Protecting Labor in Nafta

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my grave concerns surrounding the new NAFTA whose new rebranding as the USMCA masks its real content.

The original NAFTA devastated the industrial Midwest and communities from coast to coast. Manufacturing communities were hollowed out. Factories closed. Jobs were outsourced to Mexico for cheap labor. Mexico's peasants were uprooted. Plant shutdown after plant shutdown saw U.S. wages and benefits plummet.

President Trump hit a nerve with these communities with his lofty promises, promises of which we should all remain skeptical, especially in the trade arena.

We heard these hollow promises 25 years ago to pass the original NAFTA. Now NAFTA 2.0 stands to make many of the same mistakes based on false promises of returning quality jobs with life-sustaining wages.

This won't happen without true labor enforcement, but the current text of NAFTA 2.0 falls far short of that target. That is why I plan to introduce legislation to set the mark on labor enforcement on this continent under NAFTA 2.0 and any future agreement. The workers of this continent deserve no less. We respect their dignity.

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