row and 
     received no pay for the six months. ``If we asked for money, 
     they hit us,'' he said.
       Nasima Akhter said that the Western factory gave its 
     workers a half-glass of tea for breakfast and often rice and 
     some rotten chicken for lunch. ``In the four months I was in 
     Jordan, they didn't pay us a single penny,'' she said. ``When 
     we asked management for our money and for better food, they 
     were very angry at us. We were put in some sort of jail for 
     four days without anything to eat. And then they forced us to 
     go back to Bangladesh.''

  These conditions are appalling, but they are all confirmed. This 
happened. And the question is, Are we going to allow this to continue? 
We would not ask American workers here at home to compete with these 
sorts of practices. Is it reasonable to expect our workers to compete 
with work conditions like these abroad? I think not. And we certainly--
we certainly--should not be giving special trade benefits to products 
made under these conditions. That is immoral.
  In the case of Oman, its labor laws fall far short of the core ILO 
standards, the International Labor Organization standards. Oman, like 
Jordan, relies heavily on guest workers who are often at a serious 
disadvantage in trying to assert their rights. Oman has been cited by 
our own State Department for human trafficking. And according to the 
International Trade Commission, the Oman Free Trade Agreement is 
expected to greatly increase apparel production and exports to the 
United States from Oman.
  The warning signals are before us. Are we going to act? I hope we do. 
That is why I offered an amendment in the Finance Committee that 
clarified that goods produced with slave labor or de facto slave labor 
of the sort that occurred in Jordan will not benefit from this 
agreement. The administration raised objections at the time, but the 
committee rejected the administration's advice and unanimously adopted 
my amendment--unanimously adopted my amendment.
  I believe it adopted my amendment because the members believe that 
products manufactured in these sorts of abusive conditions should not 
get special benefits under this free-trade agreement. The Finance 
Committee spoke loudly and clearly. By an 18-to-0 recorded vote, the 
committee disagreed with the administration and said that we need to 
add protections in this agreement because local labor laws and U.S. 
laws did not work in the case of Jordan and may well not work in the 
case of Oman.
  Yet the bill before us today does not include these protections. It 
does not include an amendment passed unanimously in the Senate Finance 
Committee. This process is now so broken and such a sham that we can 
pass an amendment in the so-called mock markup by a unanimous vote and 
it means absolutely nothing. This process has lost its credibility. 
This process cannot be taken seriously.
  Every Member of this body should know that in giving up their core 
rights--the right to amend, the right to extended debate--in return for 
a program that is supposed to include consultation between the Congress 
and the administration--consultation that is supposed to go through the 
Finance Committee, through the mock markup process that is our ability 
to change things, that is our ability to offer amendments to alter the 
final outcome--it means nothing--nothing.
  Two years ago, we debated the Australian FTA, and the Finance 
Committee adopted an amendment I offered then to protect our ranchers. 
It went through procedural contortions to drop the amendment. I said at 
the time:

       This precedent strikes me as dangerous. It opens the 
     process to abuse, and it reduces the Committee's role in 
     crafting trade policy and trade legislation. It may have been 
     expedient. . . . But I believe that we will come to regret 
     this precedent. It invites a future President to ignore any 
     recommendations made by the Committee on future trade 
     implementing legislation.

  Unfortunately, that prediction has come true. Here we are with 
another trade agreement, this time a trade agreement which was amended 
in the Finance Committee, the committee of jurisdiction, by a unanimous 
vote, and that amendment appears nowhere in the final product.
  This process has become a sham. It is a snare and a delusion for 
Members

[[Page 18409]]

here to think that Congress has any effect. There is no need for a 
Congress of the United States if this administration or any 
administration arrogates to itself the full power of the Government of 
the United States. That is what has now happened with trade agreements. 
The Congress may as well not exist. We may as well not be here because 
we have no ability to alter the outcome.
  The only ability we have remaining is to reject the agreement 
outright. I have reached the conclusion that is the proper course. I 
believe we ought to reject this agreement on two bases: No. 1, it is a 
continuation of a failed trade policy that is driving us deeper and 
deeper into debt; and second, it is the product of a process that has 
become a complete sham. The facts speak for themselves.
  Let me conclude. The Oman Free Trade Agreement promises few, if any, 
benefits to the U.S. economy and will actually make our trade deficit 
worse. Moreover, the safeguards that were supposed to protect against 
imports made under abusive sweatshop conditions have been summarily 
dropped from the bill, despite a unanimous vote in the committee of 
jurisdiction.
  Finally, the process the Finance Committee followed sets a terrible 
precedent. No Senator should welcome the precedent that the 
administration can simply ignore the will of the Finance Committee on a 
particular trade issue important to the people we represent, secure in 
the knowledge that the trade implementing bill can be pushed through as 
part of a larger take-it-or-leave-it package.
  So I hope my colleagues, even those who generally support trade 
agreements, will think long and hard about how they cast this vote. 
This vote is going to set another precedent--one more precedent--that 
says the fast-track process is completely broken.
  If you believe the Senate and the Finance Committee should not have a 
voice on trade agreements and trade implementing bills and you support 
the use of slave labor, human trafficking, and egregious, abusive 
sweatshops, you should vote for this bill. But if you believe that 
consultation under fast track should be meaningful, if you believe the 
mock markup process should not be a mockery, and if you oppose slave 
labor, you should vote against this bill.
  I urge my colleagues to stand for a new direction in trade policy, to 
stand for agreements that benefit the American economy, and to vote 
against the Oman Free Trade Agreement.
  As someone who has supported many trade agreements, I come to this 
conclusion reluctantly. I come to this conclusion only after 20 years 
of service in the U.S. Senate, seeing one after another of these trade 
agreements entered into, each one of them heralded as another great 
success, only to find that we are on course to running up the greatest 
trade deficit in the history of the United States--$700 billion of 
trade deficit last year, headed for $800 billion this year. Mr. 
President, if this doesn't send a message that we are on the wrong 
course, I don't know what would.
  Finally, this is a process that is completely bankrupt--absolutely, 
completely bankrupt. I entered into the chance as a member of the 
Finance Committee to offer amendments in good faith. I did so 
responsibly. My amendment passed unanimously. Yet it is summarily 
dropped by the administration for no good reason.
  Mr. President, this fast-track process is fast track all right; it is 
a fast track to decline. It is a fast track to rising deficits and 
debt. It is a fast track to the centralization of power in this country 
in the hands of a few in the administration, without regard to 
congressional input.
  That is not the history of this institution. That is not the 
constitutional history of our country. We were not designed to be a 
government of only one branch, the executive branch. Our constitutional 
history suggests that this is to be a government of shared powers, with 
an executive branch, a legislative branch, and judicial branch, all 
with their appropriate roles.
  Increasingly, with respect to trade, the role of the Congress is the 
role of a rubber stamp. Our Founding Fathers would be spinning in their 
graves seeing how the fast-track process has been contorted into a 
process that allows the administration to make the decisions with 
respect to the trade policy of this country, without an ability of 
Members of Congress to alter its course. That is a profound mistake, 
and we will regret it in the future.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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