America is not Winning on the Trade Front

AMERICA IS NOT WINNING ON THE TRADE FRONT -- (House of Representatives - February 14, 2006)

02/14/06

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Ohio?

There was no objection.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, America is not winning on the global trade front. Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the United States has the largest trade deficit in our history. So many more imports are coming in here than exports, and every American can affirm that every time they go to shop.

At $725 billion in the red in 2005, that is three-quarters of a trillion dollars, our trade deficit is growing at a rate of more than $1,500,000 every minute. This total is more than 18 percent higher than one year ago.

Sectors such as agriculture, as well as manufacturing, which once sustained a thriving economy here, are now withering. For every billion dollars in deficit, we are shedding a minimum of over 10,000 jobs. Workers' wages are not rising, their pensions are being cut, health care costs are going up, and this is a major contributing factor.

Our manufacturing sector is deteriorating. Since the year 2000, 3 million more manufacturing jobs, good jobs, have been outsourced. The 2005 deficit in autos, trucks and automotive parts is $138 billion, the worst ever. Those are dollars we used to put in our own pockets, the pockets of our workers, the pockets of our shareholders, the pockets of the executives. This industry was once at the cutting edge of the world and the mother of invention. Today, we have become an assembly line for imported parts.

Our Trade Representative, Ambassador Portman, comes from my home State of Ohio. He should be intimately aware on a global scale that it is just not a level playing field that parts producers and other exporters face. Yet the deficit in the auto sector, which once provided a path to the middle class for millions of Americans through living wage jobs, keeps going more and more in the red, another 20 percent just last year. It seems every week we hear about another plant shutting down, more layoffs, the most recent set of companies, Delphi.

In agriculture, which used to be America's savior, our global trade balance in agricultural products showed a mere $27 billion surplus in 1996. That has gone down from $27 to $4 billion, and it is projected we are going to become a net food importer. America, the richest agricultural nation in the world, a food importer? That is what is happening.

Yet the agreements that this administration has signed, including CAFTA, will encourage countries like Brazil and El Salvador to undermine one of our most promising agricultural sectors, ethanol, because CAFTA will allow Brazilian ethanol transhipped through Central America to undermine that promising agricultural sector of our economy.

And what is the Bush administration through Ambassador Portman doing to stop these hemorrhages? Nothing. Just issuing reports. There is no new enforcement actions, no special bilateral talks with countries with which we are massing these huge deficits. Today's Congress Daily reports Ambassador Portman issued a report reviewing China's trade practices; China, a most undemocratic nation that represents an alarming chunk of this growing trade deficit that we have amassed. Indeed, our trade deficit with China is at an all-time high, over $200 billion, dollars we used to put in the pockets of American workers.

Mr. Portman did note that the trade relationship between the United States and China ``lacks equity and balance.'' Yet his report does absolutely nothing to change it.

By contrast, my bill, the Balancing Trade Act of 2006, H.R. 4405, would require action in the face of consistent deficits of more than $10 billion with a single country. With 21 bipartisan cosponsors so far, this bill will require action from any administration.

With the red ink getting deeper and deeper every minute, with American workers losing, with American communities losing, we need action, not more whitewashing. What a shame that Washington is so out of step with what is happening on every Main Street and every manufacturing and every agricultural sector of this country.

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