U.S. Trade Agreements

Floor Speech

U.S. TRADE AGREEMENTS -- (House of Representatives - May 22, 2007)

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Mr. MEEKS of New York. You are exactly right, Mr. Crowley. Some people would like to say individuals, particularly in our hemisphere, that globalization and trade is taking advantage of them, that they are poor. Yet these individuals, long before globalization existed, were poor and taken advantage of. Here is an opportunity because of globalization to give them a hand up.

Part of the problem has been that people have turned their backs on them. When we trade and create jobs and opportunities for them in their country, as well as making sure that we are creating jobs and opportunity in our country, we have what is called a win/win situation.

For example, there is something called FedEx. For every 40 packages that FedEx sends someplace else, we create a job in the United States of America.

Mr. CROWLEY. If the gentleman would yield, I prefer to say for every 40 packages UPS delivers, we create one additional union job.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. And I concur. We are creating opportunities for individuals here in the United States of America, as well as giving individuals an opportunity for jobs in these foreign countries.

Many of the people are in the informal sectors in their communities right now. When you go to South America, you can talk about Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, they are in the informal sector. What we are doing is creating a formal sector where they can get health benefits and talk about creating a future with pensions for their kids for tomorrow. We are talking about giving them a hand up which they don't have now in the informal sector.

Mr. CROWLEY. We're also talking about trade capacity building.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. Absolutely.

Mr. CROWLEY. They are going to want to afford our products the more they can afford our products.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. As a result of that, and I'm direct evidence of it, what they will do is then they will begin to educate their kids so that they can now send their kids to school. And that becomes their focus--to make sure that the next generation is better than theirs as far as education is concerned and health care. It's exactly what we've done in this country. So why should we just say it's exclusively for us and not want to share the benefits of what we've gained in this country with others? That's what leadership is all about, and that's all that we're doing here.

We're not saying that we're going to turn our backs on other individuals, say we're going to help them, and we're going to help yourselves, because you know what, the number one jobs, when you look about creating jobs in America, it's services. The services are creating jobs over and over and over and time and again. And what we're doing also by, you know, trading with our services in other areas, we're creating jobs and opportunities, and, in fact, our businesses, I often say this, become our best ambassadors because they look at the jobs that Americans have created, and they say, well, thank you for lifting us up, thank you, for showing us that you are not turning your backs on us, thank you, because we're the only superpower in the world. So folks are looking at us to be leaders in that regard, and if we turn our backs on them, leaving these individuals not to have hope and opportunity for tomorrow, then we will become the ones that's isolated them, and we should not.

It's good foreign policy. It's good domestic policy, and it just makes overall, good moral sense.

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Mr. MEEKS of New York. You're absolutely right, and here's another reason why trade agreements are important, because if you look at particularly our recent trade agreements, what they do is they level the trade balance. Because a lot of these nations, when you talk about Central America, they were already open to come to our market. They were open to come to the United States. We didn't have access to theirs. So we were able to level the trade imbalances.

And, in fact, when you talk about where we have the biggest imbalance, happens to be with China, but you know what the fact of the matter is? We do not have an FTA agreement with China. We don't even have one with India. We've negotiated them. We were able to negotiate them so that we can balance it so that it's fair to both sides as opposed to it being unfair on one side.

You use the FTAs as an agreement to balance the playing field, to balance the trade imbalances to a large degree as well, as well as create hope and opportunity for people both abroad and at home.

Some folks say they don't like trade at all. Well, I challenge them, especially if you're poor. I come from the southeastern Queens in New York. I was raised in public housing. There's certain things that we can't afford, and I look at poor people, a number of them, some of the trade has helped them because they can now buy some goods that they may not have otherwise been able to afford. So we've got to look at both sides of this. It has created some jobs.

Where we've got to make sure that we're focused in the country is the competitiveness issue. So we've got to make sure that we're educating our young people so that they can take the jobs, the high-paying jobs that, I might add, that globalization and us being a leader in technology and information technology in particular and the services, that we can create opportunities for them.

So, yeah, are there some dangers. If we allow our public educational system to continue to go downhill, and we don't now focus on it, and we don't make sure that our people are educated so that they can take the high-paying jobs that are being created, then, yes, we're in danger of succeeding as a country, period. Education is our greatest resource, and competitiveness is where we've got to go, and that's what our focus should be.

We should be working out together to make sure that we're competitive with the rest of the globe because otherwise we lose out on this. It's not as if to say globalization is a bad thing that's going to go away tomorrow. Obviously it's not, and it's helping millions of people.

There are 6 billion people in the world, 6 billion people in the world. There's only 300 million of us in the United States of America, 300 million. And of the 6 billion people in the world, over 3 billion of them live on less than $2 a day. Why? They're in the informal sector. Why? There's no hope and opportunities for them.

Don't you think that as we being the only world superpower, that we can do something better; being humane, being the country that we are, we could do something better for them?

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Mr. MEEKS of New York. Let me conclude with this.

Number one, I want to just compliment Chairman Rangel and Chairman Levin. They have done a great job. I mean, it's something the Democrats have been asking for since the 1990s, I've been in Congress, to make sure it's been included in every trade bill. They've done a fantastic job to make sure that we protect environmental rights and labor rights, et cetera.

We care about those individuals that we know are going to be hurt, because in any agreement there are people that get hurt, and when we talk about we've got to do a real comprehensive program so people can be retrained and go back to work.

Now that's even more than just trade agreements, because, you know, if you check it out, really, more people have lost their jobs through efficiency and technology. Think about it.

How many people does it take to produce a car today than it did yesterday. When you need a telephone operator, does anyone pick up? It's technology that picks up the telephone. You know, EZPass, and all the conveniences that we currently have. We better do a better job.

I think that Mr. Rangel and Mr. Levin have put that in that we will do a better job, and retraining Americans who are hurt, not only because of trade, but who are out of the job for any reason, whether it's technology or because of a trade agreement.

As Democrats, we are focused on that. We can do that. We can do good by our folks at home, but we also can do good by the people abroad so that we can be the leaders of the Nation. We are the world's only super power.

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