[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 16123-16124]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               CHINA PNTR

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I wish to mention something else 
after talking about the, perhaps, Chinese influence on American 
elections and other countries' influence on American elections and how 
Republicans do not seem to want to stand up for the American people's 
first amendment rights and national interests. I wish to talk about 
something that is more bipartisan, in a sense, and is every bit more 
disturbing; that is, 10 years ago this month, the Senate sold out 
American manufacturing. Ten years ago this month, by a vote of 83 to 
15, the Senate passed a bill establishing permanent normal trade 
relations with the People's Republic of China. I remember. I was in the 
House of Representatives, and I opposed this measure. We were joined by 
most of the Democrats and a number of Republicans, but we were unable 
to defeat it. It was a fairly close vote.
  The proponents of China PNTR came to our office, the people who 
wanted to give these extra benefits to China. It was initially called 
most-favored-nation status for China. The supporters thought that did 
not sound very good, even though we had used that term for years, and 
called it permanent normal trade relations with China. They put another 
name on it; they put lipstick on that pig. What the supporters said to 
us--the CEOs who came to Congress and one at a time talked to us--was 
that they could not wait to pass PNTR because they would then have 
access to 1 billion Chinese consumers, so those consumers could 
purchase American-made products. They wanted access to 1 billion 
Chinese consumers. It sounded pretty good. As you know, it was not 
quite the story because as soon as PNTR passed, as soon as they changed 
the rule, the story became not 1 billion Chinese consumers about whom 
they were excited, it was 1 billion Chinese workers about whom they 
were excited. You could see American companies crossing the ocean--
shutting down a plant in Dayton, OH, and moving to China; shutting down 
a plant in Youngstown, OH, and moving to Shanghai; shutting down a 
plant in Toledo, OH, and moving to Wuhan; shutting down a plant in 
Lima, OH, and moving to Beijing or Quang Chau.
  I think it is the first time since colonial days--maybe ever--the 
first time when a business plan--get this--when a company's business 
plan is this: The first thing you do is lobby Congress to change the 
rules. The second thing you do is start to shut down plants in your 
home country with your home country's workers, where your entire 
company was established and grew. You have shut down production in your 
country. You move several thousand miles away, set up production, 
understanding that the workers work more cheaply, the workers work for 
less pay,

[[Page 16124]]

the country does not have strong environmental rules and has very few 
protections for workers.
  They make the product, and then they sell the product back to the 
home country. This business model, after getting the law changed--
PNTR--10 years ago this month, was to move overseas, make the products 
there, then sell them back to the original home country. That is bad 
for the environment, first of all. It is bad for our workers and bad 
for our communities when a plant shuts down.
  Look what has happened. We have seen since PNTR passed a 170-percent 
trade deficit increase in the last 10 years. China continues to 
undermine free market competition, and it leaves American workers and 
manufacturers in severe disadvantage. Instead of helping U.S. companies 
export more products to China, our trade policies have permitted China 
to manipulate its currency, provide illegal subsidies to Chinese 
exporters, and artificially price Chinese goods, so U.S. manufacturers 
have to compete against a flood of cheap imports.
  Do you know what happens? When I see people supporting this--people 
talking about small businesses--here is how wrong they are. When a 
large company leaves Akron or Canton, OH, and pulls up stakes and moves 
to Mexico or China--a large assembly company, an auto plant, for 
example--you know what happens to all the small companies and small 
manufacturers. They don't have the wherewithal or the sophistication to 
move to China or Mexico so they lose 30 percent of their business--a 
little tool and die shop in Akron, a little machine shop in Hamilton, 
OH, whatever--because they have lost their major customer. Look what 
happens to them and to their workers. So big companies move overseas 
and all the component manufacturers are out of luck, all because of 
this trade policy and this tax policy which makes it more attractive 
for a company and a CEO--well, the CEO doesn't move, he or she still 
lives here--to move their company to China and then sell back into the 
United States.
  Second, our Nation's trade policy--this PNTR bill that passed 10 
years ago--sold out American manufacturers and undermined our Nation's 
ability to lead the world in clean energy. China, which barely had a 
wind turbine or solar manufacturing presence at all a decade ago, by 
the end of this year may be making, or close to making, half of all 
wind turbines and solar panels in the world--in 10 years. And they are 
not making them--most of them--to sell in China but to export, much of 
which comes back to the United States. More than 70 percent of the 
world's clean energy components are manufactured outside the United 
States.
  We know how to make things in my State. Ohio is the third biggest 
manufacturing State. We know how to make things. We invented and 
developed most of the wind and solar panel technology. In fact, 30 
miles from my house is a taxpayer-funded NASA facility that developed 
the technology we use in wind turbines, most of which is built in China 
and Spain and other places around the world.
  Supporters of this China trade policy will make the argument that 
everything is about exports. I agree, we have to boost our exports, but 
we have a $226 billion trade deficit per year. That is about $600 
million a day. That means $600 million every single day, 7 days a week. 
It means we buy $600 million more from China than we sell to China. So 
how do you argue this trade policy is working for us? It means, in 
essence, that $600 million disappears from our shores every day going 
to China, and that is not going to work long term for our country when 
you build up those types of trade deficits.
  We can do a couple of things about this. First of all, we have to do 
much better at enforcing trade laws and to revive the Super 301 
mechanism that lapsed under the Bush administration that requires the 
administration to establish enforcement priorities for the most 
pressing trade barriers, including currency manipulation, restrictive 
procurement policies, and intellectual property theft. It would ensure 
that our government helps open foreign markets to U.S. exporters.
  I am a member of the President's U.S. Export Council. There are about 
10 House and Senate Members on this council--both parties, both 
Houses--and a number of American CEOs are on the council as well. We 
all want to export more. But as we try to export more, sell more U.S. 
products abroad, we have to enforce U.S. trade laws so those companies 
aren't selling things into our country illegally.
  President Obama has done that, to some degree. He has done more on 
that than any previous President. He has not done close to enough. He 
has stepped forward on oil country tubular steel goods, which is the 
steel pipes that are used for gas and oil drilling. The Chinese were 
cheating on that. The President made the right trade decision on that, 
the right enforcement decision. We saw hundreds of new jobs in Mahoning 
Valley, in northeast Ohio. The President made a similar decision on 
Chinese tires that were sold in this country illegally. After the 
President made that decision, 100 people were hired at the Findlay 
Cooper tire plant in Findlay, OH, in northwest Ohio, and in other 
places around the State.
  I would close with this. We hear a lot of talk from both parties 
about Made in America. What that means is standing up for American 
workers and manufacturers who are too often undercut by imports made in 
countries that violate the law. We are just asking to have the law 
enforced. So my challenge to my colleagues--and to the President--is to 
ensure American manufacturing grows rather than contracts during the 
next decade of the 21st century.
  Thirty years ago, almost a third of our gross domestic product was 
manufacturing. Today, it is only 11 percent. Thirty years ago, 11 
percent of our GDP was financial services. Today, that is 25 percent. 
So as not to overwhelm people with numbers, we have seen basically a 
flipping of our national priorities. Think back to 30 years ago: Almost 
a third of our GDP was manufacturing and only 11 percent financial 
services. That has flipped. Look where it has gotten us. It has gotten 
us the financial crisis that almost brought our economy down, if we 
hadn't stepped in on banking and autos to stabilize the economy. It has 
also robbed many Americans of a chance to join the middle class, 
because manufacturing has always been the ticket in this country for 
working-class men and women to get a chance to work in manufacturing, 
to buy a decent home in a decent neighborhood, to buy a car and send 
their kids to school so their kids would have a better life. That is 
the goal of all of us.
  I close by saying that I hope we remember the China PNTR. I would 
hope that maybe we would even invoke some buyer's remorse; that some of 
my colleagues would come to the Senate floor and want to discuss this 
and maybe learn from the mistakes of the last 10 years. Maybe we could 
achieve a truly normal relationship with China. I want a good strong 
trade relationship with China. I want us to sell products to China. I 
think we should buy products from China. But I want to do it on a level 
playing field, with rules that work for the workers in both countries, 
not just the big corporations that move companies to China, and not 
just for the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military, which 
have benefitted greatly from our trade policy. It is time to learn from 
the last 10 years and to move forward in a very different way.
  Mr. President, 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. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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