Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 644, Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, Customs bills in the past have been positive. They have been useful in trade enforcement packages.

However, the majority in this body has baked into this legislation harmful provisions that make the fast-track law even worse.

It fails to protect Dodd-Frank and financial regulations, consumer safeguards. It stops our trade agreements from doing anything to address immigration. It strips out provisions tackling currency manipulation, an abuse that is costing millions of Americans their jobs.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to the Peterson Institute. Listen to what they have to say, no left-leaning organization. It says that, as a result of currency manipulation, the United States has lost up to 5 million jobs.

Why would we go down this road again? Why wouldn't we make currency manipulation prohibitive, instead of using language that is not even in the bill, but in a forum that they have put together around the TPP that says that countries should refrain from currency manipulation, they should avoid currency manipulation?

Avoid? Refrain? What kind of tough enforcement language is that? It is not.

What do countries do when they manipulate their currency? They drop the cost of their currency. Their goods become cheaper. Our goods are more expensive. We don't sell them abroad.

You know what happened in Mexico with NAFTA. They talked about all the beautiful provisions, all the tariffs dropping, et cetera. When they devalued the peso, it was all gone.

This is without strong, tough--and it won't be strong and tough because of the Senate language. But this is a good faith effort to deal with currency.

But, in fact, the lack of currency enforcement here is going to cause ruination in terms of American jobs and it is going to lower their wages. And already Malaysia has devalued its currency, as has Vietnam.

This agreement bans the United States from making commitments on climate change in trade agreements. My colleagues have spoken about this, provisions that are necessary to ensure that our trade policy does not negate our climate goals.

You have got--what is it?--I don't know--200 countries assembled in Paris to look at how we bring some sanity to climate control and what we do. We have the President there. These efforts are more important now than ever, and we will be able to do nothing about dealing with the issue of climate.

This is a massive step backward for the already weak environmental obligation in our trade agreements. This bill contains no funding support for the enforcement and monitoring of our trade agreements. Lack of enforcement has plagued our trade deals for decades.

Despite environmental rules in the U.S.-Peru free trade agreement, the overwhelming majority of timber from Peru is illegally logged. Despite the labor rules in the Colombia free trade agreement, over 118 Colombian trade unionists have been murdered.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Within the last week, Vietnam, one of the partners in this agreement, arrested labor activists. 118 Colombian trade unionists were murdered. Vietnam will not allow organized labor, and in the agreement they get a free pass for 5 years while our jobs are just being drained away.

Now the Congress is reviewing the TPP, the largest free trade agreement of its kind in history. It does include countries like Vietnam and Malaysia, where labor and human rights abuses are rampant.

My colleagues have talked about Malaysia and trafficking and forced labor. Where are the values of this Nation when we can take Malaysia that traffics in young girls and say that they have gotten better and they go from a tier 3 country to a tier 2 country just so that they can be part of this agreement?

Where are the values of the United States of America? They are not present here. We can't afford more free trade agreements without adequate enforcement.

Worst of all, this bill weakens protection in so many areas. We are dealing, as I said, in trafficking. It is modern slavery. That is what that is all about.

Democrats have been clamoring for years and years for our government to include enforceable labor standards and enforceable environmental provisions, and it has fallen on deaf ears.

This motion to instruct--and I say to my colleague thank you for doing this--should pass. It will pass tonight or tomorrow, but it really should not go to conference. There are so many flaws in the underlying bill and in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as well, and this should not go to conference.

In fact, put a gloss on a piece of legislation that

is one of the worst pieces of legislation that has hit this floor of the United States House of Representatives.

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