America Gives More Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. All the trade agreements since NAFTA have been sold on the same propaganda, that they will increase our exports and jobs, yet the results have always been the same: they have multiplied our imports, ballooned our trade deficits, hemorrhaged our jobs, and depressed our wages.

Now we are asked to vote for a fast-track agreement that will say we cannot amend any trade agreements, only vote them up or down, even if they, like their predecessors, lack any means of protecting our workers from competition with workers who are paid 30 cents an hour and are assassinated if they try to form a union.

We know there will be a provision for private corporate tribunals that can invalidate and render unenforceable American laws and regulations. It is our constitutional duty to regulate foreign commerce and trade agreements, not take them on a take-it-or-leave-it basis from the executive branch. It is our constitutional duty to protect the American sovereignty against foreign companies invalidating our laws through private corporate tribunals.

We must vote ``no'' on fast track to allow Congress to do its job to see that the next trade agreement doesn't hemorrhage our jobs, doesn't ignore currency manipulation, and doesn't invalidate our consumer, labor, and environmental laws. We must say ``no.''

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