5-Year Anniversary of CAFTA

Floor Speech

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 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.

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