Congressional Record UNUM

E PLURIBUS

United States

of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 104th CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION

b This symbol represents the time of day during the House proceedings, e.g., b 1407 is 2:07 p.m.

Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor.

H 5379

House of Representatives

Vol. 141 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1995 No. 86

The House met at 10:30 a.m. and was

called to order by the Speaker pro tempore [Mr. KIM

f].

DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO

TEMPORE

The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following communication from the Speaker:

WASHINGTON, DC,

May 23, 1995.

I hereby designate the Honorable JAY KIM

to act as Speaker pro tempore on this day.

NEWT GINGRICH,

The SPEAKER pro tempore. PursuSpeaker of the House of Representatives.

MORNING BUSINESS

fant to the order of the House of May 12,

1995, the Chair will now recognize

Members from lists submitted by the

majority and minority leaders for

morning hour debates. The Chair will

alternate recognition between the parties, with each party limited to not to

exceed 30 minutes, and each Member

except the majority and minority leader limited to not to exceed 5 minutes.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman

from Oregon [Mr. DEFAZIO] for 5 minutes.

Mr. DE

THE TRADE DEFICIT

FAZIO. Mr. Speaker, at the

fend of last week, we got the first quarter’s trade numbers for the United

States, with its trading partners. The

news was grim. We are continuing to

pile up record deficits with virtually

all of our trading partners around the

world.

As everybody knows, a little earlier

this year, in part those record trade

deficits led to a plummeting of the

value of the United States dollar versus the yen and the German mark. The

dollar has recovered a bit but still is at

near post-World War II historic lows. A

lot of the responsibility for this has to

be put at the doorstep of those who

continue to mindlessly follow a trade

policy which came to maturity under

the leadership of Ronald Reagan in the

early 1980’s, following the dictates of

an economist who has been dead for 200

years, Adam Smith, a man who never

saw an airplane, never even saw a

steam engine. Yet this man dictates

the trade policy of the United States of

America.

Only two countries in the world follow Adam Smith’s trade theories. We

are both international basket cases:

the United States of America and

Great Britain. In fact Great Britain is

the only country, major country we are

running a trade surplus with. And it is

time to revisit and review these policies. You cannot run a trade deficit

every year, year after year, any more

than you can run a national deficit

every year, year after year without

having someday to pay the horrible

price. We are paying that price today.

There was a $160 billion trade deficit

last year, according to the Commerce

Department. That means we lost 3.2

million American manufacturing jobs.

And now the North American FreeTrade Agreement, the latest example

of the extension of this disastrous policy, for the first 3 months of this year

the United States ran a $3.8 billion

trade deficit with Mexico, at the same

time that we had to give them $20 billion of our hard-earned money to bail

out their economy. And this is considered a success. It is such a success that

Speaker GINGRICH is calling for an extension of the North American FreeTrade Agreement to other basket case

economies in South America and Latin

America.

I quote:

Unequivocally, I strongly favor adding

Chile to the North American Free-Trade

Agreement and then continuing beyond Chile

to step by step expanding our regional commitment because it is good for America and

it is going to create more jobs in the United

States.

Wrong, Mr. Speaker. We are losing

jobs today to Mexico, $3.8 billion in 3

months according to our own Commerce Department. That means we lost

76,000 United States manufacturing

jobs in 3 months to Mexico. We are

headed more toward a loss of 250,000 or

300,000 jobs in 1 year to Mexico, and we

are paying $20 billion of taxpayers

money for that privilege. And now we

want to extend that to Chile and other

countries in South and Latin America

and we want to do it in such a way that

Congress will not be allowed to work

its will, will not be allowed a single

amendment on the floor of the House.

Why would the Speaker of the House

of Representatives want to give away

the authority to amend a bill on the

floor that has such a dramatic impact

on the economy of the United States?

Yet that is what he is advocating. He

wants to give Bill Clinton, our President, a man who he constantly derides

authority to bring forward a bill, negotiated in secret, which will extend

these disastrous trade policies with no

opportunity for amendment on the

floor of the House or the Senate.

Why is he doing this? Because he is

serving the same masters, the same

masters that have been dictating the

trade policy of this country for 20

years. That is multinational corporations, foreign corporations, and big

business. They are doing well. They are

doing very well, thank you very much.

It just happens to be a disaster for

our economy because of the mounting

trade deficits. A disaster for American

workers because we are exporting their

jobs, and now a disaster for the United

States Treasury because we are even

having to pay Mexico for the privilege

of exporting our jobs there. And the

Speaker wants to extend that policy

because it is such a success.