Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC-CENTRAL AMERICA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to announce my opposition to CAFTA. Some expect Democratic Senators to by and large oppose trade agreements and Republican Senators to support them. I come to this debate as a Democratic Senator who has supported trade agreements in the past. I supported NAFTA, permanent normal trade relations for China, trade agreements for Chile, Singapore, Morocco, and Australia. I think globalization is as inevitable as gravity. We have to accept the fact that America cannot be a rich and prosperous country by selling to ourselves. Merely doing one another's laundry will not create wealth and will not improve our standard of living. We need markets. That is why I have supported trade agreements in the past.

I also understand that as you expand trade, there is pain and there is gain. We have seen it happen throughout the history of the world that as trade expands, some industries expand with it and others decline. When we Americans look at the course of history, we find strong evidence that joining together democracy and free markets is a winning combination. Expanding trade goes hand in hand with pushing the concepts of freedom, ingenuity, innovation, efficiency--all sorts of respect for people at every level. That is one of the reasons I have supported some trade agreements in the past. That is the very reason I oppose CAFTA.

I am disappointed. If there is one casualty in CAFTA, that casualty would be the worker--not just the American worker but the workers in Central America. We know what is happening. We have seen over the past 4 years that America has lost one out of every six manufacturing jobs in the last 4 years and few months. It hit my State pretty hard. Several hundred thousand manufacturing jobs in Illinois are gone, never to return. It is happening across America. The trade policy we have today is exporting jobs. How long can this continue?

We would like to believe that we are going to educate and train a new group of American workers for the 21st century economy. We have to. But in the meantime, should we be entering into trade agreements that encourage the export of good-paying manufacturing jobs from the United States? Should we, instead, be saying that we are going to have trade agreements that make certain we aren't playing to the lowest level? If we have to compete with the countries that pay the lowest wages in the world, we will always lose.

What are we going to say to American workers? Compete at a wage level the same as another country? If you do that, you know what is going to happen to the standard of living. How can you provide for your family? How can you expect to have health insurance? How can you put any money away for your retirement, when you play to that level? That is what this trade agreement does.

Let me tell you two specifics. Senator RON WYDEN of the State of Oregon offered an amendment to this CAFTA agreement which said: If American workers in the service industries lose their jobs because of our decision to enact this trade agreement, we will help retrain them, give them new skills and education so they can go back to work. Displaced workers from service industries would have a fighting chance to get back on their feet and be able to compete. The amendment was rejected by the Bush administration, leaving these workers, who are the victims of CAFTA, high and dry. But there are other workers at stake here, too. I don't think it is unreasonable for us to ask, when a country says they want to trade with us, How do you treat your workers? Do you treat them with dignity? Do you give them a chance to bargain collectively for their future? Do you allow child labor? Do you allow slave labor? Why in the world would we want to get into a trade agreement with a country that is exporting goods to the United States because they exploit the very people who live in their country?

The language in CAFTA is the weakest language I have ever seen in a trade agreement. It basically says to the Central American countries: Just play by your own rules, whatever they happen to be.

That is not enough. It isn't as if we don't know what is coming. Our U.S. Department of Labor, under the Bush administration, ordered a study of the labor laws in the Central American countries that we are entering into this agreement with. That study came out and made the following report:

In practice, labor laws on the books in Central America are not sufficient to deter employers from violations, as actual sanctions for violations of the law are weak or nonexistent.

What does that mean? It means that if you hire children to make textile goods or whatever it happens to be, if you exploit these little kids in one of these countries, if you work people enormous hours without adequate compensation, if you stop them from organizing and bargaining collectively, the laws in Central America are not going to be there to protect those workers. Ordinarily we say: Life is different in other parts of the world. We shouldn't worry about it. These are the very workers who will make the products who will compete with America. That is what it comes down to. Are we going to continue to play to the lowest common denominator, that as long as businesses are profitable in their trade agreements, we don't want to know the details? That is what this trade agreement does.

Under this administration, workers are expendable. They are expendable in the United States, and they are expendable in the countries that we are entering into agreements with.

That is a sad reality.

I know that there are going to be changes, and we have to accept economic change. But wouldn't we want to stand by American workers first and their families? We have done it in some other agreements--the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the Generalized System of Preferences. This agreement is one of the weakest I have ever seen when it comes to the rights of working people. In those countries in Central America, it is not uncommon to face blacklisting, violence, even assassination of union organizers. It goes largely unpunished. This agreement would not move us one step toward more civilized treatment of workers in those countries.

If we truly care about the basic protections that are supposed to be behind a free-market economy and democracy, we ought to protect American workers first, not rush to the bottom when it comes to labor standards. We ought to enter into trade agreements where parties are not free to ignore labor standards and basic human rights. That is what is at stake.

Since this President took office, we have lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs--1 out of 6--and 140,000 in my home State in the last 4 1/2 years. It is a tragic, dismal, and shameful record of American workers losing their opportunities. And this trade agreement, sadly, will only make it worse.

Let me tell you about the group that, frankly, will prosper the most from this agreement. It will come as no surprise to you if you understand the political dynamics of Capitol Hill.

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One of the special interest groups with more power in Washington than any others is the pharmaceutical industry. We have seen it time and time again. When we go into a bill for Medicare prescription drug benefits, we say: Would you not want Medicare to bargain with the drug companies so seniors across America would pay lower prices? No way. It was kept out of the bill so that the pharmaceutical and drug companies can charge exorbitantly high prices to American citizens. That is why people are going to Canada, Mexico, and Europe trying to find cheaper drugs. It is because their Governments care, they force competition, they keep prices down. Not our Government. Along comes a trade agreement. What could that have to do with the pharmaceutical companies and drug companies? There are roughly 165,000 people in the Central American nations living with HIV/AIDS. These are low-income countries where the people are struggling to survive and medicine is barely affordable.

Doctors Without Borders--you may have heard of this fabulous organization based out of France, doing wonderful work all around the world. They provide drugs to HIV patients, and 1,600 in Guatemala alone. They rely on generic drugs because they cannot afford the most expensive drugs. They cost less than brand-named drugs. They can keep a person alive with HIV/AIDS in Guatemala for $216 a year. If they had to pay for the brand name, it would be $4,818. That is the difference--more than 20 times the cost.

I know these patents to drug companies are important. They help to spur innovation by rewarding companies for investing. We need a careful balance where we allow generic drugs in these Central American countries and not abuse the patents of the drug companies unnecessarily. At the global level, there has been an active debate about this very issue. We have had agreements that have been entered into. These agreements try to strike a careful balance between allowing more inexpensive drugs in the poor countries and still protect the patents.

Sadly, this CAFTA agreement destroys the balance that has been entered into in previous agreements. This CAFTA trade agreement requires CAFTA countries to adopt provisions, such as keeping testing data for drugs secret for longer periods of time than even required in the United States of America. And without access to testing data, it becomes nearly impossible for new generic companies to break into the market and provide the drugs for these people in Central America, and some, of course, in our region.

CAFTA will require countries to extend the lives of patents, under certain circumstances, for even longer periods of time than is permitted under U.S. law. This is a bonanza for pharmaceutical companies. They will make more money out of this agreement because we put their special interest provisions into this trade understanding. These provisions will apply to new drugs as they are developed, not existing generics.

The long delays that CAFTA will impose means patients will have to wait even longer to get access to lifesaving treatment. I think when you look at this and you understand workers are losing, you have to understand as well that a lot of sick people with HIV/AIDS are going to lose, too. People are struggling to survive, and they will fall victim to the profit margins of American pharmaceutical companies. Those are the priorities--the priorities of CAFTA.

Why aren't the American workers the priority of CAFTA? Why aren't the workers of Central America the priorities of CAFTA? Why is America's record of humanitarian care when it comes to using these drugs all around the world--why isn't that the priority?

Let me speak about agriculture. I come from a strong agricultural State. I have promoted or stood behind many trade agreements in the past because it helped create agricultural markets. But CAFTA countries, Central American countries, have a combined population of about 31 million people who generally have limited incomes with which to purchase agricultural products. The market is worth about $1.6 billion in annual agricultural exports. That is a large sum, but in the perspective of all of the exports we have, it is not overwhelming. Many key U.S. commodities already have open access to the Central American market. About 94 percent of all grains imported into the six CAFTA countries comes from the United States. This domination means there is little room for further upward growth when it comes to agriculture. So I think when we look at this, we have to ask a more important question: Think about the Central American country for a moment. Think about a subsistence farmer living in the countryside of one of these Central American countries who is growing grain.

Assume it is corn for the moment. Think about the possibility that this trade agreement means that more and cheaper corn will come in from the United States to this Central American country. Think what happens to that poor farmer and his family if he can no longer eke out a living for himself and his family and sell enough to continue on, and he has to leave his farm--and it happens all the time--because of this agreement. Where does that peasant farmer go? His first stop is likely to be a large city in Central America, San Jose in Costa Rica, or some other city. Failing to find a job in that city, where is his next stop? El Norte, the United States.

So as we assault the economies of Central America, without respect for their workers, without respect for their farmers, we create economic instability which moves families into cities first, and finally, in desperation, to anyplace they can go to find any job to survive. Now, there may be large companies that will make great profits out of CAFTA. But, sadly, they are not taking into consideration what it is going to mean to workers and to a lot of smaller companies in the United States that will not survive this trade agreement.

If there was ever a time in our history when we should step back, as we face the largest trade deficit in the United States, as we see countries such as China around the world exploiting us because they are buying our debt--the largest national deficit in the history of the United States under the Bush administration--and understand that China and these countries will continue to exploit us on the trade side--China manipulates its currency, and we don't do anything about it. We don't even talk about it. Because of that manipulation, they take away American jobs.

This Senator has voted for trade agreements in the past. I will not vote for this one. If we are going to have trade agreements, there should be laws enforced on both sides, exporters and importers. Sadly, that has not been the case. This CAFTA agreement will hurt American workers, hurt the workers of Central America, be a bonanza for American pharmaceutical companies, and create instability in the United States.

It could not come at a worse time. I look forward to voting against it.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose CAFTA for the reasons I stated earlier. It seems logical to say that if we want to expand our export markets, we should be negotiating with countries who have a more sizable market for our goods and greater buying power to purchase our goods. However, these CAFTA countries account for only 1.5 percent of U.S. exports.

Illinois is an agriculture State. I have supported prior trade agreements because of the benefit they have provided to agriculture. However, estimates that passage of CAFTA will produce sizable trade gains for U.S. farmers are overly optimistic. CAFTA countries have a combined population of approximately 31 million people who generally have limited incomes with which to purchase agriculture products. In fact, the market is only worth $1.6 billion in annual agriculture products.

According to the most recent data, the U.S. supplied 94 percent of all grains imported into the six CAFTA countries. This domination means there is little room for further upward growth in grain exports to CAFTA nations.

I believe in international trade, provided it is fair trade and can expand our economy and create jobs. But I have concluded that this trade agreement will not do that. It is merely another product of this administration's failed trade strategy--a strategy that has victimized American manufacturers while costing millions of American workers their jobs. The administration is so wedded to the notion that all is well that it cannot hear the cries of those who would be harmed by this trade agreement. The failure to take sufficient and educated steps to strengthen America's future in this trade agreement is why I am opposing CAFTA.

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