The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STOP OUTSOURCING AMERICAN JOBS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1597-H1598 on Feb. 5, 2014.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STOP OUTSOURCING AMERICAN JOBS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the further outsourcing of American jobs through more unfair trade agreements. The Obama administration is currently working on the next executive branch job-killing so-called ``free trade'' agreement. They are calling it the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.
The contents of this agreement have been kept secret from the American people and Members of Congress and, as well, the general public wherever they might live. The administration is using the same old failed trade model called ``fast track'' to negotiate this, which means whatever they negotiate, we don't get to see, and then they bring it up here under a fast track procedure. That process ties our hands. They bring it up in one lump-sum vote, with no amendments allowed. And they usually do it in a lame-duck session of Congress after election and just try to ram it through, usually very late in the evening, often in the early morning hours.
Since fast track was first used, the United States has accumulated red ink--trade deficits, more imports coming in here than exports going out--for nearly three decades. We have accumulated over $9 trillion in trade deficits. If you want to know why we have a budget deficit, it is because we have a trade deficit. We have outsourced too many jobs to low-wage havens. Go out and try to buy anything made in America; right? The American people know this inherently. More than 7 million good-
paying American manufacturing jobs have been lost since fast track was first passed.
Every poll of U.S. opinion tells this Congress: What do the American people care about? Jobs and the economy. Jobs and the economy. They care about economic recovery. So why is this administration using the same old model that goes back to 1975? Now they are looking at the Pacific, the Pacific region, as if we haven't had relations with some of those countries before. But every other agreement has resulted in red ink. The American people want job creation, not job outsourcing.
Actually, if this President were to refurbish this failed trade model and really fix it, it would be the first time in modern history that our trade policy would yield job creation in this country, net job creation in this country and real income growth for the American people.
Now, let's look at a couple dimensions of this.
The trade deficit in 2012, the last year for which we have confirmed numbers, was half a trillion dollars, $534 billion. That alone resulted in over 2 million lost jobs in this country. That number has just been getting worse with each passing decade, more and more jobs lost.
Let's look at some of the countries. Let's take China. The trade deficit in 2000 with China was about $83 billion. It has increased four fold. It has quadrupled. In 2012, for which we have confirmed numbers, we had over $315 billion in trade deficit with China. Every billion equals 4,000 lost jobs in this country. So we are net negative with China--a job loss of over 1,200,000 more U.S. jobs.
With Japan, we have been solidly negative for decades. In 2012, our trade deficit with Japan was $76 billion.
With Mexico, they said after NAFTA, oh, it is going to be great for America; there are going to be millions of jobs in the United States. Wrong. Our jobs were outsourced. In fact, in the year 2000, we had a
$24 billion deficit with Mexico. By 2012, that had gone up three times more to $61 billion in the red--in the red--our jobs going there, their exports coming here, not the reverse. That's 244,000 more lost jobs. The numbers don't lie.
In Korea, we had a discussion with some of the President's advisers. They said, well, you know, that was supposed to be the new trade model, the Korean trade deal that this President proposed was going to change everything. Well, guess what? We are in the red with Korea, too. In 2000, we already had a $12 billion trade deficit. Yes, more red ink. After the new Korean free trade deal, in 2012, it has nearly doubled. It is $16.6 billion. And in 2013, just through November, it is nearly
$20 billion. That is a doubling of the trade deficit with Korea and 80,000 more lost U.S. jobs.
So if this fast track free trade is such a great trade model, how is it working for the American people? It isn't. None of these trade deals are working. It might be working for certain transnational corporations who can pay their investors more because of the profits they are making off of cheap labor in low wage haven and the lack of environmental regulations in these other countries, but it is not working for the benefit of the American economy, the American people. It is time to change the trade model.
Let me just put two other numbers on the record here. We have over 1.5 million Americans over 45 years of age who still are unemployed. These are people who have worked their whole lives. We can't even get them unemployment benefits and their jobs have been shipped out someplace else.
Mr. Speaker, later in the week I will talk about the cost of environment degradation in this country because of imports that are not properly regulated by the Department of Agriculture coming over our border and doing harm from coast to coast. It's long, long over due for a new trade model that benefits our nation and creates jobs here at home.
____________________
