United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

Floor Speech

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman from Maine for yielding and rise in opposition to the proposed South Korea trade accord.

Look, my friends, South Korea's market is basically closed. You can't see any other cars on the road there other than Korean cars. And American policy has allowed jobs to be whittled away here at home through a trade agenda that outsources U.S. production and American jobs. Every single year we have a trade deficit with South Korea now. Why do we want to make it worse? Do you know what? The American people know it. They're living it. They want us to fix it. They're pouring out into the streets of America to tell us.

Last year, our trade deficit with South Korea already was over $10 billion. That translates into more lost jobs here at home. But rather than stopping this outsourcing of America, the executive branch and some of their allies up here keep concocting more of the same NAFTA-type trade agreements that increase our trade deficit, and obviously even more with South Korea now.

The Economic Policy Institute analysis predicts this proposed agreement with South Korea will cost us 159,000 more lost jobs, net, and the International Trade Commission verifies that.

Isn't it time that we put Americans back to work here inside our country rather than giving them more of the same red ink?

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