[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 4752-4754]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      TRADE PROMOTION AUTHORITY AND THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, let me start with a story. More than 15 
years ago, a friend and I--I met with friends, and I flew to South 
Texas at my own expense. I wanted to see how the North American Free 
Trade Agreement was working.
  During my first year in Congress 20-plus years ago, in the House of 
Representatives, I helped to lead the opposition to the North American 
Free Trade Agreement. I stood up to a President of my own party, 
President Clinton, who I think was wrong on the North American Free 
Trade Agreement. Since then, I disagreed with President Bush--a 
President not of my party--on his trade policy.
  I wanted to see, 4, 5 years after NAFTA was implemented, what it 
looked like, what went on along the U.S.-Mexican border. As I said, at 
my own expense I rented a car with a couple friends and went to Mexico. 
Here is what I found. I walked into a neighborhood where thousands of 
workers lived, workers who were working in formerly U.S. plants that, 
because of NAFTA, had crossed the river and were relocated in Mexico in 
some areas called maquiladoras. These were American plants that 
relocated to Mexico, producing with very low-income workers, no 
environmental labor standards, and selling those products back into the 
United States. It is a 20th-century, 21st-century way of doing business 
for far too many companies. Unknown in human history, to my knowledge, 
have so many companies, as they have in the United States, incorporated 
their business plans where they shut down production in Sandusky or 
Mansfield, OH, and move production to Wuhan or Shiyan, China, and sell 
those products back into the United States.
  I wanted to see what it looked like. I walked through this 
neighborhood where thousands of workers lived in very abject, poor 
conditions. These were workers working for in most cases American 
companies south of the border in Mexico, for very low wages.
  I walked through these neighborhoods. I saw people living in shacks. 
These shacks were often made of packing materials, maybe wooden crates 
from products that had been shipped in for assembly at these plants, 
cardboard boxes often with the names of the companies on them. They 
were living in conditions like that.
  I walked through the neighborhood, and I saw kind of meandering 
through the neighborhood these ditches filled with industrial and human 
waste. Who knows what was in those ditches. Children were playing 
nearby, walking across and jumping across the ditches, sometimes 
playing far too close to these ditches filled with toxic waste. The 
American Medical Association in those days called that area in Mexico 
across from the United States, across from the Rio Grande River, the 
most toxic place in North America.
  Then I went to an auto plant. Nearby was an auto plant. It was a new 
auto

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plant. It looked a lot like a U.S. auto plant. It was new and modern. 
In fact, it was newer than many auto plants in the United States. The 
workers were working hard. The machines were new. The workers were 
productive. The floors were clean. There was one difference between a 
U.S. auto plant--a plant in Avon Lake or Lorain, OH--there was one 
difference between a U.S. auto plant and a Mexican auto plant. Do you 
know what the difference was? The difference was the Mexican auto plant 
had no parking lot because the workers in Mexico weren't paid enough to 
buy the cars they make.
  Go halfway around the world. Go to China and go to an Apple plant--
actually, it is a Foxconn plant. Apple has hired a Chinese contractor. 
Go to an Apple plant in China. The workers don't make enough in those 
plants to buy the iPhone they make.
  Go to Bangladesh and go to a designer clothing factory, an apparel 
factory, and the workers don't make enough to buy the apparel they 
make.
  Go back to this side of the globe and go to Colombia and go to a farm 
where they are growing cut flowers. The workers don't make enough to 
buy flowers for their girlfriends and wives for Valentine's Day. They 
don't make enough to buy the cut flowers they are growing for 
Americans.
  That is what has happened around the world with these trade 
agreements. You see the same things--a race to the bottom. Almost 
anywhere the United States passes trade agreements, we see workers 
overseas making products they cannot afford for themselves. These trade 
agreements would be different if workers were paid enough that they 
began to make products made in Dayton, OH, or Gallipolis, OH, or Troy, 
OH. Instead, these workers cannot afford to buy the products they are 
making.
  That is what our trade deals force American workers to compete with--
jobs that pay pennies an hour. They lead to a downward wage spiral 
across the globe. Why do most people sitting in this gallery, why do 
most people in this country, unless they are in the top 5 or 10 
percent, why have they not gotten a raise in the last 10 years? The 
middle class in this country has not seen their incomes go up even 
though the wealthy get wealthier, even though companies are more 
profitable, even though executives pay themselves higher bonuses. The 
middle-class wages have been stagnant, partly because of these trade 
agreements and partly because my friends on the other side of the aisle 
won't let us fix the Tax Code, where if you shut down production in 
Lima or in Ravenna, OH, and move it to Wuhan or Shiyan, China, and sell 
it back into the United States, you get a tax break. American companies 
get a tax break for shutting down production in this country and moving 
it overseas and partly because of trade policy.
  The reason people don't get raises in this country--a big reason--is 
because of a trade policy and a tax policy that far too many 
politicians in this body have allowed to happen. That is why we can't 
afford another agreement like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We can't 
allow a fast track of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The last thing we 
need is another NAFTA, another Northern American Freed Trade Agreement. 
We do not need a deal negotiated in secret and rushed--hence the term 
``fast track''--rushed with no amendments, with no real oversight, with 
no access even to reading the text.
  It would intrigue people if they knew that it is harder for a Senator 
or a Senator's staff to get the opportunity to read the Trans-Pacific 
Partnership--this newly negotiated trade deal--it is harder for us to 
get access to read that than it is to read about the Iran sanctions or 
to read a CIA report or to read a classified document from the 
Department of Defense. It is actually harder to get access to the 
Trans-Pacific Partnership, to this trade agreement, to study it, than 
it is to national defense, national security concerns. What are they 
trying to hide? Why would that be?
  I have spent much of the last couple of weeks talking with workers 
and businesses around Ohio. I met with workers like Darryl Parker, a 
former worker at R.G. Steel's Warren, OH, plant and former president of 
the Steelworkers Local 1375. The plant has a proud history dating back 
to 1912. Close to 3 years ago, it was the fourth largest flat-rolled 
steel maker in America. It didn't close because of poor performance. 
These are some of the most productive workers in the world. There is 
one reason 1,300 workers like Darryl lost their jobs: unfair trade.
  I met with Vinny Gaietto in Toledo, a former American Standard 
worker--actually, in Tiffin. I met him in Toledo. Vinny lost his job in 
2007 when the plant closed down and moved to Mexico.
  We cannot allow this to continue. We have no business passing fast 
track to fast track jobs out of this country, to fast track weaker 
environmental rules and worker safety rules.
  Trade policy should ensure a level playing field for all companies 
competing in a global economy. Instead, our trade policy is unfair to 
small businesses, to workers, and to those communities where plants 
shut down one after another. The communities then have to lay off 
teachers, firefighters, police officers, and municipal garbage 
collection workers because their tax base has shrunk because their jobs 
have gone overseas.
  Although worker productivity is higher, they face stagnating wages, 
increased middle-class insecurity, and rising inequality at home. Yet 
corporate profits are up and CEO pay has reached record levels. 
Fundamentally the workers are not sharing in the wealth they have 
created for their employers.
  The reason our economy worked so well after World War II is because 
productivity went up, profits went up, wages went up, but since the 
assault on organized labor and trade unions and the decline of 
unionization in this country, productivity continues to go up, profits 
continue to go up, and executives' compensation and bonuses continue to 
skyrocket, yet wages have stayed flat and most Americans have not had a 
wage increase.
  Last year Wall Street bonuses--just the bonuses on Wall Street--were 
double what all minimum-wage workers earned in the country combined. I 
will say that again. Wall Street bonuses--mostly their Christmas 
bonuses, or whenever they are given--were double what all the minimum-
wage workers in the country made combined.
  We need to invest in supporting workers with a living wage, paid sick 
and family leave, and equal pay for equal work. We need to invest in 
infrastructure. When the State government is cut, we know what 
happens--particularly in my State. When the State government is cut, it 
cuts support for local communities. We know what happens to our 
highways, our streets, and our bridges.
  We fundamentally know that trade, done right, creates prosperity. I 
want trade, and I want more of it. I think Ohioans want trade, but we 
want trade that builds an on-ramp to the middle class here at home and 
lifts workers from poverty in America and around the world. We do not 
want another NAFTA.
  Earlier this month, I visited the Ford plant near Cleveland in Brook 
Park, OH. Ford brought its manufacturing of EcoBoost engines back from 
Valencia, Spain. They invested $200 million and brought 450 new jobs to 
Cleveland. Some companies, such as Ford, are beginning to reshore 
manufacturing jobs because they know our workers are skilled and 
efficient. But auto companies need protections from foreign 
governments' unfair trade practices.
  While I disagree with President Obama on the trade promotion 
authority fast track and on the Trans-Pacific partnership agreement, I 
give him credit for being more aggressive than President Bush or 
President Clinton on enforcing trade rules and trade laws. It makes a 
difference in helping to create jobs.
  Trade agreements must include provisions protecting our workers and 
our companies from foreign governments that artificially manipulate 
their currency. For example, Japan has a history of shutting out 
American auto companies and manipulating their currency to benefit 
their own manufacturers. That policy has worked for Japan,

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but it has not worked for us. In 2013, for every 1 car the United 
States sold to Japan, we imported 99 cars from Japan. That doesn't 
sound like a level playing field, where cars that were made by American 
workers get an opportunity to sell in Japan. It is not much different 
with Korea. Too much is at stake. Our capacity to outcompete and 
outinnovate our competitors depends on our capacity to outmanufacture 
them. That means we need trade policies that will create opportunities 
for workers and small businesses so they can earn a living wage and 
join the middle class.
  I urge my colleagues to demand increased transparency in this 
process. I urge everyone to say no to a deal that shortchanges our 
workers and companies and does not ensure a level playing field.
  We cannot allow another trade deal--we had NAFTA, PNTR with China, 
CAFTA, South Korea, and Colombia, one after another--that sells out our 
workers and ships jobs overseas. It is time for a very different trade 
policy.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOOKER. Madam 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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