[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26023-26024]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      COSTA RICA AND TRADE POLICY

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in this Chamber about a 
story unfolding right now in Costa Rica.
  This country of 4 million people is having a national referendum on 
October 7--next week--on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the 
trade deal this Congress passed by a narrow margin a couple of years 
ago.
  CAFTA stipulates that the last signatory country must approve the 
deal no later than 2 years after the first signatory country implements 
the agreement.
  So over the past 2 years, the United States, El Salvador, Honduras, 
Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic enacted the NAFTA 
expansion.
  The Costa Rican people have resisted it.
  My colleagues have seen news reports this weekend about a massive 
rally of fair traders--people who want trade but under different 
rules--against CAFTA in Costa Rica. Some 150,000

[[Page 26024]]

citizens in a country of 4 million people spoke out expressing their 
opposition to the agreement--150,000 people--and most thought that a 
conservative estimate.
  The pro-CAFTA government gave up efforts to pass CAFTA in the 
legislature after continued protest against it, including a 2-day 
general strike last October.
  Their is strong opposition to a NAFTA-style agreement. In fact, the 
issue of whether to approve CAFTA has stirred up such political 
upheaval that the Government chose to go to a public referendum instead 
of going to the legislature. Legislators not unlike our peers in 
Congress did not want to face voters in their home district if they 
voted for the pact.
  The agreement must be implemented as domestic law--meaning Costa Rica 
has to enact new laws in order for the trade agreement to take effect. 
That bothers hundreds of thousands of Costa Ricans because they have in 
place today strong laws on health, on the environment, on education, on 
privatization, on generic drugs, on all the kinds of issues that have 
helped to build the middle class in Costa Rica.
  Costa Rica is a progressive country. More than a third of its land is 
protected in national parks. More than 90 percent of its electricity 
comes from renewals. Costa Rica's high literacy rates are well known, 
and it has a strong health care system. Its life expectancy is not too 
different than our own in this country.
  Costa Rica's citizens have also seen what NAFTA--the North American 
Free Trade Agreement--did to Mexico's middle class, and what especially 
it has done to Mexican farmers, small peasant family farmers.
  These factors have created strong resistance to entering into an 
agreement that can handcuff policymakers from setting progrowth, 
prodevelopment policies in their own country.
  As this Chamber knows, NAFTA/CAFTA-style deals are about a whole lot 
more than just tariffs and quotas. These agreements are top-down pacts 
that lock in new rules on investment, on food safety, on services, and 
on procurement.
  This month, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 
issued a report warning developing countries to be wary of bilateral 
and regional free-trade deals as they are currently written. They 
warned them against signing these agreements.
  The U.N. report cited NAFTA as an example of a trade agreement that 
may have short-term benefits but does long-term harm. You hear a lot of 
talk from the Bush administration that free trade is necessary to 
address poverty. You hear that the ``people,'' as they say, of these 
mostly poor countries want trade deals like NAFTA.
  But what we are seeing in Costa Rica right now is what we are seeing 
around the globe when it comes to trade deals that purely and simply 
give too much power to multinational corporations. What we are seeing 
is a loud and clear demand for change.
  We see it in the WTO negotiations, which continue to falter as 
developing countries resist WTO expansion. We see it in Ohio--in Lorain 
and Mansfield, in Youngstown and Lima, in Dayton and Chillicothe--where 
hard-working men and women who have made America the strongest Nation 
in the world are betrayed by Washington's trade policy.
  Presidents from both parties have entered into trade agreements, 
agreements such as NAFTA, promising they would create millions of new 
jobs and enrich communities. Instead, too many of these agreements, too 
often, have cost millions of jobs and devastated communities.
  Two years ago, when I served in the House, we created a bipartisan 
coalition against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Religious 
organizations, labor unions, environmentalists, small businesses, human 
rights advocates, and small manufacturing companies were part of this 
bipartisan opposition.
  The opposition that was evident in Washington and, more importantly, 
in congressional districts around the country caused the Bush 
administration to make deals and promises and--in the words of one 
sympathetic lawmaker to the Bush administration--helped us so that we 
``twist[ed] arms until they break into a thousand pieces.''
  The Bush administration got what it wanted when it pushed NAFTA 
through. But we won the debate. Today in Costa Rica, we are seeing 
similar scare tactics taken by the pro-CAFTA administration.
  A memo was leaked to the Costa Rican press, and it has caused an 
uproar for good reason. In this memo, the Costa Rican Vice President 
and a Member of Congress outlined a plan to President Arias that uses 
fear, threats to local officials, and attacks on CAFTA opposition as 
tactics to win the referendum.
  The Second Vice President, one of the memo's authors, had to resign 
from his government office while officials investigate whether any laws 
had been broken.
  The memo states clearly:

       The mayor that does not win his canton--

  Which is their political jurisdiction--

       The mayor that does not win his canton (precinct) will not 
     get a penny from the government in the next three years.

  It is pretty simple. The memo says the government then needs to 
``stimulate fear'' among Costa Ricans. It even lists the kinds of fear 
that are effective: Stimulate fear. Create fear of the loss of jobs if 
CAFTA is not approved. Stimulate a fear of violence and civil strife. 
Stimulate a fear of Chavez and Castro if Costa Rica does not approve 
CAFTA.
  Specifically, there has been an informational campaign in Costa Rica 
that if this agreement fails, then the United States will punish Costa 
Rica by revoking the existing trade benefits that Costa Rica has under 
the Caribbean Basin Initiative. That is simply patently false.
  Costa Rica will continue to benefit from CBI because it is the law. 
It is a permanent program. Its existence depends on the U.S. Congress, 
not an edict from the Bush administration.
  These tactics should sound familiar to my colleagues who recall the 
CAFTA debate. These tactics make it very clear that what is at stake--
in Costa Rica this week and when this Chamber takes up issues of trade 
and globalization--is that there are very different competing 
ideologies. There is the NAFTA ideology and there is the fair trade 
ideology.
  In truth, I believe the defeat of this referendum may actually do 
more to improve Costa Rican-U.S. relations because it is clear that 
there is a fair trade movement on the rise in this Chamber, in the 
House of Representatives, and surely across the land. Look at elections 
last year in the Presiding Officer's State of Rhode Island, in Ohio, in 
Pennsylvania, in Missouri, and in Minnesota and Virginia and Montana, 
because it is clear there is a fair trade movement on the rise in this 
country and in Costa Rica.
  We have reason to hope. If the referendum is defeated, we can create 
a new trade agreement that benefits workers and communities, small 
businesses, religious folks, people who care about an economy that 
works for more of us, that helps us to create a solid, strong middle 
class, not just supporting the multinational corporations.
  We have a choice. The people of Costa Rica have a choice there this 
week. We can continue with the fair trade model or we can reject the 
NAFTA and CAFTA models and work together on a new trade deal, a fair 
trade deal.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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