Jul 12, 2006- TRADE BALANCING ACT OF 2006

HON. MARCY KAPTUR
OF OHIO
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2006

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, newspapers across the world today carry the storythat China has hit a newrecord in terms of its exports to countries like the United States. Surges in exportsall over the world demonstrate that since last year, the Chinese have actuallyincreased their exports by over 25 percent, and since the beginning of thisyear by 55 percent. Truly, this Nation is the dump market of the world.We are absorbing everybody else's imports, and nations like China are nottaking as many exports as they could from us in order that we have a balancedtrade account. Newspapers like the Toronto Star indicate that this new recordsurpasses the record that was set last month in May.

As you think about the outsourcing of jobs in the United States of America,going to Mexico, going to China, it is very interesting that the United Statesis cashing itself out in order to float its currency and its borrowings duringthis period of time when the Bush administration and its allies here in theCongress are driving us into deeper and deeper debt, more and more borrowing.This is a reciprocal of that kind of phony economy here at home.

In China, even the Chineseadmit that that country needs to rely more on domestic demand, selling thingsinside their own country rather than exporting everything to the United States.And if China'sindustrial boom, and they grew about 10 percent since the beginning of thisyear, is to be sustained, they have to start selling to their own people.

Years ago, they said the answer to the trade issues with the Asian countries,the Asian tigers, is to manipulate the currency rate. So you hear a lot ofdiscussion in this country about the Treasury trying to rig the relationshipbetween the yuan in Chinaand the U.S. dollar. But the facts are that the United States is in a huge tradedeficit with almost every other industrial country in the world, and we arehaving to borrow in order to float the borrowings that we are doing on thetrade accounts in order to sustain the hollowing out of our economy.

Recently Maytag announced its closure in the State of Iowa. All the way back to when Goodyearfirst closed in Los Angeles,we have a reborn steel industry. Our steel industry was killed back in the1980s, but guess what. It has been reborn all through foreign ownership. Wedon't even own it anymore. Won't the American people recognize what ishappening to the real wealth creation of this country?

I do not want America tobe owned by transnational corporations that have no loyalty to the United States of Americaand the values for which we stand. This is the latest example of why wenever should have had permanent normal trade relations passed with China, becauseit only digs us deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. Our people do not havegood middle-class jobs. They cannot hang on to their pensions. Their healthbenefits increase in cost. And we literally are making our children, asgraduates of the colleges across this country, debtors, because we cannot evenpay the educational bills of the next generation. What a sorry state to beginthis new millennium and this 21st century here in the United States of America.

I am deeply distraught by these latest numbers from China, and surely, at aminimum, Members of Congress should sponsor my Trade Balancing Act of 2006,which basically says to any Presidential administration, if we have more than$10 billion of debt in trade with any nation in the world, we ought to go backand figure out why we do and then renegotiate those trade agreements.

We cannot depend on fiddling around with currency manipulation because theytold us if we did that with Japanback in the 1980s, our accounts would just look terrific. If the dollar and theyen came into balance, the trade accounts would heal. But guess what. Theynever did because you know why? Japannever opened its market to our goods. And neither will China. So youhave to deal with the Asian tigers in a different way. Surely, thisshould be a wake-up call to the American people. Surely, this should be awake-up call to the Members of this Congress who could change the trade laws ofthis country in order to create a balanced trading environment, a level playingfield where our businesses, where our workers, where our communities have achance to compete again.