January 7, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 3 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
All in Senate sectionPrev34 of 37Next
UNITED STATES-MEXICO-CANADA TRADE AGREEMENT; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 3
(Senate - January 07, 2020)
Text available as:
Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[Pages S60-S61] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] UNITED STATES-MEXICO-CANADA TRADE AGREEMENT Mr. BROWN. Madam President, 3\1/2\ years or so ago, I live in Cleveland, and I was in my State watching the Presidential campaign. I heard Candidate Trump repeatedly talking about renegotiating NAFTA or getting rid of the North America Free Trade Agreement. While I did not support his candidacy and have generally disagreed with most of what he has said and done, it was a bit of music to my ears to hear Candidate Trump talk about renegotiating or getting rid of NAFTA. I have voted, in my time in the Senate and before this, every single trade agreement starting with the North America Free Trade Agreement of two-plus decades ago, I have voted no in these trade agreements. I never voted for a trade agreement because, frankly, every trade agreement coming in front of the House or Senate has been a corporate trade agreement. It has been written by corporate lobbyists to serve corporate executives to serve their biggest stockholders. That is what these trade agreements are about. In every case, it was an attack on the middle class. In every case, it undermined worker protections. It depressed wages. It meant loss of jobs. I know what these corporate trade agreements did to my hometown of Mansfield. I know what it did in Mansfield, OH. I know what they have done to my adoptive city of Cleveland, OH, and I know what they have done to the entire industrial Midwest--well beyond that, too, in places like Arizona and elsewhere. I have seen what these corporate trade deals do. So Candidate Trump is elected President. He then says he is going to do away, back out, or renegotiate NAFTA. I looked at that with optimism. I talked to the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Lighthizer, a number of times. I spoke with the President about it. I offered my assistance, and then, lo and behold, about a year ago, the President came out with a renegotiated NAFTA. It was the same old, same old. It was another corporate trade agreement that served his corporate interests, that served the drug companies, and that served those companies that are looking for cheap labor across the Rio Grande River. Under the President's new NAFTA--he called it USMCA--United States- Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement--under the President's new NAFTA, it was the same corporate template, the same corporate trade agreement that helps corporate investors, that undermines workers, that gives incentives to companies to shut down production in Zanesville, in Gallipolis, in Marietta, in Cleveland, in Lima, in Toledo, and in Bryan and move their jobs to Mexico. So what did we do? Instead, initially, I continued to talk to the U.S. Trade Representative, as did some of my colleagues, knowing this first NAFTA draft was unacceptable and was not nearly what the President said he would do for workers. In fact, it was more than that. It was another betrayal of workers. This same President has betrayed low-income workers by refusing to raise the minimum wage. It has been more than a decade. This same President took away the new overtime rule, costing at least 50,000 Ohioans--that is just 50,000 in my State, thousands in Arizona, probably 100,000 in California, tens of thousands around the country and different States--cost them their overtime pay, meaning they would work 50 hours a week, and they would only get paid for 40. We saw that this President again was betraying workers. It has taken us months and months and months of fighting alongside Speaker Pelosi and Senator Wyden--the senior Democrat of the Finance Committee--and unions and organized labor to secure the Brown-Wyden provisions that now, with USMCA, amount to the strongest labor enforcement in a U.S. trade agreement ever. It means that wages will go up in Mexico, which is good news for American workers because fewer jobs will move to Mexico. A worker in Mexico now will be able to report a company that violates her labor rights or worker rights. Within months, we can determine whether worker rights have been violated and can take action against that company. Now, for the first time in my whole career, I will vote for a trade agreement. I wouldn't have voted for the Trump trade. I didn't vote for NAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, PNTR with China and South Korea, and all these other trade agreements. I would not have voted against the Trump USMCA because it didn't look out for workers. Instead of putting workers at the center of trade agreements, which is what we should do, it was a trade agreement written by and for corporate interests. What Senator Wyden and I did and others is we are now about to pass a trade agreement that puts workers in the center of the trade agreement, meaning a stronger middle class and meaning workers will get a fair shake. It means that Ohio workers will be able to compete. We know why companies took advantage of these corporate trade agreements. They shut down production in Ohio and moved to Mexico so they can pay lower wages and they can take advantage of workers who don't have rights. American workers can't compete with that when it is a race to the bottom on wages. Brown-Wyden will work to stop that, and for the first time ever, as I said, it will put workers in the center of a trade agreement. We must be straight with American workers. This isn't a perfect trade agreement. One trade deal the Democrats fixed--even though the President resisted it, finally gave in--a trade deal that Democrats fixed will not undo the rest of Trump's economic policies that puts corporations over workers and appoints judges who put their thumbs on the scales of justice to support corporations over workers and to support Wall Street over consumers. I voted yes. I voted yes today in the Finance Committee. It is the first time I ever have on a trade deal because, by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have made this agreement much more pro-worker, and, equally as important, we set an important precedent that Brown-Wyden must be included in every future trade agreement that comes in front of this body. I yield the floor. [[Page S61]] ____________________
All in Senate sectionPrev34 of 37Next