Jun 21, 2006- Ford Plan in Mexico

HON. MARCY KAPTUR
 OF OHIO
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2006 

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that America islosing its independence as goods that used to be made here are displaced byforeign imports. In fact, Americais in unchartered waters today. We have an accumulated trade deficit of nearly$1 trillion a year.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about super NAFTA and what the Bushadministration is planning to lock NAFTA in even tighter in this country andacross the continent.

There is something called the Agreement on Security and Prosperity that isbeing negotiated by the Bush administration very quietly. No hearings are beingheld in this Congress. Most Americans have never even heard the term, but itreally is the successor to NAFTA.

In addition to what it anticipates in terms of a new transportation corridorthat will come up through Mexico and the American highway into the UnitedStates, it also includes the incentives to major corporations, such as FordCorporation of our country that is laying off people in our country, now anadditional 30,000 jobs to be lost here in the United States, and Ford isplanning to employed over 150,000 more workers in Mexico, announcing it will beinvesting over $9.2 billion in Mexico.

It is hard to explain to the American people how big that investment reallyis, but truly it will employ 15 percent or 1 of 7 of all unemployed people inMexico, so many of them having been uprooted from their farmsteads, becauseNAFTA included no transition provisions to allow people to have a life and tosurvive inside of Mexico's rural areas, and over 2 million families have beenuprooted from Mexico's farm communities and are doing what, they are movingnorth to eat.

At the heart of our illegal immigration problem is NAFTA's disruption of theMexican countryside.

But in any case, this Security and Prosperity Agreement, as it is beingcalled, has no democratic underpinning to it. It is being negotiated by thevery same elites that negotiated NAFTA.

And let's look at some of the signs of what is happening. It is suddenlyclearer why a company from Spaincalled Cintra wants to be the gatekeeper on this new highway structure tomanage the flow of goods from Mexico,including the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that Ford Motor intends tomanufacture in Mexicoafter making its $9.2 billion investment there.

Cintra is a subsidiary of Ferrovial, the Spanish transportation companyfounded by multi-billionaire Rafael del Pino, who is one of the richest peoplein the world.

Cintra already operates the Chicago Skyway, one of the nodes along the wayhere under a 99-year concession, and is planning development of the Trans-TexasCorridor, which is another part of this plan.

Cintra is a 50/50 partner with Macquarie Infrastructure Group an Australianinvestment bank in another place in America called Indiana, where the IndianaTurnpike, can you believe this, has been leased to a foreign interest. And weare told that Ohio,the State that I represent, might be the next State to unwisely rent one of itsmajor assets to a foreign nation.

Human Events magazine recently had this description. It said, ``The NorthAmerican Super Corridor Coalition is a not-for-profit organization dedicated todeveloping this international, integrated multimodal transportation systemalong the international midcontinent trade and transportation corridor.''

Where does that sentence say anything about the United States?

Still, this group has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S.Department of Transportation to plan this NAFTA superhighway as a 10-lane,limited-access road, plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongsidepipelines originally laid for oil and natural gas.

One glance at the map of the NAFTA superhighway on the front page of NASCO'sWebsite will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canadaand the United Statesinto one transportation system. But guess what is going to happen? If you lookat what is going on in Mexico,guess where Mexicois getting most of the parts to put into their production? Not from the United States.They are getting them from China.In fact, a lot of production in Mexicohas been moved to China.

So imagine this: Huge container ships continuing to come in from China and Asia, hitting up against ports likeLazaro Cardenas in Mexico,where the workforce earns almost nothing, and the major ports in our country ofLos Angeles, of Oakland, all along the west coast, I justwish we were shipping goods out. But right now our longshoremen and our dockworkers are loading and unloading containers in the United States.

But you can go around the UnitedStates. You can bring in that massive set ofshipments from Asia through Mexicoand up into the UnitedStates.

And imagine if this corridor is then leased, leased to foreign interests whothen charge tolls and become familiar with the transportation systems of the United States.

This is the heart of America.This can displace every other major transportation system that we have if thisis locked in piece by piece, and we have plenty of evidence that that isexactly what is going on already as an underpinning to this agreement that isbeing called security and prosperity.

My question is, how much democracy will that agreement actually have in it?Will it be prosperity for all, or just for people who are rich enough to ownglobal companies, like Cintra, that will invest anywhere, don't know the peoplein our communities, frankly don't care, and are willing to move productionanywhere?

The people of the UnitedStates had better wake up. We'd better askourselves why are Americans having to work so hard for less? Why is it moreexpensive for them to send their children to college, and then those kidsgraduate with huge debts? Why isn't your pension plan secure? Why are youhaving to pay so much more for health care? Why is not your retirement benefitthere forever?

Because these kinds of interests don't want you to have it because they areso filthy rich off the investments they are making globally. They don't careabout you, they don't care about this country, they don't care about where youcome from, and, my friends, they don't care about democracy.

END