United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act

Floor Speech

Ms. HOCHUL. I thank my colleague from Ohio.

I'm here to stand up on behalf of the working men and women of the 26th District of New York, people like the woman at the Buffalo Airport this morning who served me my energy drink as I boarded the flight. She told me she works at the airport because she lost her job of 23 years at a textile factory in downtown Buffalo. First the jobs went south, then they went overseas, jobs gone forever. As I left for my flight she said to me, Keep fighting for our jobs. Don't forget us. Well, I won't forget her. If I thought any of these fair trade agreements would help that woman and help others in my district, I'd be all in favor. But in western New York, we know better. We were promised prosperity with earlier trade agreements, but while the companies became more prosperous, the jobs were sucked away from our community to foreign shores, lost forever.

As they say in the immortal song made famous by The Who, ``we won't get fooled again.'' I encourage my colleagues to oppose these agreements.

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