United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I was on the phone earlier this week with a friend in Delaware. We were talking about these free-trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration and fine-tuned by the Obama administration. My friend said: Why do we have free-trade agreements anyway? I said: Let's go back a little bit in time. At the end of World War II, when the baby boomers and my sister and I came along, the United States was on top of the world. Our industrial infrastructure was strong. We were a vibrant economy. We had come out of the Great Depression with all guns blazing, while a lot of the rest of the world lay in ruin. Some of the nations that would go on to become our greatest competitors, including China, Korea, and some others as well, were in the midst of wars of their own, and eventually they would be governed--at least in part in Korea--by a Communist form of government. So the competition wasn't that great.

Then things started to change. The competition got a whole lot stronger. I remember when I was a kid growing up, at Christmas time we were opening presents around the Christmas tree. I grew up in Danville, VA. We received a knickknack or something from friends of our family, and my father turned it over and it said ``Made in Japan.'' He and my mom kind of sneered at that, as if it were unworthy of us--anything being made in Japan.

Things have changed--in some ways for the better and in other ways maybe not. For a long time, we were the 800-pound gorilla in the room. In terms of auto sales, I think we had about 90 percent of the market share in the United States--maybe more than that--well into the latter part of the last century. Now we don't. Our market share in cars is less than 50 percent. The quality is good, but the market share is less. If we look at the amount of cars that come to us from Korea, they will roughly export 500,000 vehicles to the United States this year, as they did last year and will next year. We will export barely 5,000 cars to them. Think about that. Roughly, for every 1 American car we sell them, they sell us about 100. That is not free trade. As it turns out, it is not fair trade either. They don't put tariffs on their cars. They have nontariff barriers--a very clever way to keep our vehicles out. It could have to do with the environmental equipment on the car, the fuel system, transmissions, you name it. They find all kinds of ways to keep our vehicles out. We don't do that or play that game. They take advantage of that.

We wish to sell in a place such as Panama. In this country, a lot of people like the white meat of the chicken. Overseas, a lot of people eat the dark meat. It is an opportunity to export the dark meat for us. If we want to export leg quarters, drumsticks, and thighs in Panama, normally, a package of leg quarters costs $10 here, and there is a 260-percent tariff for those leg quarters going into Panama. They have to pay $36. I don't know what that translates into pesos, but they pay $36 for $10 worth of chicken.

We allow other countries, whether it is Korea, Panama, Colombia or many other nations, to sell their goods and products at will into our country, without much at all in the way of barriers, without impediment, without tariff barriers or nontarrif barriers. But they impose barriers against us. The reason why flows from the situation we were in at the end of World War II, when we were such an economic juggernaut. Other countries wanted to protect their markets a little bit from the 800-pound gorilla in the world, which was us.

While we are still a strong and vibrant nation, we no longer dominate world markets. We want to make sure we have access to other markets in ways we have not had in recent years in some countries.

I would like to think of one of the roles of government, and one of the major roles of government, is to provide a nurturing environment for job creation and job preservation. That includes a lot of things. That includes making sure businesses, large and small, have access to the credit; it means that when folks come up with an idea, we have an innovative economy and a lot of technology; when people come up with new technology and new ideas, they go to the Patent Office to file it and they end up getting the patent and they don't end up in years of litigation.

Businesses like predictability, and that is part of the environment we need to provide. We need to provide a workforce where the people can come out of our schools and can read, write, think, do math, and have a good work ethic. We have to have common sense in regulations. Obviously, we need regulations, and we need to consider cost-benefit relations. As we do those regulations, we can get input from all sides.

We need predictable tax policies--tax policies that are progrowth. We also need access to foreign markets. Folks who build products in this country need access to foreign markets. In too many cases, we don't have that. These trade agreements are attempting to change that. Very soon, for that family in Panama who has to pay $36 for the same amount of drumsticks and thighs that now cost $10 here, that is going to change. We are going to start exporting and selling cars in Korea. They will still be able to sell theirs here, but we will sell tens of thousands of cars in Korea in a year or two.

In my State, we used to make a lot of cars. We had a GM plant and a Chrysler plant. They are now gone. But starting next year, a new plant will start up, and they will make some of the most beautiful cars in the world. Some are already being made, called the Karma. It gets about 70 miles per gallon. It is a drop-dead beautiful vehicle. Starting late next year, they will be making it a less-expensive car. We want to make sure they use our Port of Wilmington to ship those cars around the world. It would be nice to sell some of those in Korea or in Latin America and South America, as well as in Europe.

For my State, 80 percent of our agricultural industry, believe it or not, is chickens. I don't know what it is like in Iowa or in Florida or New York, but 80 percent of ours is chickens. Agriculture is one of the top three sectors of our State's economy--80

percent chickens. One out of every five chickens we raise in the Delmarva Peninsula is exported to another country. This is not chickenfeed; this is a big deal for us in Delaware.

This is important for our ability to export vehicles, our ability to export chemicals, plastics, poultry, and the ability for us to export some of our services--the work we do in financial services with banking or insurance. A lot of those companies would like to be able to do business in Korea or Latin America. This legislation will enable them to do that.

I think a lot of people will vote for the agreements today with Panama and with South Korea. Even some of the labor unions--the UAW and others--support the South Korea agreement. There is still skepticism and concern, understandably, regarding the agreement with Colombia. As everybody in the Chamber knows, and a lot of people in this country know, for years, labor leaders, organizers have been the target of assassinations in Colombia. According to the Colombians, in 2001, I believe there were about 205 assassinations in that 1 year alone in Colombia. The numbers are a little bit confusing because that includes folks who are not necessarily labor organizers but who are educators and maybe members of labor unions--205 people in 1 year. Can you imagine in this country if 205 labor leaders, organizers, and teachers were murdered in a year? That is a much smaller country than ours. The numbers have come down.

In one of our conversations yesterday with some labor unions in Delaware, one shared the latest number reported by the Colombian Government; I think it was 22 in the early part of this month. That is 22 too many. About half those folks killed were teachers who have been targeted by criminal elements and drug folks, drug gangs, because of the threat that teachers and educators pose to the ability of the drug folks to destabilize that country. So they are targets as well.

The Colombian Government has provided almost like a witness protection service down there, but it is somewhat different. They don't take people and change their identities and move them and hide them. They actually provide extra protection for folks who are believed to be at risk. That caused a reduction of almost 90 percent in the assassinations over the last decade. Even if it is just one or two, we know that is too many.

The question for us is, Do we ignore the progress or do we say, no, we are not going to ratify a free-trade agreement with Colombia until there are no assassinations? We have a saying: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That may trivialize this particular argument, and I would not suggest that is the standard we should use. But substantial progress has been made. We have embedded in that trade agreement environmental provisions, labor provisions, that are now part of the agreement. We have done the same with Panama and Korea. There is an implementation schedule that the government is expected to follow and has been followed. It has been certified by the President. They are taking the steps they are supposed to be taking in order to further reduce the level of violence. Overall, rather extraordinary progress has been made in Colombia.

A friend of mine who works there in the Embassy described to me the difference is between night and day.

It wasn't all that long ago when gunmen rounded up 11 supreme court justices in Colombia and took them into a room and shot them all dead. We know it is not just teachers or labor leaders who are being targeted for assassination and have been targeted but people at the highest levels of that country's government--government leaders, people who run for office, officeholders, law enforcement officers, judges, all kinds of people.

For the most part, it has changed. It is a lot better. The question is, Do we reward the improvement made or do we say, no, that is not enough, come back when you are pristine clean, pristine pure? For me, it is one I wrestled with and others have as well. I think, in this case, we can vote with our hopes, and our hope and expectation is that this progress has been realized and will continue.

There is one last thing I wish to mention before I finish.

Any number of folks have said to me: You know, NAFTA didn't help us all that much--Mexico and Canada--and so how do we know these trade agreements will help us? We learned some things from NAFTA. One of the things we learned is if we have environmental concerns, we ought to embed in the agreement the rest of those environmental concerns--actually addressing them in the treaty. We have done that with all these nations. We have done the same thing with respect to labor provisions. They are actually embedded in the agreement.

The other thing I have said to folks who are concerned this isn't in our best interest and it will not help us economically, I don't agree with that. But think about this. To say this is not going to help us is counterintuitive. Think about it. We allow these countries to sell their goods and services in our country without impediment. We don't keep them out. We don't impose, for the most part, tariff or nontariff barriers. But if we want to sell our goods and services there, they impose these barriers--tariff or nontariff barriers. Under a free-trade agreement, the barriers that others put up to keep our goods and services out pretty much go away and in some cases pretty fast.

It is hard for me to say: Well, if we are going to let them ship their goods and services to us--continue to--and they are going to eliminate their tariff and nontariff barriers, why shouldn't we do better? We will do better. We make great chicken, we build great cars, have great chemical products, and excellent financial services. Those products will sell and we will be able to grow our economy.

The last problem is this. For us to come out of this recession--and we have come out of the recession officially, but there is still a lot of hurt and pain all over the place, including in my own State, but for us to come out of it, we need to grow the economy--we need to grow the economy--and we need to grow it across the world. We make any number of products in this country. Some are products--cars, chickens, chemicals, plastics--and others are services. They are as good as any in the world. We want to make sure we have access to sell them anywhere in the world, including these three countries. Their consumers will be better off and our producers and our businesses will be better off. That is why I am happy to support these agreements.

The last thing I want to do is to acknowledge the excellent leadership Senator Baucus has provided for us. Senator Grassley is on the floor, and I know these are issues he cares a lot about. The partnership he and Senator Baucus have had over the years is a model for the Senate.

They are not on the floor now, but I also want to mention Senator Blunt and Senator Portman, two of our Republican colleagues, who joined with me to make sure at the end of the day we didn't just vote for three free-trade agreements but we also had the opportunity to vote and put in place trade adjustment assistance to ensure those workers in this country who might be negatively affected or displaced would have the opportunity to get unemployment compensation and have the opportunity to get job training so they will be treated fairly as well. It is the personification of the Golden Rule: Treat other people the way we want to be treated.

So we have succeeded in not just passing three free-trade agreements, which I think will help our economy overall, but we will also look out for the people who might be adversely affected. So I want to thank Senator Grassley and the other Republicans who provided the support to make that happen too. And again to Senator Baucus: A job well done.

Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor to anyone else who is here and wants to speak at this time.

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