[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Pages 31947-31962]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    UNITED STATES-PERU TRADE PROMOTION AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3688, which the clerk 
will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3688) to implement the United States-Peru 
     Trade Promotion Agreement.

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, is the business of the Senate at this 
point the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Yes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to speak about that subject, 
and I will confess, as I start, that the old admonition never argue 
with someone who buys ink by the barrel is something I should have 
learned long ago. I take issue with a company that buys ink by the 
tanker truck: the Washington Post.
  Speaking of trade, the Washington Post described, I think, why there 
is not so much of a thoughtful debate about trade as there is a 
thoughtless debate about it. In this editorial, they say this about 
trade in an attempt to criticize some of those who are running for 
President and are distancing themselves from the brand of free trade. 
What the Washington Post says is that a candidate said the following 
quote:

       NAFTA was a mistake to the extent that it did not deliver 
     what we had hoped it would, and that is why I call for a 
     trade time out.

  One candidate said NAFTA was a mistake, and they quoted the candidate 
saying it. The Washington Post says:

       Such demagoguery.

  So it is now demagoguery for a candidate for President to allege that 
a trade agreement was a mistake. That is demagoguery? I don't quite 
understand the Washington Post. The Washington Post says that NAFTA 
didn't cause the current U.S. trade deficit with Mexico. Really? That 
is an interesting conclusion, with no facts to support it. There are no 
facts to support that conclusion.
  I think I will show a chart that shows what has happened to our trade 
with Mexico since the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, was 
signed. The evidence is pretty substantial about what happened with our 
trade between the United States and Mexico: Just prior to negotiating a 
free trade agreement with Mexico, we had a very small surplus with the 
country of Mexico of $1.5 billion. Now, last year, it went from a very 
small surplus to a $65 billion deficit. The Washington Post says--about 
a candidate that said NAFTA was a mistake--that is demagoguery. Give us 
a break. It is not demagoguery to suggest that something doesn't work 
when we have gone from a $1.5 billion trade surplus to a $65 billion 
deficit.
  The Washington Post also says that the agreements contributed 
marginally to the shifting of workers from some less competitive 
sectors to others. That is arcane language to describe what happened. 
After NAFTA, the three largest imports from Mexico to the United States 
are automobiles, automobile parts, and electronics. The contention was 
made by those who supported NAFTA that this would only mean the 
migration of low-skill, low-income work to Mexico. It didn't happen 
quite that way. Automobiles, automobile parts, and electronics 
represent the products of high-skill labor in this country, and those 
jobs have been lost.
  I only wished to point out that the Washington Post described for us 
today why this debate about trade has largely been thoughtless. Yes, it 
is a global economy, I understand that. There are many faces to the 
global economy--some very attractive and some not so attractive. I will 
try to describe them both today. The global economy has galloped 
forward at a very aggressive pace, but the rules have not kept pace. So 
the result is we have some very significant problems and dislocations. 
We are drowning in trade debt in this country, and I will describe 
that.
  What is before us is another free trade agreement, the free trade 
agreement with Peru. Let me say that I can count votes. I understand 
what will happen in this Chamber. The Senate will support and vote for 
the free trade agreement with Peru.
  I maintain again today that I am not going to vote for additional 
free trade agreements until benchmarks are attached and there is 
accountability for those benchmarks. Had we had benchmarks in the 
NAFTA, we would not have gone from a $1.5 billion surplus to a $65 
billion deficit. We would have, at some point, said, wait a second, 
something is happening that is not right for our country.
  First of all, I don't think we should be signing new trade agreements 
until we fix some of the fundamental problems in the old agreements. 
Two, I believe that the Peru agreement represents an expansion of a 
failed model. It has failed before and will fail again. And, No. 3, I 
don't think it contains--I know it doesn't contain any benchmarks or 
accountability or a mechanism for withdrawal should the trade agreement 
fail at least relative to what we expect the trade agreement to 
accomplish.
  So I don't intend to support this trade agreement, not because I 
don't support trade. I support trade, and plenty of it. I believe, 
however, it ought to be fair. And the failed model

[[Page 31948]]

brought to us time and time again I will demonstrate today has failed 
this country. It has not failed everybody, but it has failed this 
country, and it is not in this country's best interest. This is 
language I assume the Washington Post would call demagoguery. If they 
suggest that it is demagoguery for a candidate for President to say 
NAFTA was a mistake, when all of the evidence demonstrates it was a 
mistake, I assume they may want to turn off their television sets when 
I am speaking at this point because they will certainly consider that 
demagoguery. It is rather, however, not a thoughtless debate. It is a 
thoughtful debate from the standpoint of those of us who come to the 
floor of the Senate who say we want trade, we support trade, we believe 
expanded trade is helpful to this country, but we insist for a change 
that the model of a trade agreement be a model that is mutually 
beneficial and stands up for the interests of both sides to that 
agreement.
  The agreement with Peru by itself will not do damage to this country. 
That is not what I allege today. Let me describe our trade: With China, 
$343 billion; Mexico, $332 billion; Japan, $120 billion; Peru, $9 
billion. I don't allege that trade with Peru, which is about three-
tenths of 1 percent of our trade, is going to be a serious problem 
because of the passage of a failed model. We have very large trade 
deficits with China, Japan, Mexico, the European Union, and Canada, all 
of whom are major trading partners. Instead of doing something about 
those significant and growing problems--China, Japan, Canada, the 
European Union, and Mexico--instead of doing something about that, we 
bring the same failed model to the floor of the Senate.
  I recognize and admit that this model with respect to Peru has labor 
standards in it that did not exist and environmental standards that did 
not exist in some other trade agreements. I will talk about that in a 
moment, especially with respect to Jordan. But the fact is, the 
foundation of this agreement is the same failed model that we have seen 
in the past.
  I want to talk about that failed model. I want to talk about the 
issue of China, especially because when we talk about trade--and we 
must talk about trade, we have to talk about the 500-pound gorilla with 
respect to our trade problems. This chart represents what our trade 
with China looks like since 1995 through last year, 2006. Success? No. 
These red lines going down represent huge trade deficits. Does anybody 
think that is a success? I think it is a huge failure for our country 
to be so fundamentally out of balance in our trade relationship with 
China. It just continues and continues and continues.
  The question is: What will we do about that? Some of the cheerleaders 
for the free-trade movement and the cheerleaders who would look at this 
would say: You need to understand something. And, obviously, they would 
say: Senator Dorgan does not understand it. Here is what it is. They 
say: We have increased our annual exports to China by $39 billion from 
2000 to 2006. That is what they would say. They would say: Look at 
this, we have increased our exports by $39 billion in just 5\1/2\ 
years. They just will not tell you the rest of the story, as Paul 
Harvey would suggest. The rest of the story is, yes, we did increase 
our exports to China by $39 billion, but we increased our imports from 
China by $188 billion. Isn't it interesting the picture you get that is 
very different if you have both sides of the equation? What will happen 
is those who support the free-trade model who think it works, who want 
to bury their head in the sand with respect to anything that represents 
something we should fix in our trade circumstance, they would only show 
you this $39 billion, only tell you that. They will strut around, 
thumbing their suspenders, puffing on their cigars saying: Look at all 
this; isn't this wonderful? We had a $40 billion increase in exports to 
the country of China in the last 6 years. What do you think about that? 
Do you think that is not successful? We are dramatically increasing our 
exports to China. How on Earth can you suggest that is not in this 
country's best interest? They would stop the story right there.
  But if you pick up the story where it should be picked up, you would 
say: Yes, that is true we had almost a $40 billion increase in exports, 
and good for us. The problem is, it was more than four times that 
amount in increased imports to this country, which means we had a net 
reduction in our trade relationship--that is, a net increase in our 
deficit--with China of over $140 billion. That is the rest of the 
story.
  So for every $6 of merchandise we buy from China, the Chinese buy $1 
of merchandise from us. That is not mutually beneficial trade. There 
are a lot of reasons for this surging trade deficit with China.
  If I might show the bar chart that shows the surging deficits, there 
are many reasons for this surge, but among them is that we have a 
pretty bankrupt trade agreement with China. China is rampant with what 
is called intellectual property theft. Walk down a street in China and 
buy a brand-new American movie, a CD. Piracy, they manipulate their 
currency, they have unfair barriers against U.S. exports, they have an 
unfair relationship in which U.S. jobs go to China because of, in many 
cases--not all cases but in many cases--sweatshop conditions in China. 
And so we have these circumstances with China that contribute to this 
dramatic increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China.
  China has increasingly become a platform for manufacturing that used 
to occur in this country. Why? Because they are better manufacturers? 
No. It is because you can get products manufactured for a fraction of 
the price of manufacturing them in this country.
  I indicated earlier the situation with Mexico. I described the 
situation with China. The trade deficit increased dramatically with 
China, and the trade deficit increased dramatically with Mexico. The 
same is true with Canada. With Japan, it hasn't increased dramatically. 
It has always been large and never changed because that is the way 
Japan wants it.
  In the Wall Street Journal on October 4 of this year, there was a 
very interesting story. It said in the headline: ``Republicans Grow 
Skeptical of Free Trade.'' And the story described a poll--understand, 
this is in the Wall Street Journal--that by a 2-to-1 margin, Republican 
voters believe free-trade deals have been bad for our country's 
economy. I suppose the Washington Post would also suggest that is 
demagoguery. Again, by a 2-to-1 margin, Republican voters believe free-
trade deals have been bad for our economy.
  The poll found that 59 percent of polled Republican voters agreed 
with the following statement:

       Foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy because 
     imports from abroad have reduced demand for American-made 
     goods, cost jobs here at home, and produced potentially 
     unsafe products.

  Only 32 percent of the polled Republican voters agreed with the 
following statement:

       Foreign trade has been good for the U.S. economy because 
     demand for U.S. products abroad has resulted in economic 
     growth and jobs for Americans here at home and provided more 
     choices for consumers.

  This poll in the Wall Street Journal suggests, I think, a dramatic 
change in the way Americans view this free-trade movement.
  In December 1999, the Wall Street Journal did a poll that found that 
only 31 percent of Republican voters thought free-trade agreements hurt 
our country. But in this past month's poll, they found the number of 
Republican voters went from 31 percent to 59 percent. These are 
Republican voters. That is where the substantial support has come from 
for these free-trade agreements. Clearly, the American people have seen 
the results of the free-trade agreements. They understand these red 
lines, these giant trade deficits are not just red lines. This isn't 
just some red ink. It represents lost jobs, lost dreams. It represents 
somebody coming home at night to their family saying: Honey, I lost my 
job, not because I am a bad worker but because I can't compete with 20-
cent-an-hour labor in Shen-chen, China.
  When NAFTA was debated in Congress in the early 1990s, its proponents 
argued, as I indicated earlier with respect to the U.S. deficit with 
Mexico,

[[Page 31949]]

the proponents argued this would result in the creation of a couple 
hundred thousand new jobs in the United States. But it is widely 
acknowledged by any economist who knows anything that this did not lead 
to the increased promise of U.S. jobs. The 200,000 jobs created 
annually, that was from a study by Mr. Hufbauer and Mr. Schott, a 
couple of economists.
  I have indicated that I previously taught economics in college, but I 
was able to overcome that experience. Hufbauer and Schott gave us this 
best economists' analysis we can find, I guess. They said this will be 
a couple hundred thousand new jobs, 170,000 new jobs by 1995, and they 
rounded that up to 200,000 when it was sold to the Congress. We now 
know at least 412,000 jobs have been certified as lost due to NAFTA 
under just one program at the U.S. Department of Labor.
  Ten years after NAFTA had been approved, I commissioned a study from 
the Congressional Research Service which identified the top 100 
companies that laid off U.S. workers as a result of NAFTA between 1994 
and 2002. When I asked the question of the Congressional Research 
Service: Tell us how many Americans have lost their jobs due to NAFTA--
they went to the Department of Labor, which has a program called trade 
adjustment assistance. It is a program that gives temporary benefits to 
those who are laid off as a result of NAFTA. This program requires 
companies to actually certify that they intended to eliminate U.S. jobs 
specifically because of NAFTA.
  The question of whether we have lost jobs due to NAFTA is on this 
chart coming from the Congressional Research Service that got the data 
from the U.S. Department of Labor. It tells us where these jobs came 
from, where they were lost. Vanity Fair, 16,000 jobs; Levi Strauss, 
15,676 jobs. These are certifications by the companies that they intend 
to lay off or did layoff these employees because of NAFTA. You can just 
go down the list. This isn't me saying it, these are the certifications 
these companies have made to the Department of Labor that these jobs 
are gone because of NAFTA, and they want trade adjustment assistance 
for the workers who lost their jobs.
  Sara Lee, Lucent, Fruit of the Loom, Texas. Fruit of the Loom 
underwear left. It is not that people stopped needing or wearing 
underwear. It is just they stopped making them in America. So Fruit of 
the Loom is gone; 5,352 people who made underwear in this country lost 
their jobs. That is certified by Fruit of the Loom to the Labor 
Department saying: We laid them off.
  This is not a question of whether there has been a loss of jobs as a 
result of NAFTA. Just the top 100 companies have certified to that, the 
top 100 companies laid off 201,000 U.S. jobs due to NAFTA. And if we 
look at all U.S. companies, the total number of U.S. jobs certified as 
lost to NAFTA are 412,000, and that is just under this one program, 
trade adjustment assistance.
  I wanted to focus on the top 100 companies, but we could have done 
all of them. This is sufficient, however, to show what has happened 
with respect to NAFTA.
  Some familiar products: Levi Strauss. I don't know that there is 
anything more American than wearing a pair of Levis, right? So we all 
buy Levis, except they don't make one pair of Levis in America, not 
one. Is it because we don't make good pockets, can't sew good seats? 
No, not all. It is just that all those jobs migrated out of this 
country in search of cheap labor.
  There is a company called Nabisco. Do you know what it stands for? 
National Biscuit Company. Nabisco is short for National Biscuit 
Company. Presumably ``national'' is in this country, except that the 
National Biscuit Company now belongs outside this country when it comes 
to making cookies. So Fig Newton cookies moved from America to Mexico. 
The National Biscuit Company Fig Newton cookies migrated to Mexico. Is 
it because they can't shovel fig paste as effectively in New Jersey as 
they can in Mexico? No. Shoveling fig paste is the same all over the 
world. It is just you can get somebody to shovel fig paste a whole lot 
less expensively in Mexico than in this country, if you use low-wage 
labor that is not protected by the kinds of basic labor protections we 
have in this country. So the National Biscuit Company is no longer 
national, at least with respect to Fig Newton cookies.
  I mentioned Fruit of the Loom, Mattel. We hear a lot about Mattel 
these days, of toys from China. They closed their last factory in the 
United States, a western Kentucky plant, that produced toys--Barbie 
playhouses and so on, battery-powered pickup trucks--for 30 years. They 
shipped production from the 980-person plant in Kentucky to factories 
in Mexico.
  John Deere, 1,150 workers, on this chart--made lawn mowers, 
chainsaws--gone to Mexico.
  Well, we understand the Peru trade agreement is an agreement that is 
not going to threaten the economic interests of this country. I don't 
assert that is the case. I do assert, however, that it is a failed 
model, and we have seen plenty of it. I have been on the floor of the 
Senate on many occasions saying why don't we fix that which is wrong in 
previous agreements before we bring new agreements to the floor of the 
Senate. But we never do that. We just keep bringing new agreements to 
the Senate.
  The Peru trade deal does include some labor protections. That is 
true. And that is a welcomed development. But labor protections in a 
trade agreement don't mean very much if there is not the political will 
to enforce them. Under the Peru deal, the only party that can seek 
enforcement of labor violations is the administration. And the Bush 
administration has, apparently, I am told, given assurances to the U.S. 
Chamber of Commerce these labor provisions are not going to be 
vigorously enforced. When the deal was announced on May 2007, the U.S. 
Chamber issued a statement saying it had received assurances that the 
labor provisions could not be enforced. Let me quote:

       We are encouraged by assurances that the labor provisions 
     cannot be read to require compliance with ILO Conventions.

  That is from the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He was 
saying: I am comfortable because these aren't going to work. He was 
referring specifically to a promise made by the U.S. Trade 
Representatives that the Peru agreement wouldn't require that U.S. 
workers be assured the minimal labor rights guaranteed by the ILO.
  Mr. President, if the Chamber had been assured the agreement will not 
be enforced with respect to the rights for U.S. workers, you can bet 
the labor provisions would not be enforced at all.
  Even during the negotiations for the Peru agreement, the 
administration made it very plain it has no interest in having labor 
protections in the trade deal.
  In fact, in 2005, the President of Peru offered to include in the 
text of the original agreement a commitment to comply with the 
International Labor Organization's standards for basic labor rights. 
That came from the President of Peru, saying: We will do this. In fact, 
the U.S. trade ambassador's office quickly rejected it. They quickly 
said no. They vowed not to include a commitment to labor standards in 
the free-trade agreement. It was only after the 2006 elections, in 
which a number of very interesting people were elected to this body on 
these very issues--standing up for American interests, for the American 
economy, and for the rights of American workers--only then did the U.S. 
Trade Representative, realizing these trade agreements would not move 
forward, only then did they decide to budge.
  But I think the true colors were demonstrated the year previous when 
the administration turned down the request or the offer by the 
President of Peru. It is clear to me there is no interest in enforcing 
these labor provisions, and I have just suggested the evidence of that.
  It is interesting, the only other previous trade agreement that 
included labor provisions was Jordan, and in the Jordan agreement--and 
I give the previous administration some credit, again, for including a 
labor provision in the Jordan trade agreement. Those provisions have 
not been adequately enforced, and the result has been the proliferation 
of sweatshops in the

[[Page 31950]]

country of Jordan--the only country with whom we have a free-trade 
agreement that includes labor provisions.
  Now, our trade balance, when we signed the trade agreement with 
Jordan, we had a trade surplus of about $243 million. That disappeared 
very quickly, which is the case with all our trade agreements. That 
surplus disappeared by 2002, and by 2005, that $200-plus million 
surplus had turned to a $600-plus million deficit, and our balance with 
Jordan has gotten worse every year since the agreement was signed. Let 
me say that again. Our trade balance with Jordan has deteriorated every 
single year since the trade agreement was signed.
  In May of this year, the New York Times exposed how the free-trade 
agreement with the country of Jordan has been used to create sweatshops 
all over Jordan. It turns out that when the agreement was signed in 
1999--this is the story in the New York Times, titled ``An Ugly Side of 
Free Trade: Sweatshops in Jordan''--there began to be imported into 
Jordan guest workers--guest workers from Bangladesh, from Sri Lanka, 
and elsewhere--to work in factories and in plants in sweatshop 
conditions.
  Have you ever heard of a 40-hour work shift? No, I am not talking 
about a 40-hour week. I am talking about a 40-hour shift. Well, it is 
happening in some of these plants. Have you heard of people working 100 
to 110 hours a week every single week, 7 days a week, with 1 day off 
every 3 or 4 months? Have you heard of people working for a month, a 
second month, a third month, and never getting paid; and when asked to 
be paid, getting beaten? Have you heard of people who spend 3 minutes 
making a colorful bikini for a lingerie shop in this country that is 
going to be sold for $14 and they receive just a pittance, working in 
sweatshop conditions? A story from the National Labor Committee just 
described such a circumstance with a widely known American company.
  Mr. President, despite the fact labor provisions existed in the 
Jordan Free Trade Agreement, no one has sought to enforce those 
requirements, those labor provisions.
  Now, the other reason I do not support moving ahead with additional 
free-trade agreements is, there are no benchmarks. It seems to me, and 
it seems to a number of my colleagues who have introduced legislation 
with me, that we ought to have benchmarks. Whether it is with 
agreements with China, agreements with Canada, or Mexico, or Japan, we 
ought to have benchmarks to decide what is the result of what we have 
just done. It doesn't matter to people in this Chamber, apparently, 
that we are drowning in trade debt that gets worse and worse and worse, 
and yet the worse the trade debt becomes, the more they come to the 
floor of the Senate crowing about how wonderful it is. I mean, I don't 
understand it.
  Mr. President, we have proposals to have free-trade agreements coming 
behind the Peru agreement. One is with Panama, one is with Colombia, 
and one is with South Korea. All of them, by the way, are negotiated 
under something called fast track, where the legislative branch 
generously decided it would wear a straitjacket and promise if an 
administration, any administration, negotiated trade agreements in 
secret, behind closed doors, where others weren't allowed to venture, 
and they were brought back after an agreement was reached to this 
Chamber, the folks in this Chamber who supported that would agree they 
would prevent the offering of any amendments.
  So before the action started, they said: We will agree to wear a 
straitjacket once you have told us what you have done.
  It is the most unbelievably antidemocratic action, and also an 
action, I think, that undermines the very essence of what the Senate 
should be about. Nonetheless, that is the method by which these have 
been negotiated.
  Now, fortunately, we will not have additional agreements negotiated 
under those circumstances because the fast-track authority ran out June 
30, and it will not be restored. But these agreements were negotiated 
under fast track.
  Now, let me describe to you, if I might--and I can do this with 2 
dozen or 100 products, but I will do it this way because it 
demonstrates the complete incompetence of our negotiators and the 
complete incompetence of our negotiated product. This chart represents 
automobiles from Korea. And with respect to our trade with Korea in 
automobiles, it is worth about $9 billion a year. So we have a lot 
going on with respect to Korean automobiles. If you drive down the 
streets of this country, you will find automobiles that come from 
Korea. In fact, in 2005, 740,000 Korean-made cars were put on boats and 
shipped across the ocean to be sold in the United States--740,000 
Korean-made cars were shipped to the United States to be sold.
  Well, guess how many U.S. cars we were able to ship to Korea to sell 
in Korea. Not 740,000 but 4,500.
  So here is the way our trade with Korea looks. All of this white 
represents Korean cars put on boats to be sold in America. And this 
little car down here? That is the number of cars we were able to sell 
in Korea. In fact, 99 percent of the cars driven on the streets of 
Korea are Korean-made cars, and that is the way they want it. They do 
not want foreign-made cars in their country. But they want to ship 
their cars to America, even as they keep American cars out of their 
marketplace.
  We just negotiated a free-trade agreement. Do you think this 
administration, negotiating in secret, behind closed doors, said to the 
Koreans: You can't do this. It is not fair trade. You are protecting 
your jobs in Korea and injuring our jobs in the United States, and we 
will not allow you to do it. Do you think this is corrected? Absolutely 
not. Not a word. Just fine. Keep doing it. Doesn't matter. This is 
about high finance. This is about the free-trade model. It works just 
fine.
  I guess it does if you wear a blue suit and take a shower at the 
start of the day. But if you are working in a plant someplace making a 
car and taking a shower at the end of the day because you worked hard, 
it sure doesn't work well for you because you are the one who loses 
your job down here.
  Let me describe one other thing. We negotiated an agreement with 
China that is even more incompetent than this. This is incompetent, and 
I don't know who negotiated it, but this is gross incompetence, in my 
judgment. In China, we have a bilateral agreement on automobiles. Let 
me tell you what it is. As I do, I was in a foreign country the other 
day, and I drove down the street and I saw Chinese cars advertised now 
to be sold in that country. Well, the Chinese cars are coming to this 
country. The Chinese are ramping up a very large, very significant 
automobile export industry, and they are coming, and coming soon--small 
cars, cost very little, presumably efficient, but they are coming. Here 
is what our country said to the country of China, with whom we have a 
very large trade deficit: We will make a deal. It is true we have a big 
deficit with you, but we will allow you to ship Chinese cars into the 
American marketplace, and we will charge a 2.5-percent tariff on each 
of your cars. And we agree with you, if we send American cars to be 
sold in China, you may charge a 25-percent tariff on our cars sold in 
your marketplace. A country with whom we have a $230 billion trade 
deficit, we said: It is OK if you charge a tariff that is ten times 
higher than our tariff on mutual automobile trade.
  Incompetent? Sure. Ignorant? You bet. Certainly ignorant of our 
economic interests. I would like to find one person to stand on the 
floor of the Senate and say they support that; that is absolutely fair. 
I want just one. I don't need two or three to stand up and say that; I 
want just one who has the courage to say with respect to bilateral 
automobile trade with China, bilateral automobile trade with South 
Korea, I think this is just dandy. I think it makes a lot of sense.
  I use this only to say I could do this in a dozen instances, but I do 
it with respect to automobiles. We don't produce automobiles in North 
Dakota, but I do it to say this is a big job-creating industry. 
Automobile production

[[Page 31951]]

is a job-creating industry. We traded a lot of that to Mexico in NAFTA, 
so now the largest import from Mexico is automobiles. But just look at 
what we are doing with South Korea, and we have just negotiated a new 
agreement with them and have done nothing to solve the problem.
  Look at what we are doing with China in bilateral trade, and we will 
see the results of that, even as we now have the largest trade deficit 
in human history with China. Even as that exists, it is going to get 
worse because we are going to have a substantial avalanche of imports 
of Chinese automobiles into this country in circumstances of trade that 
are fundamentally unfair to this country and to this country's workers.
  Now, let me come back to the point at which I started, and it is a 
Washington Post editorial of today. I don't know how the Washington 
Post editorial writers would view this. I assume they would ignore it 
because you certainly can't defend it. That which is not defensible, 
those who choose to try, do ignore it. But let me end as I started 
today by saying the editorial in today's newspaper which states a 
candidate saying ``NAFTA was a mistake'' is engaged in demagoguery 
really is a thoughtless way to engage in a discussion about 
international trade.
  I come from a State that needs to trade a lot, and we need to find a 
foreign home for a substantial amount of our agricultural production. I 
support trade. But I do not support what has happened in recent years, 
and for that I am considered, I suppose by some, as somebody who 
doesn't get it.
  If you are not part of a ``free trade'' crowd, you are someone who is 
some sort of a xenophobic isolationist stooge who can't see over the 
horizon.
  The problem is, the American people now understand. Look at the Wall 
Street Journal poll I referenced. The American people, and not just the 
American people but the subgroup of Republicans, are opposing these 
free trade models that have resulted in mass trade deficits. They are 
opposing them by a 2-to-1 margin. I think it would do well for people 
to pay heed to that, including people who are serving in public office. 
It is not that the American people are behind the politicians. The 
political system is far behind the American people in being enlightened 
about what this trade does to our standard of living.
  I know my colleagues wish to speak, but I will make a couple of other 
points. We fought for 100 years to raise standards in this country. We 
fought long and we fought hard. People lost their lives because of it. 
We raised standards. We lifted people up. We said there must be a 
minimum wage, there must be child labor laws, there must be a safe 
workplace, there must be the right to organize. We did all those things 
and we expanded and built a middle class that was nearly unbelievable. 
Our country became strong--a country in which you can get a job that 
paid well and you had job security; you likely had a retirement program 
and health care; you were proud of what you did and often you went to 
work for a company and you expected to spend a career working for that 
company.
  Things have changed. All too often these days workers are like 
wrenches, considered to be a tool: use them up, throw them away. Don't 
worry too much about them. That is not an ethic that works well in the 
traditions of this country.
  For 100 years, we fought to raise standards in this country and now 
people say to us our standards somehow do not match standards around 
the world and so, inevitably, we have to find a way to fit in. Fitting 
in means diminished standards, pushing them down, competing with 
someone in a toy factory in Chenghai, China, making 30 cents an hour, 
20 cents an hour. That is not ``fitting in'' in a way that works to 
this country's best interests.
  The Presiding Officer is from Chicago. In Chicago, there was a 
wonderful immigrant man who decided to build red wagons and he named 
them ``Radio Flyer.'' Everyone has ridden in them. The reason he named 
them Radio Flyers is he loved Marconi. This immigrant who came to this 
country and wanted to build something, he loved Marconi and he loved 
airplanes so decided to build his little red wagon in Chicago and he 
named it Radio Flyer, little red wagon. For 110 years, it was made in 
Illinois. But it is not anymore. All those little red wagons that are 
pulling those little tykes around this country are made in China. It is 
not just the little red wagon, I could go on forever. Etch-a-sketch, 
from Bryan, OH, Huffy bicycle, they are all gone. Everyone who worked 
for all those companies, their jobs are gone.
  Why? Because some have decided to say we should be able to compete 
with 20-cents-an-hour, 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. That is not 
what represents the best of the standards we created over the last 
century and should not be what we accept.
  I am in favor of bringing to the floor of the Senate a debate about 
trade and the conditions under which trade represents mutually 
beneficial conditions for those with whom we trade and for us as well. 
But I will not continue to vote on trade agreements and cast my vote in 
an affirmative way on trade agreements that do not have benchmarks and 
accountability, that represent what we believe to be the best interests 
of our country and our workers.
  We shall and we will and we are participating in the global economy. 
But we have a right as a nation to decide the conditions under which we 
will participate in that. Those conditions ought to be to pull others 
up, not push us down. That is why I believe the American workers--
judging by that Wall Street Journal poll and I think judging by the 
last election--American workers and the American voters understand what 
is at stake. It is not about standing up and saying I support this 
mantra, this slogan of free trade. It is about saying America wants to 
be a leader in trade and that leadership should lead in the direction 
of supporting workers, of supporting the standards we have built.
  It is interesting now in recent months, and somewhat disconcerting, 
that we are now seeing the product of globalization. It has many faces, 
some wonderful and some not too good. One of those faces comes from a 
toy shelf in which a wonderful looking toy that is to be sold for a 
young child's Christmas present this Christmas season turns out to be 
poison. It comes from a plant, I assume, produced by a contracting 
company in China. They all say--whoops, sorry, excuse me.
  Would that have happened in Ohio or Michigan? Would they have been 
able to use those standards that produce unsafe toys? I don't think so. 
Why? Because we have regulations and standards and we have enforcement. 
That is the difference.
  I believe when we talk about trade agreements--whether it is Peru, 
China, NAFTA, CAFTA--I think we ought to be talking about benchmarks 
and standards and we ought to be talking about things that represent 
the best interests of this country.
  Let me finish, again, by saying I support trade and plenty of it, but 
I demand and insist it be fair trade and I demand and insist that this 
administration and others begin fixing some of the problems they have 
created in past agreements that I think undermine this country's 
economic interests.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Durbin). The Senator from Florida is 
recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, when the Senator from the 
Dakotas was telling us about the little red wagon, the American Flyer 
from Chicago, of course what immediately hit my mind was that little 
Red Flyer produced there today may well be painted with lead paint.
  As the Senator from Illinois, who is presiding, and I and the Senator 
from North Dakota have gotten into this issue of the tainted toys, here 
we are, approaching the holiday season and people are out buying these 
Christmas presents; they want to make their children happy, but they 
are, indeed, now having to go an extra measure to beware of all the 
toys because of what we have seen, that the Chinese industry simply 
will not police itself. The Chinese Government will not insist on the 
industry policing itself.

[[Page 31952]]

  If we are going to protect the American consumer, we ought to be able 
to rely on our Consumer Product Safety Commission when, in fact, the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission is nonfunctional. It has a workbench 
about the size of two of these desks with all of the products stacked 
on it, and that is their research facility to determine if those 
products, in fact, are lethal to the children of this country.
  The acting chairman of that commission will come in front of the 
Senate and say she does not want any more money for the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission to hire additional staff to change what is a 
discombobulated card table, with all the products on top of it, into an 
efficient laboratory that can actually check as to whether these 
products are safe.
  The Senator from North Dakota has made a lot of points with regard to 
automobiles. He has made a lot points with regard to products and how 
America, in these trade negotiations, gets fleeced, taken advantage of. 
This Senator does not believe that is the case with this particular 
agreement that we are going to vote on tomorrow. That is so for this 
reason: The United States has already opened its markets to most 
imports from Peru through trade preference legislation, meaning that 98 
percent of all the imports from Peru already enter our country duty 
free. But do the flip side of this. What Senator Dorgan was talking 
about is equal trade, but the fact is now, without this agreement, U.S. 
exporters do not have the same access to Peruvian markets that the 
Peruvian exporters have to the U.S. markets market. U.S. products 
entering Peru face tariffs that average 10 percent. In order for there 
to be free trade, it has to be a two-way street. We both have to 
benefit from a duty-free environment. In fact, after the implementation 
of this agreement, most of the tariffs on U.S. exports to Peru will be 
eliminated. That is my bottom line. That is why I am going to support 
this trade agreement. That is my American hat.
  Let me put on my Florida hat. This is certainly going to be of 
benefit to Florida. We have already seen the benefits of free trade--
for example, in a trade agreement that we have with Chile. Florida's 
exports after the trade agreement, exports to Chile, have grown by 70 
percent. Take, for example, Jordan. After we enacted the Jordan Free 
Trade Agreement--that was about 5 or 6 years ago--Florida's exports to 
Jordan have increased 1,100 percent.
  Like those, I believe this Peru trade agreement will open new markets 
for Florida businesses. It is going to lead to increased exports to 
Peru from Florida through Florida's ports.
  Let me give some examples. Florida's exports of transportation and 
manufacturing equipment will benefit from this trade agreement. In 
2006, Florida companies exported $42 million in transportation 
equipment and $180 million in machinery manufacturers to Peru. The 
elimination in this agreement of those Peruvian tariffs on those kind 
of high-value pieces of equipment is going to provide a competitive 
boost to Florida exporters who will no longer be facing tariffs that 
are as high as 12 percent. With the passage of this agreement, Florida 
companies will have a chance to take full advantage of Peru's growing 
demand for their equipment.
  Support for free trade doesn't mean we need to go out and compromise 
on other things, some of which the Senator from North Dakota has 
mentioned, or that we would compromise on our support for human rights 
or the environment. That is why this particular Peruvian agreement 
includes numerous environmental and labor protections.
  For these reasons, I am going to support this free trade agreement.
  Mr. President, while I am here, I wish to say a couple other things 
about a couple other matters that have to do with Latin America. There 
was a very significant vote in Venezuela yesterday. Basically, 
President Hugo Chavez wanted to amend their country's Constitution to 
allow him to become President for life. In a very narrow vote, the 
people rose up and they said no. He is in office until 2012, under the 
current Constitution, so Hugo Chavez will continue his brand of 
leadership. There are people in this Chamber who have reached out to 
President Chavez to take a more moderate, conciliatory roll, a roll 
where the two countries, the United States and Venezuela, could work 
together. In almost all cases, he has rejected those overtures.
  This Senator is one of those who has reached out to him. He has 
charted his course and he wanted to be President for life and the 
Venezuelan people, albeit by a very narrow margin, said no. If that is 
a signal to the President of Venezuela that there ought to be a 
different way that he ought to approach other countries, particularly 
the United States, then hopefully that is a message President Chavez 
might consider.
  I want to say another thing about Latin America. Last Friday we saw 
the first evidence in 4 years that three American hostages held by the 
FARC in Colombia are alive. These images give us hope. They also remind 
us that securing their safe release and the return to their families 
must be a top priority. And it is. Without making speeches, this 
Senator from Florida is constantly speaking in private conversations to 
the Government of the United States, and to Latin American leaders, 
about helping in securing the release of these Americans and of a 
French citizen, a former Senator in the Colombian Government.
  There are other hostages as well. It is my understanding they are 
Colombian. But, of course, our responsibility is to our own Americans. 
So there is hope. Because this was the first time, to the outside 
world, that we have seen the visual images that they are alive. Let us 
have that as a constant reminder to keep pressing the FARC that it is 
in their interest and in humanity's interest to release these 
Americans.
  I will conclude on a completely different topic. I must say with 
absolute frankness that I was saddened when I heard that the Senator 
from Mississippi, Mr. Lott, was going to resign. I think he is one of 
the most delightful of all the Members of this body, in a legislative 
body of some exceptionally talented and engaging people. We have seen 
Senator Lott use his legislative prowess, often in a bipartisan way, to 
bring about the consensus in order to get things done and to move the 
legislative process along, which is so necessary and, as the good book 
says: For us to come and reason together.
  He has been a legislative master who got along so well as the 
majority leader with Senator Daschle, the minority leader, and then, 
because of the turn of events in 2001, for Senator Lott, the minority 
leader, to get along with Senator Daschle, the majority leader, so they 
could move the business of the Senate along.
  He is a personal friend. I have had the privilege of going to the 
University of Mississippi to speak on a forum at the Trent Lott 
Institute at that great university. And for this Senator, he will be 
very much missed in the Senate. We wish him and Tricia and all his 
family God speed.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this day is long overdue. But the fact 
that this day has arrived for the consideration of the Peru Trade 
Promotion Agreement Implementation Act is still a good day to have 
happen, even though it should have happened several months ago. In 
fact, I would say it should have happened last year.
  But the same problems that kept it from coming up this year were in 
place last year. I strongly support this bill. I urge my colleagues to 
do the same. Over the past 7 years, Congress has passed implementing 
bills for trade agreements with 12 countries. Of these 12, 7 are 
located in Latin America.
  The implementation of those agreements demonstrated our commitment to 
strengthening our relations with our

[[Page 31953]]

neighbors in Latin America. We now have an opportunity to build on that 
commitment by implementing our trade agreement with the country of 
Peru.
  At the same time, these agreements serve to advance our national 
interest. Too often we talk in terms of the economic interests of the 
United States when it comes to trade. We ought to be looking at things 
beyond the economics of trade. I say these agreements advance more than 
our economic interests; they advance a broader national interest 
because they foster transparency and increased respect for the rule of 
law in international business transactions.
  I think it goes beyond the business transactions, because with every 
business transaction, there are millions of people involved. And even 
though we in the political world or our diplomats feel we are more 
important than anybody else in bringing about peaceful relations, our 
work is kind of a spit in the ocean compared to what millions of 
business people every day do for America and for other countries 
interacting among each other, breaking down barriers that often lead to 
misunderstandings and an enhanced understanding between people. They 
have an awful lot to do with the promotion of international peace.
  I think it goes even further, and I don't remember who I quote when I 
say this because I have been quoting it for so many years, but it is 
something such as: Nations that trade together do not war, or something 
of that nature. That is a paraphrasing of that concept. But I believe 
that. That is why I believe in breaking down trade barriers, as this 
Peru bill does. It enhances international understanding and peace as 
well as enhancing our economic interests.
  This bill then creates more opportunities for increased economic 
growth and prosperity in neighboring economies which help to foster 
political stability which is important within those borders. But 
political stability within a country's borders also enhances 
international stability.
  That is particularly important in the Western Hemisphere and the 
South American Continent, as well as the part of the Western Hemisphere 
we call Central America. Because we need meaningful alternatives to 
combat the production and trade of elicit narcotics, another factor 
that maybe applies to these countries more than a lot of countries we 
trade with.
  Perhaps most importantly, these trade agreements level the playing 
field for U.S. producers and exporters. I had a chance, before 
speaking, to hear Senator Nelson of Florida speak. To hear this from 
the Democratic side of the aisle is very important because it is a 
fact: This bill levels the playing field to give our exporters and 
producers access to Peru the same way Peru has had access to our 
markets and our people for decades under trade preference.
  During my time in the Senate, I have heard some of my colleagues 
complain that the global trade situation reflects an uneven playing 
field. Now, to some extent, I agree. That is why I am a promoter of 
more free trade agreements. The Doha round of the World Trade 
Organization negotiations is leveling this playing field.
  So right now it is uneven. It is not as level for American exporters 
as it ought to be. But if you looked at the last 50 years when this 
process started, soon after World War II, under the General Agreement 
on Tariffs and Trade, you would find it was much more--or a lot less 
level than it is right now.
  So we have made considerable progress and we need to build on what is 
a success, very much a success. Because in too many cases, the duties 
that our trading partners impose on U.S. exports are much higher than 
the duties we impose on theirs. As I have said, that is certainly the 
situation with Peru. Right now, some 97 percent of imports from Peru 
enter the United States duty free.
  I do not know whether Senator Nelson used that specific percentage 
that I gave, but he was speaking of the fact that Peru had preference 
to coming into the United States. This bill gives our producers and 
exporters the same preference there. Our exports to Peru face duties 
that range from 12 to 25 percent. Specific examples: Peru's tariff on 
U.S. pork exports to that country, and this is a major product of my 
State of Iowa, is as high as 25 percent, while Peru's exports to the 
United States are duty free.
  Now, that is what I call a one-way street. This unbalanced situation 
is largely the result of unilateral trade benefits that we extended to 
Peru under what I called the preference situation. But this is 
specifically under what we call the Andean Trade Preferences Act.
  This trade agreement before the Senate today will restore balance to 
our trade relationships with Peru. I do not want you to take my word 
for it. The impartial U.S. International Trade Commission analyzed our 
trade agreement with Peru. The Agency found, and I quote:

       Given the substantially larger tariffs faced by 
     U.S. exporters to Peru, than Peruvian exporters to the United 
     States, the trade agreement is likely to result in a much 
     larger increase in U.S. exports than U.S. imports.

  The International Trade Commission of our U.S. Government goes on to 
state that:

       The agreement will likely increase U.S. exports to Peru by 
     25 percent, while Peruvian exports to the United States will 
     grow by 8 percent.

  Now, that is a win-win situation for U.S. producers and exporters. 
And why anybody would vote against an agreement like that I could not 
understand, and I am not anticipating that people will vote against it, 
but I do know, in the months of this year that we have discussed trade, 
I have heard a lot of negative attitude toward trade, how harmful it is 
to the U.S. economy. But if any Member who has said those things during 
the course of this year would look at the bill that is before the 
Senate right now, that is going to increase U.S. exports to Peru by 25 
percent while Peruvian exports to the United States will grow by 8 
percent, then if they vote against this, they are not addressing the 
concerns they are giving speeches about all this year. The benefits of 
this trade agreement are going to spread across all major sectors of 
the economy. I say that because I quoted agricultural benefits. But 
besides U.S. agricultural producers, manufacturers and service 
providers all stand to gain from this agreement. The ITC--the 
International Trade Commission--predicts the agreement will have a 
``substantial, positive'' effect on U.S. exports to Peru of the major 
U.S. commodities of pork, beef, corn, wheat, and rice. The American 
Farm Bureau Federation predicts that U.S. farm sales to Peru could 
increase by more than $700 million with full implementation of the 
trade agreement. U.S. rice exports to Peru will grow tenfold to 
fifteenfold as a result of this agreement, while U.S. exports of corn 
will double.
  The National Pork Producers Council says that the Peru trade 
agreement is a ``state-of-the-art agreement for pork producers to which 
all future trade agreements will be compared.'' Our manufacturers will 
enjoy significant benefits as well. For example, Whirlpool 
Corporation--this is a Michigan corporation which recently bought 
Maytag in Newton, IA, and closed that plant down, but they still have a 
massive manufacturing plant in Amana, IA--appeared before the Finance 
Committee to testify on behalf of this trade agreement. Whirlpool 
exports refrigerators, ranges, and clothes washers to Peru. It 
manufactures those products in several States besides Iowa, including 
Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee. Whirlpool told the Finance 
Committee that the Peru agreement will eliminate the 15- to 20-percent 
tariffs Peru imposes on Whirlpool products. In part because of this 
agreement, Whirlpool expects its U.S. exports to Peru to increase 400 
percent within the next 2 years. In Whirlpool's view, the elimination 
of Peru's tariffs on its products will allow Whirlpool to maintain jobs 
in the United States rather than relocating or expanding operations 
abroad.
  Here again, how many times have we heard on this floor the legitimate 
concern--I am not finding fault--about outsourcing of manufacturing 
jobs to other countries? You can imagine why

[[Page 31954]]

that might happen if we have a 10- to 12-percent tariff going into 
Peru. But people who say those things in this body ought to vote for 
this bill if it is going to level the playing field for Whirlpool 
workers so we can maintain those jobs in the States I cited.
  U.S. service providers will also gain from this agreement because 
Peru has agreed to exceed the commitments it made on services, even in 
the World Trade Organization. So we get something better than we have 
under WTO rules right now when we have a free-trade agreement with 
Peru. Peru, thus, has agreed to accord substantial market access across 
the entire service regime, with very few exceptions, using the so-
called negative list approach.
  So to those of my colleagues who complain that the current world 
trade situation is unfair, here is a chance to improve that situation. 
By implementing this agreement, Congress will level the playing field 
for U.S. farmers, U.S. manufacturers, and U.S. service providers in 
this important market. The agreement will boost U.S. exports, creating 
jobs, keeping existing jobs in the United States. There have been 
studies, various studies, but the one I always quote says that jobs in 
the United States--that those products or services that are exported, 
those jobs are jobs that pay 15 percent above the national average. So 
they are not only jobs, they are good-paying jobs.
  I understand there is a rising sense of protectionism in the 
Congress. I alluded to that in my remarks today. But I would like to 
have Members look at the facts. Take, for example, the Central American 
Free Trade Agreement, otherwise known as CAFTA. CAFTA entered into 
force for four of our trading partners last year. It is already 
possible to see the results of bringing their tariffs in line with 
ours. Guess what. As you might expect, leveling the playing field has 
brought positive results.
  I wish to use the U.S. Department of Commerce as a source. They say 
our exports to the four countries increased 18 percent in 2006, while 
our imports were up 3 percent. I don't know how many Members voted 
against that last year, but I would imagine it was close to 40, give or 
take a few. I would like to have those 40 Members who probably voted 
against this, saying that free-trade agreements are not good, look at 
the facts. So far, our exports have increased 18 percent, while our 
imports from those countries of Central America were up 3 percent. 
Leveling the playing field helps American farmers, manufacturers, and 
service providers. Then maybe you would think it was wrong to vote 
against CAFTA last year. As a result of this increase of our exports by 
18 percent, our trade balance swung from a $1.2 billion deficit in 2005 
to a $1 billion surplus in 2006.
  How many times on the Senate floor have we heard one of the examples 
of something that is bad about free-trade agreements is because of our 
terrible trade deficit? Our trade deficit is too high. If American 
consumers would quit spending on imports and if they would save some of 
their money, we wouldn't have as much of a trade deficit as we have. 
But the American consumer, including probably this consumer, lives too 
much for today and forgets about tomorrow. Chuck Grassley may be too 
materialistic for the good of our trade deficit. If we spend a little 
less money and save a little bit more, invest in Treasury bonds instead 
of letting foreign countries buy them up, we would be better off. But 
for those Senators who have made speeches against how terrible our 
trade deficit is and then use that as an excuse to vote against CAFTA, 
don't they feel they were wrong by voting against a bill that finally 
passed that brought us from a $1.2 billion trade deficit with these 
countries to a $1 billion surplus in just 1 year? That is what happens 
when you level the playing field.
  We are not the only ones who stand to benefit from our agreement with 
Peru. Peruvians will benefit significantly as well. They have already 
benefited from the goodness of the U.S. people by letting them have 
trade preferences for all these decades. But even beyond what they have 
already had, a bill that is significantly much more benefit to the 
United States than it is to Peru, Peru is still going to benefit. The 
agreement will increase opportunities for continued economic growth in 
Peru and help Peru further develop and modernize its economy. By 
entering into the agreement, Peru has demonstrated its intention to 
strengthen its ties with the United States and lock in economic 
reform--economic reforms that they are going to benefit from, not us--
and it is going to enhance their transparency and respect for the rule 
of law.
  Agreements such as this are what the rule of law is all about. The 
rule of law in international trade is just as important as the rule of 
law for domestic America because within our own rule of law, everything 
is predictable. It has credibility and predictability. When you put the 
same regime in international trade, you have predictability and 
credibility. You enhance opportunities for people to work closer 
because they know what the other side is going to do, if you have equal 
respect for the law. All of this will serve to increase investor 
confidence in Peru and its economy.
  These are critically important objectives. We live in a challenging 
time. There is a growing division in Latin America today. Venezuela's 
President is using oil wealth to lure allies to his socialist vision. 
He has announced plans to turn Venezuela into a socialist republic. He 
has nationalized Venezuela's telecom and electricity companies and 
wrested the oil industry from private companies. He has demonstrated 
once again that those who withdraw economic rights often seek to 
withdraw political rights. Those who centralize economic power tend to 
also centralize political power. For example, he pulled the 
broadcasting license of one of Venezuela's oldest television 
broadcasters, which also happens to be one of his major critics. He 
assumed new powers that allow him to rule by decree, and he pushed for 
a new constitution that would abolish Presidential term limits, 
allowing him to stay in power indefinitely. His former Defense Minister 
has called the plan ``fraudulent'' and akin to a coup. I don't know 
whether the final results are in, but he may have lost that referendum 
yesterday. At lease for my part, I hope that is what the final results 
show. But he is still going to be the dictator and the authoritarian 
that he has been for the last 9 years.
  Chavez has said that this rejection, if it happens by the voters, is 
not a defeat, and he plans to proceed on whatever his goals are. His 
former Defense Minister has cautioned that he may seek to impose these 
changes through a different route than constitutional reform. So you 
lose an election, and you find some other way to accomplish the same 
thing.
  I have talked about Venezuela and the environment of the Peru trade 
agreement because our relationships with Latin America will be enhanced 
through free-trade agreements. We ought to help countries like Peru 
that are not going in the direction of Venezuela as much as we should, 
particularly in light of the fact that two other countries in the 
region--Bolivia and Ecuador--are also trending in a similar direction.
  Bolivia's President Morales nationalized the hydrocarbon sector by 
executive decree. As a result, investors were forced to sign new 
contracts that guarantee a greater percentage of revenue for the 
Government. He also seized a foreign-owned tin smelter without 
compensation. Instead of a free-trade agreement with the United States, 
President Morales joined President Chavez's so-called Bolivarian 
alternative for the Americas. He strengthened ties, at the same time, 
with Cuba and Iran.
  President Correa of Ecuador has also reached out to Iran. He has 
called the United States ``the most protectionist country in history.'' 
He also said that free trade is ``dangerous'' for countries like 
Ecuador.
  I hope Correa, the President of Ecuador, will remember these 
statements he has made about the United States, saying the United 
States is ``the most protectionist country in history.'' He also said 
that free trade is ``dangerous'' for countries like his.
  I hope he remembers those things when he comes around to the Congress

[[Page 31955]]

in about 2 or 3 months wanting an extension of the Andean trade pact, 
where he wants preferences from our taxpayers so he can say these 
dastardly things about our country, which obviously are not true, but 
they are good for the propaganda purposes that he makes them, because 
he said these things even though we give imports from Ecuador duty-free 
access to our markets under our unilateral preference programs.
  Now, the difference between Peru and Ecuador is this: Ecuador and 
Peru have had the same trade preferences with our country to get their 
products in here duty free for the last several decades, but Ecuador 
stops negotiating with the United States on a free-trade agreement and 
Peru goes ahead and negotiates with us. Yet Ecuador is going to be 
coming to us in a couple months saying to us we ought to continue the 
trade preferences with them, when they say these things about us: They 
feel more comfortable with Chavez and the Cuban and Iranian dictators 
than they do with us Americans. I have questioned why we should 
continue providing such duty-free access to our markets, but that is an 
issue we will deal with in 2 or 3 months.
  The point is, there is a growing divide in Latin America. On the 
other side of the divide you find countries such as Peru and Colombia, 
allies of the United States whose Governments have gone out on a limb 
to strengthen bilateral relations with us. It is imperative we respond 
in kind and not turn our backs on these important allies. I expect we 
will soon approve our trade agreement with Peru. After that, we should 
move as quickly as possible to implement our trade agreements with 
Colombia and Panama, for the same reasons we ought to be approving this 
Peruvian agreement. That is what I envisioned when the bipartisan 
compromise on trade was reached May 10. I will return to that point in 
just a moment.
  I am not alone in calling for approval and implementation of the 
Peruvian agreement. Just last month, the New York Times called for 
passage of our trade agreement with Peru. They editorialized that ``it 
would be a folly for the United States to turn its back on trade.'' The 
paper also noted that all eight living former Secretaries of State have 
urged Congress to approve the Peru agreement.
  In October, the Agriculture Coalition for Latin American Trade, which 
is comprised of 50 different agricultural organizations, called for 
congressional approval of the Peru trade agreement. This agreement is 
also supported by the National Association of Manufacturers and the 
Coalition of Service Industries, among other business groups.
  In sum, there is widespread recognition of the benefits of this trade 
agreement for the United States.
  Before concluding, I would like to address three other issues that 
have arisen with respect to free-trade agreements even beyond the 
Peruvian agreement. The first is the claim by some that these 
agreements undermine our food safety laws. The second is the charge 
that we are not enforcing our existing trade agreements. And the third 
is the May 10 bipartisan compromise on trade between the administration 
and the new congressional leadership that took over on the Hill in 
January.
  In recent days, some of my Senate colleagues have criticized the 
passage of the Peru agreement in the House. One Senator went so far as 
to say the agreement ``will result in more unsafe food in our kitchens 
and consumer products in our children's bedrooms.'' Now, let's just 
think about that for a minute. That is quite an accusation. How could 
Congress possibly support such an agreement? The answer is simple: We 
are not supporting that position by voting for this agreement because 
the accusation is false. If you do not believe me, then just look at 
the text of the agreement. Chapter 6 of the agreement addresses the 
types of ``sanitary'' laws related to food safety. There is absolutely 
nothing in the chapter that would lead to a lowering of our food safety 
standards. In fact, one of the explicit objectives of the chapter is to 
``protect human, animal, or plant life or health in the Parties' 
territories.'' ``[T]he Parties' territories'' means the United States 
and Peru. In addition, this chapter is not even subject to dispute 
settlement. So there is no way Peru could use the chapter to challenge 
our food safety laws, even if the chapter provided a basis to do so; 
and the agreement does not.
  For over 20 years, opponents of our trade agreements have argued they 
would undermine our food and product safety laws. Yet, in those 20 
years, there has not been a single challenge to any one of these laws--
not a single challenge. That is because these complaints have no 
foundation. If people want to criticize our trade agreements, they are 
certainly free to do that. That is their right. But they should base 
their criticisms on facts, not on scare tactics.
  I have also heard colleagues say that we should not enter into any 
trade agreements until the administration does a better job of 
enforcing existing agreements. In my view, the administration is doing 
a pretty good job of enforcing our trade agreements. But I suppose that 
even Chuck Grassley will look at specific problems we have. Maybe we 
ought to be doing more. But there are some examples that I think you 
ought to give the administration credit for.
  The administration is challenging Europe's subsidies to Airbus, and 
up until last week it was pursuing at least four different cases 
against China in the World Trade Organization. So you might say: What 
has changed? Well, our U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Schwab, 
announced we had concluded an agreement by which China agreed to 
terminate eight subsidies we were challenging under World Trade 
Organization rules. This was just last Friday. The termination of those 
subsidies will bring significant relief to our manufacturers and 
exporters who have been confronting unfairly subsidized competition 
from the Chinese. In this case, we achieved our objectives without 
having to resort to that lengthy WTO process of litigation. That is a 
complete success story, in my book. As for the other three pending 
cases, we will continue to pursue our rights in the World Trade 
Organization.
  If you ask me, the problem is not a shortage of enforcement. The 
bigger problem is that people are complaining about foreign government 
actions that are not yet subject to agreed-upon rules. In other words, 
the problem is not the failure to enforce the rules; it is that there 
are no rules to enforce in certain areas. If you want to solve problems 
that are not currently subject to rules, we should be negotiating more 
trade agreements, not fewer. Get the rules in place, and then get those 
rules violated--if that is what is going to happen, and you hope that 
does not happen--and then enforce them. But you cannot enforce a rule 
that is not there. For example, the administration recently announced 
it is negotiating a new anticounterfeiting trade agreement. That is a 
step in the right direction. Such an agreement would help get at 
problems such as the counterfeiting of the Underwriters Laboratories 
logo. That is an important safety issue.
  If we are serious about wanting to get at these types of problems, we 
should give the President a new grant of trade promotion authority and 
send our negotiators out to solve those problems. If we turn our back 
on new agreements, our trading partners will continue negotiating among 
themselves, leaving us behind. That is what happened the last time 
Congress denied President Clinton trade promotion authority, I think in 
1995. It was not reinstated until 2002. During that period of time, our 
trading partners concluded over 130 preferential trade agreements. We 
had only two.
  So do you folks in this body who say we should not give the President 
trade promotion authority want to go back to the regime of other 
countries doing what they want to do? They will do it anyway, but we do 
not have an opportunity to keep up if we do not give our President that 
authority. Do you want to have the United States have an unlevel 
playing field in the case of the

[[Page 31956]]

history of those 130 preferential trade agreements that were negotiated 
while our President did not have authority to do it, while we did, too, 
or do you think maybe our President ought to be negotiating the same 
number, to level the same playing field for the workers in America that 
other governments are giving their workers for an opportunity to have a 
level playing field? That cannot happen if the President does not have 
trade promotion authority.
  We have only managed to regain some lost ground in the last 5 years. 
These agreements before the Senate--Peru and the 14 over the last few 
years--are examples. So the President needs to have trade promotion 
authority so he can continue to keep negotiating so we can create more 
jobs in America and export more and have a level playing field where we 
do not have that level playing field.
  Finally, I want to mention the bipartisan May 10 agreement on trade 
that made it possible for us to move forward with this Peru agreement 
and, hopefully, makes it possible to move forward in the case of Panama 
and Colombia.
  This year, the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate demanded 
additional provisions in our trade agreements before they would agree 
to implement them. That is the result of the last election. When people 
give their will to a different majority in this Congress, we have to 
respect that. I think the Democrats were fair and responsible in the 
agreements that were reached. I am willing to go along with them. Those 
are not necessarily things I would have agreed to if we had still been 
in a majority and probably would not have had to negotiate. But the 
Democrats won the last election.
  So after lengthy negotiations, the administration agreed to a 
compromise that the House Democratic leadership announced with great 
fanfare on May 10, 2007. The Democratic leadership described the deal 
as a ``historic breakthrough'' and a ``fundamental shift in U.S. trade 
policy'' that achieved results they have been seeking for years. As a 
result of this compromise, the administration negotiated conforming 
changes in the labor and environment chapters and the provisions on 
Government procurement, investment, and intellectual property. For 
example, in the wake of the agreement, disputes arising under the labor 
and environment chapters are subject to the same dispute settlement 
procedures as every other obligation of the agreement. Now, we can 
debate whether that change was actually a good idea, but it satisfied a 
longstanding demand of the Democrats who have opposed our trade 
agreements in the past. The same goes for the other changes encompassed 
in the May 10 compromise.
  The administration followed through by negotiating the necessary 
changes to incorporate the May 10 compromise into each of our pending 
trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Now we 
are moving on Peru. But since the administration has carried out its 
responsibilities under the May 10 compromise with the Democrats and it 
is good enough to get Peru passed, it ought to be good enough to get 
Colombia and Panama passed real quickly and South Korea after some 
kinks are worked out in the South Korean negotiations.
  Unfortunately, we have very little to show for those efforts other 
than Peru right now. It has been almost 7 months. We still have not 
implemented a single pending trade agreement. We will soon change that 
with our vote on the Peru trade agreement. But there is no sign of 
movement on the horizon for the next pending trade agreements, and our 
druthers there are to go with the agreement with Colombia first. The 
fact there is not movement in these other areas troubles me greatly.
  I hope to see most of my Democratic colleagues join me in voting to 
implement this trade agreement with Peru. After we have done so, I very 
much hope they will join me again in supporting implementation of our 
trade agreement with Colombia as soon as possible in this Congress. Our 
agriculture producers, manufacturers, and our service providers are 
counting on us. Our allies are counting on us. It is in our economic 
interest, and it is in our national interest. It is in the interest of 
greater opportunities for international peace. We cannot let those 
opportunities embodied in these trade agreements slip by us.
  One final, concluding remark, and it is repeating the same thing 
several times, and that is that Peru has had opportunities to come and 
bring their products to the United States without tariffs for decades. 
We have had to pay duties to get our products into Peru. This gives our 
manufacturers, our farmers, and our service providers the opportunity 
to finally get our products into Peru duty free.
  I yield the floor.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I rise this evening in strong 
opposition to the Peru Free Trade Agreement. It seems to me that most 
Americans understand that our current trade policies are failing. They 
see this every day when they go shopping and they buy products that are 
made in China--made all over the world--but that it is increasingly 
difficult to find a product manufactured in the United States of 
America. They understand our trade policies are failing when they note 
our trade deficit is huge and growing larger every single year. It 
seems to me that before we go forward again in pursuit of a failing 
trade agenda, we might want to sit back, take a moratorium, understand 
why our trade policies are failing, and then put together trade 
agreements that work for the working people and the middle class of 
this country, rather than just the CEOs of large multinational 
corporations. That is what I think we should be doing; not rushing 
helter skelter along the direction of failed trade policies.
  One of the major reasons that the middle class in the United States 
is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the gap between the rich and 
the poor is growing wider is, in fact, due to our disastrous, 
unfettered free trade policies. In my opinion, the last thing we should 
be doing now is passing another job-destroying, NAFTA-style free trade 
agreement.
  Before we vote on this piece of legislation, I think it is terribly 
important that we as a Senate take a hard look at the current state of 
our economy. Now, if our economy is doing well for the middle class, if 
our trade policies are creating good-paying jobs, if our trade policies 
are moving toward eliminating poverty, if our trade policies are making 
us a more egalitarian society, let's go forward; but, in fact, if our 
trade policies are moving in exactly the wrong direction for the middle 
class, I think we should take a deep breath and not go forward in that 
direction.
  Let's take a look at in fact what is happening in our economy today 
since President Bush has been in office.
  Nearly 5 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and 
into poverty. In fact, today, the United States has the highest rate of 
poverty of any major country on Earth. Madam President, 8.6 million 
Americans have lost their health insurance, and some 47 million 
Americans now have health insurance. Median household income for 
working-age families has gone down by nearly $2,500 since President 
Bush has been in office. Over 3 million good-paying manufacturing jobs 
have been lost. Three million American workers have lost their 
pensions. Wages and salaries are now at their lowest share of GDP since 
1929. The United States has the largest gap between the rich and the 
poor of any major developed country on Earth. Incredibly, in 2005, the 
top 1 percent earned more income than the bottom 50 percent. According 
to Forbes Magazine, the collective net worth of the wealthiest 400 
Americans increased by $120 billion last year to $1.25 trillion.
  Now, is our current trade policy responsible for all of these 
economic trends? The answer, obviously, is no.

[[Page 31957]]

Our current trade policies are not the sole cause for the decline of 
the middle class and the increase in poverty. But has unfettered free 
trade significantly contributed to the shrinking of the middle class 
and the increase in income inequality? The answer is absolutely, it 
has.
  So the point I am making this evening is if you like the way the 
economy is going, with a shrinking middle class and an increase in 
poverty and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else, I 
guess we should go forward on these trade policies. But if you don't 
like the direction of the economy of the United States--and the 
overwhelming majority of people in this country do not like where the 
economy is going--I think we need a new direction in our trade 
policies.
  According to the Institute for International Economics, 39 percent of 
the increase in income inequality in our country is due to our 
unfettered free trade policy. According to the Center for Economic and 
Policy Research, unfettered free trade has caused the wages of American 
workers without a college degree to be slashed by over 12 percent. When 
we talk about economics, we often look at the problem from a general 
sense, but if we focus on what is happening, especially to those people 
who are high school graduates, what we are seeing is a severe decline 
in wages for that subset of the American population. Those people are 
struggling very hard to keep their heads above water economically.
  We now have a record-breaking $765 billion trade deficit, including a 
$232 billion trade deficit with China, and a $64 billion trade deficit 
with Mexico. Today, we now have the fewest manufacturing jobs than at 
any time since Dwight David Eisenhower was President of our country.
  If the United States is to remain a major industrial power, producing 
real products and creating good-paying jobs, we must develop a new set 
of trade policies which work for the middle class of this country and 
not just for the CEOs of large corporations. As the Presiding Officer 
well knows, coming from the great State of Michigan, it was not so many 
years ago that General Motors was the largest employer in the United 
States. By and large, those people who worked for General Motors had 
good wages, good benefits, and a strong union to represent them. Today, 
the largest employer in the United States is Wal-Mart--low wages, 
vehemently antiunion, and minimum benefits. That is the transformation 
of the American economy, and that is a metaphor for why the middle 
class in America today is shrinking.
  Unfortunately, the Peru Free Trade Agreement is another failed trade 
policy among many other failed trade policies. In fact, in large part, 
this Free Trade Agreement, the Peru agreement, was modeled after the 
North American Free Trade Agreement--NAFTA. So I guess the bottom line 
here is, if you like NAFTA, you will like the Peru Free Trade 
Agreement. Most people in this country do not like NAFTA.
  Has NAFTA been a success? Well, we have some information. We have 
some figures. Let's take a look. Supporters of unfettered free trade 
told us over and over again that NAFTA would increase jobs in the 
United States. I was a Member of the House of Representatives during 
that debate. I remember it like it was yesterday: NAFTA is going to 
create all kinds of new jobs. Unfortunately, according to the Economic 
Policy Institute, NAFTA has led to the elimination of over 1 million 
American jobs. Well, NAFTA cost us 1 million American jobs. Do we want 
to go down that road with other trade agreements that will also lead to 
the loss of jobs and the lowering of wages? I think not.
  Supporters of unfettered free trade told us during that debate that 
NAFTA would significantly reduce the flow of illegal immigration into 
this country because the standard of living in Mexico would increase.
  Well, that issue need not be discussed for too long because nobody 
believes that has happened. Sadly, as we all know, as a result of 
NAFTA, severe poverty in Mexico has increased; 1.3 million small 
farmers in Mexico have lost their farms. They have been displaced and 
real wages for the majority of Mexicans have gone down. All of this--
the loss of farms, the decline in wages, and the increase in extreme 
poverty in Mexico--is directly opposite of what they told us NAFTA 
would do, and it has led to a 60-percent annual increase in illegal 
immigration from Mexico during the first 6 years of NAFTA alone.
  So they told us NAFTA would create more jobs in America. Wrong. We 
lost jobs. They told us NAFTA would increase the standard of living of 
people in Mexico and stop illegal immigration. Wrong. Extreme poverty 
in Mexico has gone up; over a million people lost their farms, and 
illegal immigration to the U.S. has increased. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yet 
people say we were wrong, wrong, wrong, and I guess we should continue 
to go down that same path. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
  One of the interesting aspects of unfettered free trade in the United 
States, and all over the world, is that it results in very large 
increases in income inequality. That is true in the United States, and 
it is also true in Mexico, where the gap between the rich and poor in 
that country has skyrocketed.
  You would be interested to know that one man in Mexico--we all have 
to admit that at least one guy in Mexico has significantly benefited 
from NAFTA, and that is the telecommunications mogul, Carlos Slim. He 
has done very well by NAFTA. He recently surpassed Bill Gates as the 
wealthiest person in the world, and he--from Mexico--is worth over $60 
billion. He is the richest guy in the world and is from a poor country. 
Amazingly, Mr. Slim is worth more than the bottom 45 percent of the 
people of Mexico. One man has more wealth than the bottom 45 percent of 
the people in Mexico. Frankly, that is obscene.
  That is obscene, but that is one of the manifestations of unfettered 
free trade. In that case, it is in a very extreme way. In fact, while 
NAFTA helped make Mr. Slim the wealthiest person in the world, about 
half of the Mexican population lives on less than $5 a day. How about 
that. One guy is worth $60 billion, and half of the population there 
lives on $5 a day. That is a manifestation of unfettered free trade. 
The Slim family fortune is equivalent to 8 percent of Mexico's gross 
domestic product. So, in Mexico, you have one man who is worth $60 
billion, while extreme poverty in that country has increased and small 
farmers have been driven off the land.
  That has been the result of NAFTA in Mexico. I am afraid that, if we 
continue to move down that road, this will be the same in terms of the 
Peru Free Trade Agreement.
  In addition, before we vote on this unfettered free trade agreement, 
I think we need to closely examine our unfettered free trade policy 
with China because China is the 600-pound gorilla in the whole issue. 
Supporters of unfettered free trade told us that PNTR with China would 
lead to the creation of hundreds of thousands of American jobs. That is 
what they said. Well, unfortunately, they were wrong again. Instead, as 
a result of PNTR with China, nearly 2 million decent-paying American 
jobs have been displaced.
  As we speak, there are millions of men, women, and kids in this 
country who are going out Christmas shopping. This is the time of year 
people do that. When people go to stores--whether they are large 
department stores or small stores--and they buy stuff, they find that 
almost everything that they are buying--whether it is footwear, 
telephones, clothing, computers, you name the product--is manufactured 
in China. They are not manufactured in the United States of America.
  I recently held a series of town meetings, and I asked people in my 
State--and we are a small State. Unlike Michigan, we are not a major 
manufacturing center. Yet in the last 6 years, in Vermont, we have lost 
25 percent of our manufacturing jobs. What kind of a country are we 
going to be if we are not producing the products people consume? Do you 
think we can be a great economy simply by flipping hamburgers? I don't 
think so.
  I will tell you, there are people who worry about the military future 
of our

[[Page 31958]]

country, our national security, when we are not even producing the 
products that our military needs. Since PNTR with China, our trade 
deficit with that country has nearly tripled to $232 billion, and that 
is a huge and growing trade deficit.
  Today, over 80 percent of the toys sold in the United States are made 
in China. About 90 percent, for example, of the vitamin C--I take 
vitamin C--is made in China; 80 percent of all shoes we purchase in the 
United States are made in China; 90 percent of U.S. furniture 
production has moved to China; 85 percent of bicycles sold in the 
United States are made in China; half of all the apple juice imported 
to the United States comes from China; the United States imports more 
advanced technologies from China than any other country. We are not 
just talking about stuffed teddy bears or sneakers, we are now talking 
about highly advanced technology that is developing in China.
  I have a simple question: Why is it that, in Vermont, Michigan, and 
all over this country corporations are shutting down and moving abroad? 
Wouldn't it be a nice idea that if these guys wanted Americans to buy 
their products--which they do--how about manufacturing some of them in 
the United States of America?
  As I mentioned, I did a series of town meetings and I talked to the 
people in my State. I said: When was the last major manufacturing plant 
built in the State of Vermont? People can't quite remember, but it was 
a very fine plant built by a company called Husky. They are good jobs 
and it is a good plant. That was a long time ago. Nobody can remember 
any new plants being built in Vermont. By the way, I think that is true 
for most locations in America. Yet I was in China 5 years ago and I saw 
a lot of American companies building new plants in China--not in the 
United States of America. I think this is an issue we have to get a 
handle on.
  The irony is that a few years ago when I was in the House, in honor 
of 9/11, we had a ceremony to commemorate and memorialize the people 
murdered that day, and they distributed American flags to us. Those 
flags were made in China. Since September 11, 2001, over 100 million 
American flags sold in this country were made in China. We are not even 
making American flags in the United States of America.
  Before we pass yet another unfettered free trade agreement--this time 
with Peru--we have to fundamentally fix the broken trade policies we 
have with China and Mexico. That is not just Senator Bernie Sanders 
talking; this is the view of the overwhelming majority of Republicans, 
Democrats, and Independents.
  Let me refer you to a recent Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. In 
that poll--maybe 2 months ago--it indicated that 59 percent of 
Republicans and 54 percent of Democrats believed that unfettered free 
trade has been bad for the U.S. economy. Probably the only room full of 
people we could find in America who think that unfettered free trade is 
a good idea is this room right here. I think Republicans understand it 
is not working, Democrats and Independents understand it is not 
working, and maybe the Senate should start listening to the American 
people who are experiencing the tragedy of unfettered free trade.
  We have been told this particular trade agreement with Peru is 
different than the other trade agreements. We have been told this 
agreement has strong labor and environmental standards. If that is 
true, then why is it that not one major group representing the 
interests of labor, the environment, consumers, family farmers, 
religious organizations or Latino civil rights organizations supports 
this agreement? To the best of my knowledge, not one does.
  In fact, the Peru Free Trade Agreement is being opposed by the 
Teamsters, the International Association of Machinists, the 
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, UNITE-HERE, the League 
of United Latin American Citizens, Oxfam, Public Citizen, and numerous 
religious organizations in our country.
  In Peru, this unfettered free trade agreement is opposed by both of 
Peru's labor federations, and a prominent archbishop, among others. 
Even more troubling is the fact that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 
which strongly supports this trade agreement and all trade agreements, 
has said they have been ``encouraged by assurances that the labor 
provisions cannot be read to require compliance with ILO conventions.''
  In other words, the labor standards in this agreement may not be 
worth the paper they are written on--or at least that is the view of 
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
  According to a recent report by Columbia law professor Mark 
Barenberg, the so-called labor standards included in this legislation 
are ``even worse than existing law'' and ``in no respect do the 
agreement's labor provisions mark a significant improvement.''
  Perhaps most important is this fact: The minimum wage in Peru is 
about 91 cents an hour. So what we are saying to workers in this 
country is that there is your competition. You are going to be 
competing against people who make 91 cents an hour. I think that is 
wrong. I do not think that America should be forced to compete against 
people in Peru, or any other country on Earth, where people earn such 
little money.
  In industry after industry, corporate America is shipping our 
manufacturing plants, our good-paying jobs, overseas, where desperate 
people are forced to work for pennies an hour.
  That bottom line is what unfettered free trade is about. The largest 
corporations in this country have pushed unfettered free trade for 
years. They have succeeded and they have gotten what they want. They 
want to pay people in China 50 cents an hour; in Peru, a dollar an 
hour, rather than paying American workers a living wage here, 
respecting the environment here and free independent trade unions here.
  Our corporate friends have won this debate, and the result of that is 
that the middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the 
wealthiest people in this country have never had it so good.
  At a time when the poorest people in this country are seeing 
unprecedented desperation, when the gap between the people on top and 
everybody else is growing wider and wider and most of the new jobs 
projected for the future are low-wage jobs with minimal benefits, that 
is the future.
  The great economic struggle of our time is whether the middle class 
of our Nation can be saved. That is what it is about. What the American 
dream was about--and this was true in my household--is my parents 
started with very little and they worked hard, with the hope that their 
kids would do better than they did. That is the American dream, and it 
has taken place here for such a long time.
  Right now, if we don't begin to deal with our current economic 
policies, including disastrous trade policies, there is a strong 
likelihood that our children--the young generation of today--will, for 
the first time in the modern history of this country, have the dubious 
distinction of having a lower standard of living than their parents. 
That is a reality that we have to prevent. I don't want to see us 
participating in the race to the bottom. I don't want to see our kids 
being poorer than their parents. There are a number of factors for that 
happening. Anyone who does not think that unfettered free trade is one 
of the reasons for the decline of the middle class I think is dead 
wrong.
  The word has got to go out loudly and clearly to companies such as 
Wal-Mart, General Electric, General Motors, IBM, Microsoft, Boeing, and 
hundreds of other corporations that they cannot keep sending America's 
future to low-wage countries.
  Trade is a good thing, and let me reiterate that point. I believe 
trade is a good thing, but it must be based on principles that are fair 
to American workers. The U.S. Congress can no longer allow corporate 
America to sell out the middle class of our country and move our 
economy abroad.
  A number of years ago, I think speaking for virtually all of 
corporate America, Jeff Immelt, who is the CEO of General Electric, one 
of the largest corporations in America, said:


[[Page 31959]]

       When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, 
     China, China, China. You need to be there. I'm a nut on 
     China. Outsourcing to China is going to grow to 5 billion.

  That is what corporate America is saying. That is what unfettered 
free trade is all about, and it is time we told Mr. Immelt and the 
other CEOs of large corporations that if they want to sell their 
products in this country, they are going to have to start producing 
their products in this country.
  It is not acceptable that Thomas Donohue, the CEO of the U.S. Chamber 
of Commerce, ``urges'' American companies to send jobs abroad. They 
actually think this is good.
  It is not acceptable that Bill Gates, who has many wonderful 
qualities, tells us that Communist, authoritarian China has created a 
``brand new form of capitalism, and as a consumer it is the best thing 
that ever happened.'' With all due respect to Mr. Gates, I disagree.
  We must tell these corporate leaders to stop outsourcing our jobs 
overseas and stop outsourcing the future of our country. We must demand 
they start investing in the United States of America and create good-
paying jobs here. We must rebuild our manufacturing base. Then we can 
talk about passing trade agreements that work for the middle class of 
this country while at the same time lifting standards throughout the 
world.
  I want a race that takes all people up, not a race to the bottom. And 
that, among many other reasons, is why we should reject the Peru free-
trade agreement.
  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.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following 
my remarks, if Senator Domenici is on the Senate floor, he be the next 
to speak, and if he is not, Senator Salazar be the next to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first I thank you for your words 
regarding what we need to be doing on trade and what has happened 
regarding unfettered trade. Coming from the great State of Michigan, 
the manufacturing hub of this country and of the world over decades and 
decades, I could not agree more with what is happening in terms of jobs 
going overseas. I see it in the eyes of thousands, in fact, hundreds of 
thousands of people; 250,000 people in my State who have lost their 
jobs just since this President has taken office, people working hard 
every day who just want to make a living for their kids and know the 
pension they paid into is going to be there and health care and that 
they can send their kids to college and have all the things they wanted 
for their children, have the great American dream. They have watched 
that dream slip away for themselves and their families.
  I thank you for your words.
  I go another step in terms of what I think we need to be doing to 
support manufacturing here and a level playing field because, in 
addition to what has been said about Peru as one more trade agreement--
and I agree with that statement, ``one more trade agreement''--that is 
on the books without other provisions in place, there are certainly 
things that we can and need to be doing to support and encourage those 
manufacturing jobs in America.
  As I noted in the Finance Committee, as a member of the Finance 
Committee, the Peru free-trade agreement is a tough one for me in a 
sense that I know colleagues have worked very hard to bring in new 
language. My friend and colleague in the House, Congressman Rangel, and 
Senator Levin, certainly our chairman of the Finance Committee and the 
ranking member, have been working to have this agreement reflect our 
country's values when it comes to labor and environmental standards.
  The truth is, I wish we had had these kinds of standards in previous 
agreements. Getting the right words on paper is important, but 
unfortunately it is not enough to get them on paper. They are on paper 
in these agreements, but that is not enough when it comes to the 
families of my State and the people of America who want to make sure 
the American dream is available to them and their families.
  I would like to believe these words will translate into action. It is 
hard to be convinced we are going to enforce our trade laws when we 
just start from the basis that we have the smallest trade enforcement 
office of any industrialized country in the world. That gives an 
indication of the priority of enforcing trade laws compared to what is 
happening in other countries.
  We have more than 230 trade agreements on the books to enforce, and 
we have the smallest trade enforcement agency of any country in the 
industrialized world. It should be no surprise that there has been a 
huge increase in dangerous products coming across our borders and that 
more and more countries are testing the resolve of our trade laws and 
are, in fact, cheating on those trade laws.
  The administration has simply lost credibility with the American 
people. No one believes this administration will enforce current trade 
agreements. No one believes currency manipulation will stop and 
certainly that the administration will take any action. This is 
something I have been focused on now since coming to the Senate, and 
every year--every 6 months, in fact--we get a report from the Treasury 
Secretary: No action. Currency manipulation is not really happening or 
they don't mean it or they will do better in China if we trust them, 
and more and more jobs are going overseas because of that trade policy.
  No one believes unsafe imported products will be kept away from our 
children. No one believes at this time that this agreement will end up 
leveling the playing field on trade. No one believes that point 
because, unfortunately, based on past actions, it is not true. We have 
too many businesses that have faced patent violations and unfair 
pricing. We have seen small businesses in my State, as well as large, 
that make a product and have had a Chinese company come in and steal 
everything about that product, not only the patents, but the packaging, 
the directions on the package, and make the product for a small 
fraction of what it cost to actually make it.
  I have small businesses in my State that have stopped making products 
because they cannot afford the cost to fight the Chinese Government to 
stop the trade infringement.
  Those unfortunate incidents have meant people in my State have lost 
their jobs. I have one small business owner who makes hand trucks used 
to carry boxes and products, to move them around, who created one type 
of hand truck. It was stolen and produced by a Chinese company. This 
person could not afford to take action.
  He said to me: Where is my Government stepping in to help me? But he 
could not afford the $10,000 a month retainer of an attorney to try to 
figure out how to stop them, so he stopped making the product and 50 
people in the northern Michigan town of Cadillac lost their jobs--50 
people. For that town, that is a lot of people. In fact, anywhere, if 
you are 1 of those 50, that is a lot of people.
  We have too many dangerous products that have put our families and 
children in harm's way because foreign countries are not following the 
rules and our own country does not hold them accountable.
  We have too many American families sitting on waiting lists for 
training that they were promised by this Government, the Federal 
Government of America, that they would receive if they lost their job 
because of trade.
  We have a whole range of things that are not happening that have been 
promised.
  This is what the people of my State see, and I believe the American 
people see. They see unsafe products. They see illegal trade practices. 
They see lost jobs devastating communities, lowering the standard of 
living, loss of the

[[Page 31960]]

middle class that has resulted from previous trade agreements that were 
not enforced and that were not fair. That is what they see.
  I simply cannot support another trade agreement until we get this 
right. I cannot support a trade agreement ahead of enforcing our trade 
laws, improving product safety, keeping our promises to working 
Americans, and ensuring a level playing field for businesses and 
workers, all of which are achievable if we make American businesses and 
American workers our priority. If we make that our priority, we can 
make the changes necessary so that trade works for us, rather than 
having it be a situation where instead of exporting our products, we 
are exporting our jobs. That is why the right words on paper just are 
not enough. We have to have the right trade agenda--a trade agenda that 
helps working families adjust and be able to thrive in a global economy 
because we are making more products and selling more products and 
creating more jobs here, one that is based on a sense of credible trade 
enforcement so other countries know we are serious about jobs and 
businesses in our country, and one, frankly, that lets other countries 
know we are serious about protecting our people as it relates to 
safety, which is also very important.
  In 2006, 1 year ago, 37,000 people in Michigan lost their jobs 
specifically and directly because of trade--37,000--but only 4,100 
received any kind of trade adjustment help--training, the ability to go 
back to school to be able to get some assistance to be able to start a 
new career. That means 90 percent of the people who were affected, who 
lost their jobs, are not receiving funds that were promised under trade 
adjustment assistance because of various caps or the fact that we have 
not authorized that critical program.
  And just extending it is not enough. How do I tell 33,000 people who 
were told that the Federal Government would help them through this 
adjustment period, through training and increased investments and new 
jobs, how do I tell them that, in fact, 90 percent of the people in 
their same situation got no help whatsoever?
  Communities also need assistance. In Michigan, many communities have 
been devastated by the loss of a large plant or industrial facility. I 
will give one example, and this is very much about the race to the 
bottom, Mr. President. You spoke about it, and I speak about it all the 
time. When Electrolux, which makes refrigerators in Greenville, MI--a 
city of 8,000 people, with almost 3,000 of those people employed at 
this one plant--when they decided to pick up and go to Mexico where 
they could pay $1.57 an hour, with no health benefits, there was a huge 
effort that came about to be able to work with them to stay. The 
Governor came in, the mayor came in, and others, saying: We will help 
you refinance a plant. We will give you tax incentives. Tell us how we 
can help you to be able to be competitive, to be able to stay in 
Greenville, MI. I met with them on many occasions, asking: What can we 
do to partner with you to support you. The end analysis was that the 
State essentially said no taxes at all. We offered to help them build 
new plants, and none of it was enough because they said: You can't 
compete with $1.57 an hour and no health benefits.
  So this really is about whether we are going to compete down to a 
lower standard of living and lose the middle class and lose the 
American dream, or whether we are going to compete up. I believe if we 
compete up with a different trade agenda, a different broadly held 
agenda that will strengthen America, that we, in fact, can keep our 
jobs. But one piece of that is to make sure that when 2,700-plus people 
in Greenville, MI, or when a whole community is devastated by their 
largest employer leaving, that there is some assistance not only for 
the workers but the small businesses and for others there to help 
during the transition.
  In fact, we need to make sure we have a broader agenda that not only 
levels the playing field on trade, enforcing trade laws, having the 
right kind of trade policy, but that we are also addressing health care 
costs in this country, the largest cost for our businesses, and 
changing the way we fund health care, getting it off the back of 
business, and addressing other costs that are noncompetitive that we 
can address. Then we need to race like crazy on education and 
innovation. That is the race up, which we, the new majority, 
understand, as evidenced by our passing the largest financial aid 
package for college since the GI bill, by focusing and refocusing our 
efforts on math and science and technology investments.
  So there is a way to make this a race up. But it is not just passing 
one more trade bill, one more trade law, one more agreement, without 
addressing all of these other issues. One of the other big issues for 
us is currency manipulation. This is something I am pleased to say the 
Finance Committee has begun to address with a bill that has come out of 
committee. We have not had the opportunity to have that on the floor 
yet, to bring that up, but right now we are in a situation where, 
again, because of governmental policies, because of China specifically, 
where they can peg the value of their money, their currency, in a way 
so that when their products come into us, on top of paying 60 cents or 
a dollar an hour and not having health care costs and all the other 
things, they can undercut us and get up to a 40-percent discount on 
that product coming in.
  So when the President talked about Wal-Mart, when you look at the 
number of Chinese products and why they are lower, they also get a 40-
percent discount on their price just from currency manipulation, which 
is illegal. So before we pass another trade agreement, why don't we fix 
that? Why don't we make sure we have the toughest possible policies 
that will stop the loss of jobs because of currency manipulation?
  We have also, among trade enforcement, the need to beef up our trade 
office. And I am very pleased Senator Lindsey Graham and I have been 
working on this now for some time to create a trade enforcement 
division, headed by a trade enforcement officer, an independent trade 
enforcement officer--we have called it a U.S. trade prosecutor--to be 
able to truly beef up our enforcement.
  I am pleased Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, our leaders on 
finance, have put together a broader enforcement bill, which I support, 
and include many of our provisions and aspects of our bill in their 
bill. That needs to get done. And I know the chairman is committed to 
having that happen, and I am anxious to join him in moving that through 
so that we can truly have credibility in the world, with other 
countries; that we mean it when we say there is a trade agreement and 
we expect other people to follow the rules.
  But what do we see from the administration? There have been a couple 
of efforts, and I appreciate the few times they have moved forward to 
try to do something. There is an effort going on in auto parts now, but 
it is very little and it is very late, as we watch more and more jobs 
leaving this country. And I am very concerned, very disappointed when I 
see that this administration has not moved forward at all on any real 
action on currency manipulation or any number of trade enforcement 
issues. In fact, last week, the administration claimed victory for 
developing a voluntary agreement with China on illegal subsidies, an 
agreement that requires a great deal of trust with China. It is hard to 
understand they would continue to trust on a voluntary basis a country 
that has broken agreements and international policies over and over and 
over.
  Furthermore, haven't we learned our lesson with voluntary agreements? 
Like the one completed with South Korea that was intended to, in fact, 
allow us to open up more opportunities to make automobiles here and be 
able to sell them to South Korea. Two agreements, not one, two 
voluntary agreements, and the exact opposite happened with 700,000 
vehicles now coming in from South Korea, and we are barely able to get 
5,000 back in to them. So voluntary agreements in the past have not 
worked. And given how

[[Page 31961]]

many jobs we are losing, today is not the time for another voluntary 
agreement. We need, in fact, to put our muscle behind tough enforcement 
processes. We are quickly losing our standard of living and our middle 
class in this country. There is a need for urgency that has not been 
there and is not there today with the administration.
  As a result of the trade policies we have in place now, we have an 
exploding trade deficit, which has increased from $380 billion in 2000 
to $758 billion just last year. Since this administration has been in 
office, the trade deficit has more than doubled, and with it the number 
of dangerous products coming in, the number of layoffs, the number of 
waiting lists for people who need retraining, the number of businesses 
losing their patents, losing their products, and their ability to sell 
their products because of currency manipulation. That is the legacy of 
this administration.
  I don't believe it is a time to reward them with another trade 
agreement. Before we go any further in passing trade agreements, Mr. 
President, we have to get our trade policy right. Regardless of the 
specifics of the trade agreement, regardless of the words on paper, we 
better be able to back them up, and today we cannot. We haven't backed 
up words on paper. We can no longer say pass a trade agreement, we will 
fix it later, we will enforce it later, we will change it later, or we 
will help people later. We have to do these things now so we have 
credibility with the American people who are counting on us to fight 
for them and to understand that in the greatest country in the world, 
it is time to stand up for the middle class in this country, get our 
trade policy right, and stand up for the people who have worked hard to 
make this country great.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I rise today to speak in favor of the 
United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, which I intend to support 
tomorrow morning with my vote.
  First, I thank Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley for their efforts 
in shepherding the Peru Free Trade Agreement through the Finance 
Committee, where it passed with very strong bipartisan support. I 
congratulate them for bringing the agreement to the Senate floor today, 
and I thank our majority leader, Senator Reid, for giving us the 
opportunity to have the free-trade agreement debated on the Senate 
floor today.
  At the outset, Madam President, I put this in historical context for 
me. It was almost 409 years ago that my family founded the city of 
Santa Fe, NM. And in the four centuries since, you see a very unique 
and positive relationship between the United States and the nations to 
the south of the United States. It is a relationship which is bound 
together in history and in culture and in the landscape of the Western 
Hemisphere. It is a future which I hope we can work on together in the 
United States with our colleague nations to the south in order to 
develop an even stronger hemisphere.
  It was in that vein of thinking that Senator John Kennedy, at the 
outset of his administration, spoke fervently about the future of the 
Alliance For Progress with the Western Hemisphere. It is in that same 
vein that I was honored to be a part of a codel that was led by our own 
majority leader, Senator Reid, before he was sworn in to be majority 
leader, when he took six Senators to Bolivia and to Peru and to 
Ecuador, trying to make a statement to South America that they were not 
to be a forgotten continent.
  It was in that same vein that in my very first meeting with President 
George W. Bush, I spoke to him about the importance of not having every 
ounce of his foreign policy agenda consumed by what was happening in 
Iraq, but to make sure that he was looking at events and relationships 
throughout the world, and that one of those most important of 
relationships is the relationship we have with the nations in Latin 
America, with both Central and South America.
  It is in that vein that this legislation, the Peru Free Trade 
Agreement, is important for us as we move forward in trying to 
establish the right kind of relationships between the United States and 
the rest of the Western Hemisphere. I believe in the benefits of free 
and fair trade. I believe that by working to lower trade barriers and 
to expand access to foreign markets we can strengthen the U.S. economy 
in a way that benefits both businesses and workers and enhances our 
relationship with friends and allies in important parts of the world.
  The Peru Free Trade Agreement is the first of four FTAs that are 
currently pending in Congress, three of which are with countries in 
South America and Central America. As such, the Peru FTA represents an 
important step forward in an effort to strengthen our ties, both 
economic and diplomatic, with our neighbors in this hemisphere.
  Earlier this year, as I said, I traveled with Senators Harry Reid, 
Dick Durbin, Bob Bennett, Judd Gregg, and Kent Conrad to South America. 
The last stop on our trip was the nation of Peru. I came away from that 
visit with a strong sense of how important it is for us to bolster our 
economic and diplomatic ties with Peru and countries such as Peru. 
Doing so will be critical to our economic and our national security and 
to the effort to restore America's standing in the world community.
  The trade agreement we are discussing today is largely possible 
because of changes that have taken place in Peru in the last decade. 
Annual exports over the last 15 years have increased from $3.4 billion 
to $23 billion; annual per capita income for the people of Peru has 
doubled, from $1,500 to $3,200. That is a significant economic set of 
changes within Peru and within our trade relationship with the country 
of Peru.
  In the meantime, coca production, a major concern of ours with 
respect to Peru, has decreased dramatically, thanks in large part to 
the eradication, interdiction, and other efforts to develop economic 
opportunities for the Peruvian people.
  Perhaps most important, incidents of terrorism have decreased from 
nearly 3,000 in 1991 to less than 100 in 2006. Let me say that again. 
Incidents of terrorism, violent militancy in Peru, have decreased from 
nearly 3,000 in 1991--that wasn't so long ago--to now less than 100 in 
the year 2006.
  The United States has been a strong partner in helping to keep Peru 
on this promising path. As a result, along with countries such as 
Colombia and Brazil, Peru helps to form an oasis of favorable 
sentiments toward the United States in a region where our standing has 
taken major negative hits in recent years.
  When our delegation, led by Senator Reid, met with President Alan 
Garcia in Peru, we had an opportunity to discuss how the relationship 
between our two nations has developed over the course of the past 
several decades, beginning with the key role Peru played in World War 
II when it provided the United States with the military bases we so 
much needed from which we monitored the activities of our military and 
our Navy in the Pacific.
  At that meeting with President Garcia, we also discussed President 
Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, President Kennedy's initiative to 
strengthen ties between North and South America at the beginning of the 
Cold War. When President Kennedy outlined the goals of the alliance in 
1961, he proposed--and I quote from his historic statement:

        . . . to build a hemisphere where all men can hope for a 
     suitable standard of living and all can live out their lives 
     in dignity and in freedom. . . . Let us once again transform 
     the American Continent into a vast crucible of revolutionary 
     ideas and efforts, a tribute to the power of the creative 
     energies of free men and women, an example to all the world 
     that liberty and progress walk hand in hand.

  That was President Kennedy's effort to try to shine the spotlight of 
a new relationship between the United States and the countries to the 
south in Latin America.
  The Alliance for Progress is not a perfect alliance, but it certainly 
gave a message which has been missing throughout much of the history of 
the

[[Page 31962]]

United States and certainly missing the last 6 years, that the 
relationship between the United States and South America is important 
from a strategic point of view for national security because these are 
the countries located in this hemisphere, that border us to the south, 
and also because of the economic relationship between the United States 
and Latin America.
  Passing this free-trade agreement will help us build on the trade 
relationship that already exists between the United States and Peru 
and, in my view, will help us move in the right direction.
  I wish to speak briefly about why the Peru Free Trade Agreement is 
important.
  First, from my point of view, the Peru Free Trade Agreement is 
important for America's economic security. It will benefit both 
businesses and workers in the long run. In an increasingly global 
economy, America is facing growing competition on a number of different 
fronts. In order to preserve our standing as the world economic leader 
and to ensure that American businesses continue to set the standard for 
the world community, we must expand economic opportunities in foreign 
markets. If foreign countries face obstacles to trade with the United 
States, they will take their business elsewhere.
  It is worth pointing out that many Peruvian businesses already have 
unfettered access to the U.S. market as a result of Andean Trade 
Preference Agreement, which we have supported here on the floor of this 
Chamber. U.S. businesses, including the farmers and ranchers of my 
State, deserve to have that same access to the Peruvian market.
  Second, the Peru FTA and others like it are important for America's 
national security interests around the world. In a part of the world 
where negative feelings toward the United States have grown and grown 
in recent years and as we strive to restore America's standing around 
the world, it is vitally important to recognize those friendships we do 
have and to do whatever we can to strengthen those friendships. Peru is 
a prominent example of an ally that has stood by us year after year. It 
would be a mistake not to return the favor here today and tomorrow by 
helping Peru continue its impressive progress of the past 15 years.
  Additionally, a growing Peruvian economy with increased ties to the 
United States will help Peru continue to make progress on human rights 
and serve as an effective buffer against terrorist groups that have 
claimed more than 35,000 lives in Peru over the last 30 years.
  Finally, I am proud of the historic relationship between the United 
States and Latin America, but it is a relationship that we, candidly, 
must work on to strengthen into the 21st century and beyond. Of course, 
free-trade policies, as the Presiding Officer has pointed out often on 
the floor of the Senate, have consequences that we cannot overlook and 
that must be addressed.
  As the U.S. economy evolves to meet the demands of the 21st century 
and adjusts to handle increased competition from foreign businesses 
here in America, we all know there are winners and there are losers. 
That is why we need to ensure that the playing field is a fair playing 
field by doing our best to hold our trading partners to the same 
environmental and labor standards American businesses must meet. The 
bipartisan May 10 agreement of this year, which has been incorporated 
into the Peru FTA, is an important part of that effort. All of us--
Democrats and Republicans, businesses, workers, and the environmental 
community--need to work to build on that progress to ensure our trade 
policies can strengthen our economic security and our national security 
in a way that is fair and that does not hurt workers and does not hurt 
the environment.
  We also need to act as soon as possible to reauthorize and strengthen 
the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program so that American workers, 
businesses, and farmers who are adversely affected by our trade 
policies can receive the assistance they need as they strive to be part 
of the 21st century global economy.
  I believe we can move forward on trade in a way that addresses these 
legitimate concerns without preventing us from expanding opportunities 
for American businesses in foreign markets. I believe the Peru Free 
Trade Agreement does an excellent job of meeting both objectives. For 
all the reasons I have outlined today, I supported the free-trade 
agreement when it was in the Finance Committee, and I will support it 
on the floor of the Senate. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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