The vote to pass North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) wrought significant damage in the U.S. manufacturing sector. In 1993, the year prior to NAFTA’s enactment, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada was $12.4 billion. By 2003, this trade deficit had grown by 666 percent to $95.0 billion! An estimated 525,094 workers were certified by the U.S. Department of Labor for NAFTA Trade Adjustment Assistance between 1944 and 2002, when the program was ended. Other estimates put NAFTA-related job loss at 879,280. This free trade agreement represents a continuing drag on U.S. growth and job creation.

Chile & Singapore Free Trade Agreements
(HR 2738)

These votes were for passage of the Chile and Singapore free trade agreements. Both of these deals contain numerous third-party loopholes allowing for non-signatory countries to benefit from the agreement without making any concessions. With a combined population of a mere 20 million, Chile and Singapore have a significantly greater ability to export finished products to the United States than to consume U.S. finished goods. Thus these trade agreements will further exacerbate the U.S. trade deficit and destroy U.S. jobs.

The Fast Track vote took away the power of Congress to amend legislation designed to implement trade agreements. Under Fast Track, the timetable for Congressional review is greatly accelerated and only a simple up or down vote on the implementing legislation is allowed. Fast Track has harmed U.S. manufacturing by increasing the occurrence of loopholes in trade agreements that directly injure certain sub-sectors of the U.S. manufacturing base.

Effectively this was the vote by Congress to determine whether the United States would support China’s admission into the WTO. This vote granted China permanent most-favored trade relations (PNTR) and gave them the same low tariff rates enjoyed by trading partners such as Italy and the United Kingdom. It also gave U.S. corporations the certainty they needed to move hundreds of billions of dollars of manufacturing capacity from the United States to China. In 1999, the year prior to the passage of PNTR, the U.S. trade deficit with China totaled $68.7 billion. By 2003 this deficit had grown to $124.0 billion. Moreover, between the beginning of 2000 and the end of 2003, the United States lost more than 2.9 million manufacturing jobs.

This was the Congressional vote to approve the United States becoming a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as of January 1, 1995. The WTO was designed to advance liberalized trade among the nations of the world; but the cost of that membership was ceding much of our sovereignty over the U.S. tariff and trade law to the WTO, which usually rules against the U.S. in trade dispute panels. Since the United States joined the WTO, our trade deficit has more than tripled.

The vote to extend a NAFTA-type agreement to Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua involved the granting of free access to the U.S. market for producers that use pennies-an-hour wages, low labor standards, and low environmental standards to undercut U.S. domestic manufacturers. In return, U.S. domestic manufacturers gained access to markets with the combined purchasing power of New Haven, Connecticut, or roughly 1.8 percent the size of the U.S. economy. Furthermore, loopholes in the textile rules of origin carve out over $1 billion annually in trade for third parties such as China. As such, the agreement will drive up the already astronomical U.S. trade deficit and encourage the outsourcing of more U.S. manufacturing jobs.

This vote was for passage of the Morocco free trade agreement. This deal contains third-party loopholes allowing for non-signatory countries to benefit from the agreement without making any concessions. The third-party loopholes for yarn and fabric are nearly twice the size of existing trade. With a population of just 32 million, Morocco has a significantly greater ability to export finished products to the United States than to consume U.S. finished goods. Thus this trade agreement will further exacerbate the U.S. trade deficit and destroy U.S. jobs.