America's Growing Trade Deficit

Floor Speech

AMERICA'S GROWING TRADE DEFICIT -- (House of Representatives - February 13, 2007)

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, our Nation needs a course correction in our foreign policy, and we are being given the chance by the Democratic leadership this week to debate it fully, as we should have when that resolution was first debated in this House.

Our country needs many course corrections, including on the economy. President Bush's trade policy has clearly failed, as his foreign policy has, as American workers and American businesses find we are losing more jobs to imports again. The confirmed numbers for 2006 released today show that the annual trade deficit in 2006 doubled since this President took office.

In fact, for 2006 the trade deficit equaled $763.6 billion and broke the prior year's trade deficit by adding another 6 percent more deficit from 2005's level of $716 billion.

Five straight years of record deficits have left millions more Americans with displaced jobs, outsourced jobs, unemployment across regions of this country, and putting our financial future in the hands of foreign creditors such as China and Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Speaker, to grant renewed fast track authority to this President would be a serious mistake and irresponsible. This administration needs a course correction by this Congress, both in foreign policy and in domestic economic policy.

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