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Representative Dennis J. Kucinich
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Current Office: U.S. House
Current District: 10
First Elected: 11/05/1996
Last Elected: 11/04/2008
Next Election: 2010
Party: Democratic
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BiographicalVoting RecordIssue Positions
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Title: Central American Free Trade Agreement
Date: 06/16/2005
Location: Washington, DC
Speech
CENTRAL AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT -- (House of Representatives - June 16, 2005)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, soon the House of Representatives will bring before it legislation to clear the way for the Central American Free Trade Agreement to not only be discussed but, in my view, to be challenged.
Earlier my colleague the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) spoke about the loss of manufacturing jobs. I come from the Cleveland area, where we know that these trade agreements, NAFTA, GATT, the WTO which followed, have all worked against the American working people. We were told when these agreements were formed that it would mean more jobs in the United States because people in other countries would be buying our goods.
Well, let us look at the facts. Let us look at what the actual wages are and the purchasing power of people in various countries.
How, for example, can people in Honduras, $2,600 a year, be able to buy something that is made in the United States that has any powerful commercial value, like a car or like a washing machine? How could someone living in El Salvador, $4,800 a year, be able to purchase something, some manufactured product in the United States, that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars?
What is happening is that trade agreements are seeking cheaper labor where they can go to countries where the labor is cheap, but they are not selling American goods there. So we are seeing that we are not finding new markets for our goods; yet, we are finding markets for cheap labor. That is what these trade agreements do. They open up markets for cheap labor.
Keep in mind, the workers in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and others represented on this chart, they do not have any rights. They do not have a right under these trade agreements, an inherent right for collective bargaining, a right to organize, a right to strike, a right to decent wages and benefits.
No. As these corporations get more power, they force upon the workers a take-it-or-leave-it proposition where people are basically left to accept working under conditions that are awful, for wages that are miserably low, and if they do not like it, they do not have any kind of a job at all.
Meanwhile, what happens in the United States? We are losing jobs by the millions. The trade agreements, which we have seen this country pass over the last 12 years, have resulted in a destruction of America's basic manufacturing capability.
Remember, our national security has depended on our strategic industrial base of steel, automotive and aerospace, and yet, we are seeing that base decline because of these trade agreements. We are giving away our ability to even defend our country. We are giving away our ability to create good-paying jobs.
Henry Ford understood more than 100 years ago that you had to be able to pay people a good wage so they could buy the things they make. These trade agreements turn all that on its head. Now, American workers are seeing their jobs exported to countries where people make low wages and countries where people cannot by American goods. That is where we are.
CAFTA is another in a long series of trade agreements which have worked against the interests of the American people. We have welcomed representatives of Central America to this Congress in the last week. They have communicated to us. These Members of Congress of Central American countries have communicated to us that this trade agreement was passed in the dead of night in their countries; that this trade agreement was passed without the representatives even knowing what was in the bill; that this trade agreement was passed and set the stage for the privatization of public services. This trade agreement was passed and set the stage for higher taxes, with people already living very humbly with the lowest wages.
We are here to stand up for the American worker, stand up for American manufacturing, to stand up for the future of this country and to stand up for international solidarity on questions of human rights, workers rights and environmental quality principles.
It is time for us to say that CAFTA must be defeated; that we must go back to a whole new trade structure that is based on workers' rights, that is based on human rights, that is based on environmental quality principles.
Commerce essentially depends on the agreements which we come up with in this House of Representatives. But commerce without economic justice is tyranny. Commerce without morality is a degradation of the human spirit. Commerce without basic principles which can strengthen a society is commerce that erodes the social compact of a society.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having this opportunity to share with the American people the urgency of seeing CAFTA defeated.
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