Reform Our Trade Policies

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the millions of
high-quality jobs this Nation has outsourced over the last quarter
century because of flawed free trade deals. These job-killing deals,
like NAFTA, have been incredibly harmful to the American economy,
racking up a massive, massive trade deficit of $9.5 trillion. And they
have failed to live up to the promise of creating jobs. Instead, they
have wiped out good jobs, high-paying jobs across our country.

Take Motorola Solutions, for example, which shut down plants all over
our country, from California to Florida. Motorola shut down those
operations and moved production to China, to South America, to Eastern
Europe.

Take Walgreens, which has outsourced its information technology
operations to Mexico, to India, leaving its Illinois employees jobless.

Meanwhile, 6 years after the recession, Ohio and 14 other States have
job markets that have not yet recovered from the number of jobs during
the recession. Hundreds, thousands, millions of quality, good-paying
manufacturing jobs have not returned. Citizens of these States, like
Ohio, are fighting for honest employment.

Since 1976, America has literally outsourced 47.5 million good jobs.
We have a budget deficit because we have a $9.5 trillion trade deficit.

We must support job seekers. More lopsided trade deals are not the
answer. We simply have to reform our trade policies.

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