Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this so-called Central American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA.

 

Mr. Speaker, prior to my election to congress I had a chance to view the effect of US Trade policy at its most basic level.  That of the American worker.

 

Prior to coming to this Congress, I worked for about twenty years as an ironworker and as a welder.

 

I worked at the General Motors assembly plant in Framingham Massachusetts prior to GM's decision to close that plant and a number of others in Michigan in order to build plants in Mexico.

 

I also worked as a welder at the General Dynamics Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, before foreign competition and misguided trade policies moved that work overseas.

 

And I worked at the US Steel mills in Gary, Indiana, and at the Inland Steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana, before the steel industry relocated to third world countries in order to escape responsible labor and environmental standards.

 

I've seen first-hand the effects anti-worker trade policy has had on American families, and I've seen the devastation that occurs in American cities and towns when we adopt trade policies that encourage U.S. companies to send U.S. jobs overseas.

 

I've seen the impact on our schools and the fabric of our communities when large employers shut down the largest plant in town.

 

I haven't been in the Congress that long, but one of the things that I find surprising is the way people in Washington talk about "job loss."

 

People in Washington talk about job loss like it was a force of nature like the weather, as if a cold front rolled through here and swept two million U.S. jobs with it.

 

The loss of U.S. jobs is not a random event. It is very much the result of deliberate policies that have been adopted to favor stockholders of multinational companies who benefit from those trade agreements and trade policies. 

 

CAFTA is one of those policies.

 

It will result in massive gains for a few favored entities and do nothing for the workers in either the U.S. or in Central America.

 

It is time that we reassess our trade policy and stop rewarding companies for abandoning American workers.  It's also time to stop rewarding political leaders who put short-term profits above the long-term economic health of this nation.

 

It's time to stop U.S. policies that simply exploit foreign workers by adopting trade agreements that have no labor standards or environmental standards.

 

Our experience with NAFTA should inform our decision today.