[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15449]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NAFTA IS FAILED TRADE MODEL

  (Mr. MICHAUD asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MICHAUD. Mr. Speaker, NAFTA held a great promise to provide 
workers in Mexico and the United States a livable wage. It simply 
hasn't lived up to that promise. Illegal immigration has increased.
  The number of undocumented Mexican workers who live in the United 
States has skyrocketed in the NAFTA era from an estimated 1 million in 
the mid-1990s to about 6 million today.
  While many people talk about closing down the U.S.-Mexico border, few 
care to confront the root cause of this issue: the failure of the NAFTA 
model to provide sustainable livelihoods for workers in Mexico. Over 1 
million Mexican farmers lost their livelihoods due to NAFTA-mandated 
agricultural policy changes. Wages declined for workers.
  These are just some of the reasons why one in ten Mexican citizens 
have made an often dangerous border crossing to the United States.
  NAFTA is a failed model. It is time that we change the model. We 
can't afford to keep approving models based on the same old NAFTA 
model. And that is what Peru and Panama are, agreements based on the 
same flawed principles.

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