[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 4296-4297]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              TRADE AGENDA

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, we were considering, earlier this 
morning, when I was presiding--and through much of the morning--the 
Small Business Innovative Research bill. Senator Landrieu and Senator 
Snowe are leading very well on that issue.
  I would like to speak for a moment about another important issue for 
small businesses and workers everywhere; that is, our Nation's trade 
and globalization agenda.
  As my colleagues are aware, the Generalized System of Preferences, 
the so-called GSP, the Andean Trade Preferences for Colombia and 
Ecuador, and the 2009 reforms to the Trade Adjustment Assistance 
Program all expired in mid-February.
  I do not think too many people are happy about that. I am certainly 
not. I have offered amendments with Senator Casey and requested 
unanimous consent to pass both the Andean Trade Preferences and the 
Trade Adjustment Assistance, but my Republican colleagues objected.
  Others, such as Senator McCain, requested a unanimous consent on only 
the Andean Trade Preferences, and I have objected. I have objected 
because we cannot turn our back on American workers who lose their jobs 
through no fault of their own, only to, then, help workers in other 
countries.
  Since Congress made reforms to the Trade Adjustment Assistance 
Program in 2009--trade adjustment assistance has been with us since the 
Kennedy administration. It clearly works. When workers lose their job 
through no fault of their own, they get some assistance from the 
government to go back to school to get retrained so they can be 
productive workers again. Again, they lost their jobs through no doing 
of their own.
  But since Congress made the reforms in 2009, 170,000 additional 
trade-impacted workers became eligible for training under the TAA for 
Workers Program. So if somebody loses their job because of a trade 
agreement we pass in this institution--trade agreements that I think 
were wrongheaded: NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, other kinds of trade 
agreements with Australia and Jordan and Panama and Peru--when workers 
lose their job because of these agreements, we at least owe it to them 
to help them with trade adjustment assistance.
  But since this program expired last month, we have shut out service 
workers, we have shut out manufacturing workers who lost their jobs to 
countries we do not have a free-trade agreement with. So we do not 
actually have a free-trade agreement with China or India. We did 
something called PNTR with China.
  So if a worker in Dayton or Toledo or Findlay or Zanesville loses 
their job because of a trade agreement to China or India, they are out 
of luck. They do not get TAA. How awful is that? They worked at a 
plant, where that plant moved because of trade being moved to China, 
but they do not get any kind of assistance. It was not their fault.
  It should not work that way.
  In addition, improvements to the Health Coverage Tax Credit Program 
also expired. HCTC helps trade-affected workers purchase private health 
coverage to replace the employer-sponsored coverage they lost. Again, 
they lost their job because of a trade agreement. They cannot afford 
health insurance because they do not have much money and they get some 
tax credit from the government to help them be able to afford this 
health care. It has helped thousands of workers manage hospital costs, 
medication, and necessary doctor visits. Without it, not only do 
Americans lose their jobs, but they are at risk of losing their health 
insurance. They generally cannot afford their health insurance, which 
also may lead them more likely to lose their home and suffer from 
foreclosure.
  TAA--trade adjustment assistance--and HCTC--health coverage tax 
credit--have both expired. They must be renewed regardless of whether 
this Congress considers or passes any new trade agreement.
  Ambassador Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, will soon be 
submitting the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement to Congress. I have 
expressed my concerns about this agreement. I am concerned it will be a 
step backward for American manufacturing, especially in the auto 
industry. I am concerned that low-wage Asian nations will use Korea as 
a platform to export auto parts and steel--duty free--to the United 
States. They will come in from some country to Korea--maybe China, 
maybe India, maybe somewhere else--through Korea and then get access to 
U.S. markets duty free.
  These are serious concerns. This is not theory. This is based on what 
has happened since passing other free-trade agreements. Every time we 
pass a free-trade agreement, the supporters of it say there are going 
to be more American jobs and we are going to close the trade deficit. 
It never does. It is always false manufacturing jobs. In northern West 
Virginia and in much of my State, we have seen that inflicted on 
families day after day after day, and it means a larger trade deficit.
  At least we will have the time to debate and consider the Korean 
trade agreement. Unfortunately, several of my colleagues across the 
aisle don't even want to consider the Korean trade agreement unless it 
is packaged with the Colombia and Panama trade agreements. So on top of 
not extending trade adjustments, on top of not extending the health 
care tax credit, our Republican colleagues want to move on all three 
leftover Bush trade agreements: Korea and Colombia and Panama. These 
trade deals will not be winners for American workers. We know our 
exports increase with free-trade agreements. We also know our imports 
increase to a larger degree.
  The first President Bush said that when we have a trade surplus or 
deficit of $1 billion, it translates into 13,000 jobs. So a $1 billion 
trade deficit is 13,000 lost jobs. A $1 billion trade surplus is 13,000 
increased jobs. That is President Bush's numbers. We can just do the 
math.
  We have trade deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars in this 
country, and when production jobs move offshore, innovation is not far 
behind. All of us, including the Presiding Officer, have gone through 
manufacturing plants, and what we see there are workers and engineers 
trying to figure out how to innovate and how to increase productivity, 
how to make production more efficient and less expensive.
  If we innovate in this country and invent in this country and then we 
send those jobs overseas for production, we begin to lose the 
innovative edge because over there, whether it is Mexico or China or 
India or Japan or anywhere else, when the production is done, then the 
innovation is also done on the shop floor. So while we brag about being 
the most inventive, innovative people on Earth--which we are--the 
future doesn't necessarily work that way as we outsource so many of 
these jobs.
  We have seen how these free-trade agreements give incentives to move 
production overseas, and instead of taking away those incentives, 
instead of giving incentives to American companies to manufacture over 
here, we do the opposite by passing the Korean Free Trade Agreement or 
Peru or NAFTA or CAFTA or any of those.
  Peru's President Garcia spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Congress before 
signing the Peru Free Trade Agreement. He said: ``Come and open your 
factories in my country so we can sell your own products back to the 
United States.'' Come sell your own products back to the United States. 
How is that good for American workers? How is that good for innovation? 
How is that good for American manufacturing? How is that good for 
American middle-class communities? It has become a business plan for 
far too many companies in this country. Think about, in the broad sweep 
of history, how often this has

[[Page 4297]]

happened, where the business plan for a U.S. company is, they invent 
something here, then produce it in China, thousands and thousands of 
miles away, and then it is shipped back to the United States, back to 
the home country. That is the business model for far too many 
companies. If they were to set up in China and sell into China and east 
Asia, that would be one thing. But company after company after American 
company has gone abroad, done the production there, sold it back into 
the United States, so it is not providing the work for American workers 
that it should.
  Again, my colleagues are holding people who need retraining and 
adjustment hostage to another trade agreement. So they are saying: If 
you don't pass Colombia and Panama and Korea, then we are not going to 
extend trade adjustment assistance, we are not going to extend the 
health coverage tax credit.
  Free trade's biggest supporters put so much stock into these free-
trade agreements and they do so ignoring the elephant in the room, and 
I am talking about our relationship with China. Congress approved China 
PNTR more than 10 years ago. We know what has happened. We have had 
literally $\1/2\ billion a day in trade deficits with China. That means 
we buy $500 million a day more in products from China than we sell to 
China. That is what a trade deficit of $\1/2\ billion a day means--that 
we actually are buying $500 million every single day more from China 
than we are selling to China. That is not a long-term sign of 
prosperity. That is not a long-term indicator of the strengthening of 
the middle class.
  Until we figure out where we are going on trade and put a halt to 
these trade agreements and look at what we need to do instead, we are 
going to continue to see the shrinking of the middle class.
  Last week, an appeals court of the World Trade Organization made a 
horrendous decision in favor of China against our trade remedy laws. 
The WTO has again overreached beyond WTO laws and rules against our 
antidumping and countervailing duty laws. These laws have been the only 
way to protect ourselves and protect our economy and protect our 
communities and protect our workers and protect our small businesses. 
One of the last tools we have to defend against unfair trade law are 
these trade remedy laws, and the WTO, with a bunch of bureaucratic 
trade lawyers, is taking them away. The WTO risks its own legitimacy 
with a ruling like this one.
  I urge the Obama administration to respond aggressively to this 
decision. I urge my colleagues to step back from this stalled trade 
agenda--step back from Korea, Panama, and Colombia. I urge my 
colleagues to examine instead what is in the best interests of American 
workers and businesses. We can find a balanced trade agenda that makes 
sense for our businesses, makes sense for our workers, and makes sense 
for our communities.

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