Senator Bernie Sanders: No More Bad Trade Deals
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 17, 2007
12:54 PM
|
CONTACT: Senator Bernie Sanders
Michael Briggs (202) 224-5141
|
| |
|
No More Bad Trade Deals
|
| |
|
WASHINGTON - MAY 17 -Senator Bernie Sanders voiced concern about the course of international trade negotiations between some in Congress and the White House. He joined a key block of senators at a press conference on Capitol Hill, where Sanders said:
“Any football team with a losing record year after year, will fire its head coach and develop a new strategy for success. But, when it comes to our trade policy, when we keep losing more manufacturing and information technology jobs and when our trade deficits continue to break records, nothing changes. The more our trade deficit expands; the more companies that ship our jobs abroad; the more bad trade deals we get.
“Year after year after year, we have seen the results of unfettered free trade. And, year after year after year we keep losing. Our overall trade deficit last year was over $763 billion, including a $232 billion trade deficit with China. In fact, we have had over 30 consecutive years of trade deficits since Congress first granted Fast Track authority to the Executive Branch in 1975.
“Over the past six years, we have lost over three million manufacturing jobs. According to the Economic Policy Institute, our trade deficit with China since the passage of PNTR in 2000 led to the loss of 1.8 million U.S. jobs; and our trade deficits with Mexico and Canada since the passage of NAFTA in 1994 led to the loss of over one million U.S. jobs.
“Not only is manufacturing in a state of collapse, we have also lost 644,000 well-paying information sector jobs from January of 2001 to January of 2006 – representing 17.4 percent of the workforce in that sector.
“Despite huge increases in worker productivity, the average American worker is only making a nickel more per hour today than was the case in 1973; and real income for the bottom 90 percent of American workers has actually gone down over the past 30 years.
“As long as American companies can hire workers in China for 50-cents an hour; or 89-cents an hour in Panama; or 91-cents an hour in Peru, wages in the United States will continue to go down, and good-paying jobs will continue to be outsourced. That is an issue that Congress must address.
(over)
“As someone who was around for NAFTA and PNTR with China, I can tell you that these policies have been pushed by multi-national corporations with one goal in mind: increase profits by lowering the living standards of American workers. Millions of American workers are suffering as a result.
“The attitude of corporate America toward the working class as they move to China, Mexico, India and other cheap labor markets is a national disgrace. Many of the corporations who have been made great by American workers, consumers and from the corporate welfare they are receiving from the federal government are showing their thanks by shipping American jobs abroad and reducing the salaries, benefits and pensions of millions of others.
“Let me quote from John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, who said a few years ago: ‘China will become the IT center of the world, and we can have a healthy discussion about whether that's in 2020 or 2040,’ as he is trying to ‘outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company.’
“Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, has said, ‘When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China. You need to be there. You need to change the way people talk about it and how they get there. I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to $5 billion.’
“Michael Marks, the CEO of Flextronics, the largest electronics manufacturer in the world making products for Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Motorola and Xerox, has said that, ‘Outsourcing is good for America,’ while telling BusinessWeek that ‘all electronics hardware manufacturing [at his company] is going to China.’
“And, Steven Anthony Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft has said: ‘Lower the pay of U.S. professionals to $50,000, and it won't make sense for employers to put up with the hassle of doing business in developing countries.’
“If we don’t reverse our unfettered free trade policy, our children and grandchildren will have a lower standard of living than we do.
“We cannot allow that to happen. Now is the time to reverse this policy and tell American corporations loud and clear: if they want to continue receiving all of the benefits of being an American company, they better start investing in America and creating jobs in this country instead of moving to China and exporting our jobs abroad.”
### |
|
Printer Friendly Version
E-Mail This Article
