North America Free Trade Agreement And Implementing Legislation PDF Download

Excerpt from North America Free Trade Agreement and Implementing Legislation: Hearing Before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred Third Congress, First Session, October 21, 1993 The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Ernest F. Hollings (chairman of the committee) presiding. Staff members assigned to this hearing: Ivan A. Schlager, senior counsel, and Troy Cribb, professional staff member; and Kevin M. Dempsey, minority staff counsel. Opening Statement Of Senator Hollings The Chairman. Good morning. We want to welcome our distinguished Ambassador for International Trade, Mickey Kantor, and our distinguished former colleague, Tim Wirth of Colorado. We are going to have three votes at 11 o'clock. This is an important appearance here. Do we have any opening statements? I am going to withhold mine. [The prepared statement of Senator Hollings follows: ] Prepared Statement of Senator Hollings Mr. Ambassador, Counselor, good morning. In the next month the House and the Senate will be engaged in a vigorous debate on the future of our economy and on the future of democracy in our Hemisphere. The debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement is about whether we embrace change and whether we restore and revitalize our economy and at the same time promote a democratic revolution south of the border. It is astounding to this Senator that those of us who are trying to reverse a 20-year slide in real wages, those of us who wish to break with the failed trade policies of the past and set a course for the future that will bind the nations of the Americas together in a common commitment not just to free markets but also a shared commitment to democracy - we are labeled as protectors of the status quo. Only in Washington could those who side with an entrenched party that has failed to allow free elections, that suppresses a free press, and that holds tight rein on major aspects of its economy be seriously considered as being on the side of change. To get beyond the rhetoric of Washington, I went to Tijuana, Mexico to see first-hand what over 25 years of free trade under the maquiladora program has produced. What I saw was worse than I could have imagined. Behind the gleaming industrial parks stand hillsides packed with shanties with no electricity or running water. How can American companies who advertise on the Sunday talk shows about bringing good things to life allow their employees to live in such squalor? Frankly, it is an embarrassment. What is worse is that the American taxpayer will be asked to pay for the cleanup of the environmental nightmare that these companies created. In Tijuana, I met proud and hard working people who wanted a decent wage and thought that they could get it by organizing an independent union. What they found was that U.S. companies checked their social consciences at the border and acquiesced in state-sponsored labor extortion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.