[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2527-2528]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     STOP OUTSOURCING AMERICAN JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the further 
outsourcing of American jobs through more unfair trade agreements. The 
Obama administration is currently working on the next executive branch 
job-killing so-called ``free trade'' agreement. They are calling it the 
Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.
  The contents of this agreement have been kept secret from the 
American people and Members of Congress and, as well, the general 
public wherever they might live. The administration is using the same 
old failed trade model called ``fast track'' to negotiate this, which 
means whatever they negotiate, we don't get to see, and then they bring 
it up here under a fast track procedure. That process ties our hands. 
They bring it up in one lump-sum vote, with no amendments allowed. And 
they usually do it in a lame-duck session of Congress after election 
and just try to ram it through, usually very late in the evening, often 
in the early morning hours.
  Since fast track was first used, the United States has accumulated 
red ink--trade deficits, more imports coming in here than exports going 
out--for nearly three decades. We have accumulated over $9 trillion in 
trade deficits. If you want to know why we have a budget deficit, it is 
because we have a trade deficit. We have outsourced too many jobs to 
low-wage havens. Go out and try to buy anything made in America; right? 
The American people know this inherently. More than 7 million good-
paying American manufacturing jobs have been lost since fast track was 
first passed.
  Every poll of U.S. opinion tells this Congress: What do the American 
people care about? Jobs and the economy. Jobs and the economy. They 
care about economic recovery. So why is this administration using the 
same old model that goes back to 1975? Now they are looking at the 
Pacific, the Pacific region, as if we haven't had relations with some 
of those countries before. But every other agreement has resulted in 
red ink. The American people want job creation, not job outsourcing.
  Actually, if this President were to refurbish this failed trade model 
and really fix it, it would be the first time in modern history that 
our trade policy would yield job creation in this country, net job 
creation in this country and real income growth for the American 
people.
  Now, let's look at a couple dimensions of this.
  The trade deficit in 2012, the last year for which we have confirmed 
numbers, was half a trillion dollars, $534 billion. That alone resulted 
in over 2

[[Page 2528]]

million lost jobs in this country. That number has just been getting 
worse with each passing decade, more and more jobs lost.
  Let's look at some of the countries. Let's take China. The trade 
deficit in 2000 with China was about $83 billion. It has increased four 
fold. It has quadrupled. In 2012, for which we have confirmed numbers, 
we had over $315 billion in trade deficit with China. Every billion 
equals 4,000 lost jobs in this country. So we are net negative with 
China--a job loss of over 1,200,000 more U.S. jobs.
  With Japan, we have been solidly negative for decades. In 2012, our 
trade deficit with Japan was $76 billion.
  With Mexico, they said after NAFTA, oh, it is going to be great for 
America; there are going to be millions of jobs in the United States. 
Wrong. Our jobs were outsourced. In fact, in the year 2000, we had a 
$24 billion deficit with Mexico. By 2012, that had gone up three times 
more to $61 billion in the red--in the red--our jobs going there, their 
exports coming here, not the reverse. That's 244,000 more lost jobs. 
The numbers don't lie.
  In Korea, we had a discussion with some of the President's advisers. 
They said, well, you know, that was supposed to be the new trade model, 
the Korean trade deal that this President proposed was going to change 
everything. Well, guess what? We are in the red with Korea, too. In 
2000, we already had a $12 billion trade deficit. Yes, more red ink. 
After the new Korean free trade deal, in 2012, it has nearly doubled. 
It is $16.6 billion. And in 2013, just through November, it is nearly 
$20 billion. That is a doubling of the trade deficit with Korea and 
80,000 more lost U.S. jobs.
  So if this fast track free trade is such a great trade model, how is 
it working for the American people? It isn't. None of these trade deals 
are working. It might be working for certain transnational corporations 
who can pay their investors more because of the profits they are making 
off of cheap labor in low wage haven and the lack of environmental 
regulations in these other countries, but it is not working for the 
benefit of the American economy, the American people. It is time to 
change the trade model.
  Let me just put two other numbers on the record here. We have over 
1.5 million Americans over 45 years of age who still are unemployed. 
These are people who have worked their whole lives. We can't even get 
them unemployment benefits and their jobs have been shipped out 
someplace else.
  Mr. Speaker, later in the week I will talk about the cost of 
environment degradation in this country because of imports that are not 
properly regulated by the Department of Agriculture coming over our 
border and doing harm from coast to coast. It's long, long over due for 
a new trade model that benefits our nation and creates jobs here at 
home.

                          ____________________