Feb 14, 2006- America is Not Winning on the Trade Front
HON. MARCY KAPTUR
 OF OHIO
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, FEBRUARYÂ 14, 2006
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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, Americais not winning on the global trade front. Last Friday, the U.S. Department ofCommerce announced the UnitedStates has the largest trade deficit in ourhistory. So many more imports are coming in here than exports, and everyAmerican can affirm that every time they go to shop.
At $725 billion in the red in 2005, that is three-quarters of a trilliondollars, our trade deficit is growing at a rate of more than $1,500,000 everyminute. This total is more than 18 percent higher than one year ago.
Sectors such as agriculture, as well as manufacturing, which once sustaineda thriving economy here, are now withering. For every billion dollars indeficit, we are shedding a minimum of over 10,000 jobs. Workers' wages are notrising, their pensions are being cut, health care costs are going up, andthis is a major contributing factor.
Our manufacturing sector is deteriorating. Since the year 2000, 3 millionmore manufacturing jobs, good jobs, have been outsourced. The 2005 deficit inautos, trucks and automotive parts is $138 billion, the worst ever. Those aredollars we used to put in our own pockets, the pockets of our workers, thepockets of our shareholders, the pockets of the executives. This industry was onceat the cutting edge of the world and the mother of invention. Today, we havebecome an assembly line for imported parts.
Our Trade Representative, Ambassador Portman, comes from my home State of Ohio. He should beintimately aware on a global scale that it is just not a level playing fieldthat parts producers and other exporters face. Yet the deficit in the autosector, which once provided a path to the middle class for millions ofAmericans through living wage jobs, keeps going more and more in the red,another 20 percent just last year. It seems every week we hear about anotherplant shutting down, more layoffs, the most recent set of companies, Delphi.
In agriculture, which used to be America's savior, our global tradebalance in agricultural products showed a mere $27 billion surplus in 1996.That has gone down from $27 to $4 billion, and it is projected we are going tobecome a net food importer. America,the richest agricultural nation in the world, a food importer? That is what ishappening.
Yet the agreements that this administration has signed, including CAFTA,will encourage countries like Brazil and El Salvador to undermine one of ourmost promising agricultural sectors, ethanol, because CAFTA will allowBrazilian ethanol transhipped through Central Americato undermine that promising agricultural sector of our economy.
And what is the Bush administration through Ambassador Portman doing to stopthese hemorrhages? Nothing. Just issuing reports. There is no new enforcementactions, no special bilateral talks with countries with which we are massingthese huge deficits. Today's Congress Daily reports Ambassador Portman issued areport reviewing China'strade practices; China,a most undemocratic nation that represents an alarming chunk of this growingtrade deficit that we have amassed. Indeed, our trade deficit with Chinais at an all-time high, over $200 billion, dollars we used to put in thepockets of American workers.
Mr. Portman did note that the trade relationship between the United States and China ``lacks equity and balance.''Yet his report does absolutely nothing to change it.
By contrast, my bill, the Balancing Trade Act of 2006, H.R. 4405, wouldrequire action in the face of consistent deficits of more than $10 billion witha single country. With 21 bipartisan cosponsors so far, this bill will requireaction from any administration.
With the red ink getting deeper and deeper every minute, with Americanworkers losing, with American communities losing, we need action, not morewhitewashing. What a shame that Washingtonis so out of step with what is happening on every Main Street and every manufacturing andevery agricultural sector of this country.