[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14975-14976]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      5-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF CAFTA

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, today is a historic day, in some 
sense. Five years ago today, President Bush signed the Central American 
Free Trade Agreement, on August 2, 2005.
  A month earlier--I was a Member of the House of Representatives 
then--the majority leader, Tom DeLay, a Republican from Texas, held the 
15-minute typical vote--a rollcall vote in the House of Representatives 
is normally held open for 15, 20 minutes, at the most--he held the 15-
minute vote open for more than an hour while last-minute deals were 
made. The U.S. Trade Representative was camped just off the House 
floor. He was a former Member of Congress.
  According to news reports, after this hour delay, arms were ``twisted 
into a thousand pieces.'' Republicans who were opposed or undecided 
were courted during hurried meetings in Capitol hallways, on the House 
floor, and at the White House. Republican leaders told rank-and-file, 
reluctant Republicans, who really did not want to vote for this deal, 
that now is time to ask, that deals could be cut.
  Members took advantage of the opportunity by requesting such things 
as fundraising appearances by the Vice President and the restoration of 
money the White House had tried to cut from agricultural programs. That 
is how they passed it.
  People, even Republican House Members, who were generally enthralled 
to corporate interests, who normally would go with the drug companies, 
the insurance companies, the large financial institutions, who would 
almost always vote for them, even many of them wanted to vote no, but 
because of this, as the paper said, arm twisting ``into a thousand 
pieces'' on the House floor, enough of them voted for it to pass the 
bill.
  When the 15-minutes had expired, the vote was 175 ``yes,'' 180 
``no.'' So in order to pass it, they had to keep the rollcall open for 
about another hour to twist these arms and finally pass the 
legislation, if I recall, by 1 vote.
  We know what has happened. The Central American Free Trade Agreement 
has not worked any better than other trade agreements. We know that job 
loss in the last 10 years--because of PNTR with China, passed by the 
Senate 10 years ago this fall--we know, in Ohio alone, we have seen job 
loss to the Dominican Republic from the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement, the CAFTA. We have seen job loss from a company in 
Marysville, a company in Miamisburg, a company in Hudson, OH. We have 
seen job loss all over the country. We have seen it with the North 
American Free Trade Agreement. We have seen it with the PNTR with 
China. And we have seen it with the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement.
  I was at a plant today in Parma, OH, a suburb of Cleveland, the 
corporate headquarters of GraphTech. It is a company that used to be 
part of Union Carbide and is actually the plant where the Eveready 
battery originated. They specialize in graphite for major industrial 
concerns such as the steel industry. They also make graphite for solar, 
for all kinds of things, for flat screen TVs, for electronic equipment. 
They, as so many other companies, are doing well. They have actually 
hired 60 people in the last year. They are looking to hire more. I 
spoke to about 150 workers today. Most of them do not do production in 
this facility. But they have production in Lakewood, right nearby, a 
few miles away in another suburb of Cleveland.
  But this company is always under threat from China gaming the system. 
When I was talking to workers and management, I was talking about how 
China, because of its currency--this competition from China has been so 
difficult for American companies because they do not play fair.
  I was speaking to an expert who deals a lot with China. I said: 
Because of this huge trade deficit we have with China--we buy a lot 
more from China

[[Page 14976]]

than we export to them--do they laugh at us?
  He said: No, they don't laugh at us. They just think we are a 
declining power.
  It breaks my heart to think China thinks that, but it breaks my heart 
even more when I see what is happening to our manufacturing base.
  This company, GraphTech, is so important for our economic future, but 
so is getting these trade agreements right.
  The Obama administration, fortunately, has just this week launched an 
action to announce that the United States will file a case against 
Guatemala under the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States 
Free Trade Agreement--the CAFTA--for apparent violations of obligations 
on labor rights. It is the first time a President has done that. That 
is good news. That salvages some of the damage done by the Central 
American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA, because for decades our 
government has negotiated trade agreements which give lipservice to 
protecting workers while looking the other way when there were clear 
violations of labor rights. We are willing to protect intellectual 
property in Hollywood films, but we are not so willing to protect 
workers in the environment.
  This action by the Obama administration, again, is a good thing, but 
we need to do much, much more. We have all kinds of petitions filed, 
and requests, from industries and workers in this country who have been 
wronged, cheated, gamed by the trade agreements that have passed, and 
we clearly need the Obama administration on our side fighting for 
American workers, fighting for American jobs. It did not happen in the 
previous administration, to the tune of millions of jobs lost, millions 
of manufacturing jobs lost in the 8 years of the Bush administration, 
with their Trade Representative who always seemed to side with large 
corporations in this country that outsourced jobs to China but did not 
side with American workers and small manufacturers in places such as 
Lima and Zanesville and Mansfield, OH.
  So as we commemorate today, the 5-year anniversary of President 
Bush's signing of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, I hope we 
have learned some lessons. I hope, as we observe this 5-year 
anniversary, as we observe the 10-year anniversary of allowing China, 
under permanent normal trade relations, into the World Trade 
Organization--and how they do not play fair as a member of that body, 
and how we are not willing to stand up to them as a country and force 
them to play fair--I hope we are learning these lessons, as we have 
lost too many manufacturing jobs. We were losing manufacturing jobs 
when our economy was going much better 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago, in part 
because the Bush administration did not enforce any of the trade laws 
that could benefit us. But we are, obviously, doing even worse now with 
this economy. That is why President Obama's actions on some of the 
CAFTA enforcement of labor rights is so very important. But it does not 
obviate the need for us to look at these trade laws again to figure out 
what works and what does not work.
  We know what does not work. We know more trade agreements only dig us 
deeper into a hole. That does not serve American workers. It does not 
serve those American companies that cannot compete when China games the 
system on currency and other things, and it does not serve those 
communities where these businesses are located.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

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