Veteran Treatment Court Coordination Act of 2019
Floor Speech
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Mr. REED. Mr. President, today we consider these amendments to NAFTA. I opposed the original NAFTA in 1993 because I believed it would kill American jobs and failed to protect the environment. I oppose this version now, because it does not substantially improve on what was a bad deal all those years ago.
I appreciate the concessions my colleagues were able to force President Trump to accept that strengthen protections for workers, but at the end of the day, these changes don't go far enough. I am concerned that this trade agreement could continue NAFTA's suppression of wages here at home instead of lifting them. This agreement also doesn't prioritize protecting our environment and will contribute to environmental damage and degradation, and it will continue President Trump's failed economic priorities that primarily benefit the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of hard-working, middle-class, and blue collar taxpayers.
A well-crafted free trade deal should provide reciprocal benefits, contain sufficient labor standards that preserve and create jobs here at home, and include environmental and other protections to ensure that trade is conducted fairly.
If well-crafted, trade policy can be a vital part of our economic and security efforts. Ideally, it would serve to achieve our Nation's policy objectives. The simple fact is that there are winners and there are losers in any trade agreement. The loss of economic security as a result of trade agreement after trade agreement over decades stems from a frequent failure to provide guaranteed and significant assistance to dislocated workers and small businesses that are negatively impacted by increased trade. A little money for training in a massive economy just hasn't cut it.
In. 1993, I thought that NAFTA failed this test and as a result would be bad for Rhode Island's workers, manufacturers, and small businesses. I outlined a number of concerns at the time.
I believed that NAFTA would increase incentives for companies to move factories and outsource jobs to Mexico--depressing wages for American workers. I also worried that the conditions on the ground in Mexico and the disposition of its government were not conducive to a free-trade agreement. Sadly, many of these concerns were later realized. NAFTA, along with increased globalization, certainly contributed to stagnating wages, loss of jobs, and a diminishing manufacturing base. Businesses outsourced jobs and moved factories to Mexico where costs and wages were lower. Labor standards were not adequate or enforced and workers were taken advantage of. Additionally, there were lax environmental standards, further incentivizing businesses to move jobs to Mexico, and which have proven harmful to our environment.
Alternating between threatening to withdraw from NAFTA and imposing tariffs on dubious national security grounds, President Trump damaged critical relationships for, at best, marginal gains. That is what is so confounding. Out of the very chaos that President Trump has sown, we could have emerged with a much better, stronger NAFTA but that is not where we find ourselves.
According to a report conducted by the U.S. International Trade Commission, USITC, released in April, the USITC forecasts that the new NAFTA ``would raise U.S. real GDP by $68.2 billion (0.35 percent) and U.S. employment by 176,000 jobs (0.12 percent)'' once implemented, years in the future. While each new job is critically important, these projections in no way match the rhetoric that President Trump spins and demonstrate that the new NAFTA is essentially the same as the old NAFTA from an economic perspective. It is also not clear that jobs lost as a result of NAFTA will be recovered, as has been claimed by some of the new NAFTA's proponents.
Similarly, I believe that many of the concerns that I had with NAFTA and other trade agreements remain, particularly with respect to the protection of workers and our environment and ensuring tough enforcement mechanisms. I note the absence of a specific and robust Trade Adjustment Assistance Program to assist workers negatively impacted by increased trade in the implementing legislation--such assistance was at least included in 1993. The implementing legislation contains $843 million dollars in new spending. This includes resources to enforce environmental and labor standards in Mexico. Yet it does not include funding to assist American workers and small businesses who are negatively impacted by trade. As a result of any trade agreement, there are those who benefit and those who are hurt. We should always insist that there are sufficient provisions to assist workers who will lose out.
Environmental standards and protections were inadequately accounted for in 1993, and the fact that they are not sufficiently stringent here is very disappointing. Climate change is having a serious impact on our environment and our economy. Safeguarding the environment is the right thing to do. It also helps ensure our workers can compete on an even playing field. Jobs are typically outsourced because it is cheaper to do business somewhere else. The absence of stringent and enforceable environmental standards in NAFTA contributed to a rush to move the production of goods to Mexico. It also hurt our environment. As we consider the new NAFTA, Australia is being ravaged by wildfires that many scientists argue are exacerbated by climate change. Our trade policy should intentionally include efforts to recognize and combat climate change. The new NAFTA fails to tackle this challenge that today's and every succeeding generation for the foreseeable future will have to confront, and my colleague from Rhode Island has made this point in greater and granular detail.
In l993, conditions in Mexico and the disposition of its government were not conductive to a free-trade agreement. Mexico's democratic institutions and law enforcement agencies were weak and susceptible to corruption. As is frequently reported in the news, this remains a challenge for Mexico. If Mexico cannot arrest certain of its citizens for fear of cartel violence, it seems unreasonable to believe that it will be able to effectively inspect factories for alleged labor violations in territory controlled by cartels or factories in which cartels have an interest.
In order to revitalize manufacturing in America, we need a commitment to workers. We need to make national investments in infrastructure and innovation. But, instead, what President Trump is offering is a repackaging and rebranding of NAFTA.
President Trump may not be an expert on a lot of things, but he knows the importance of branding. He thinks he can call NAFTA terrible, fiddle around the edges, re brand it as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, NAFTA 2.0, or whatever name he wants to come up with, and then call it great, big, and beautiful, when in reality, he hasn't solved a problem.
Further, the new NAFTA fits neatly into President Trump's habit of creating a problem, sowing chaos, and then seeking credit when he provides a ``solution'' that is marginally better than where he began or worse.
Many proponents of the new NAFTA explain that an important reason to vote in favor of this deal is that if ratified, it will remove ``uncertainty'' from the economy and our relationship with our NAFTA partners. However, the main cause of uncertainty from our relationship with Canada and Mexico was created by President Trump through his erratic threats to our neighbors and trading partners. The arsonist is not a hero for putting out the blaze he intentionally set.
The President's pattern of behavior is prevalent throughout his trade policy. The President's tariffs and tweets are having a damaging effect. Indeed, while President Trump continues to assert that China is paying the cost, economists, including those from the Federal Reserve, have instead proven that these tariffs are being paid by American families, workers, farmers, small businesses, and manufacturers.
These NAFTA amendments are just another example of an economic policy that provides crumbs to the middle-class. It goes hand in hand with the President and Republicans in Congress choosing to spend $1.9 trillion on tax cuts for the biggest companies and the wealthiest one percent of Americans who were recently estimated to already control more than a third of America's wealth. It is no wonder the President's tax law is unpopular. People can read the paper and see the list of those now paying little to nothing in taxes, while their taxes remain more or less the same and investment in roads and other infrastructure, education, or healthcare facilities goes unmet.
We should be focusing our attention on lifting up working families and small businesses and ensuring that our Nation is on sound financial footing. While some of my Democratic colleagues had a hand in improving the initial agreement, it still fails to provide adequately for Rhode Island's workers and small businesses or the environment. Just like the old NAFTA, I cannot support this new one.
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