Mark Dayton: “the amendment Senator Craig and I have introduced is one that I think has great importance to this legislation. It is…”

“the amendment Senator Craig and I have introduced is one that I think has great importance to this legislation. It is one I am very proud to sponsor with the senior Senator from Idaho, someone with whom I have had the good fortune to work on this and other matters relating to trade as they affect our two States. I also am very pleased that this amendment is cosponsored by 26 of our colleagues, 13 Republicans and 13 Democrats. They reflect a broad spectrum of views on many issues, yet they agree on the need for this amendment. Is it because all of us are against trade, as our detractors have charged? The answer is an emphatic ``no.'' We support this amendment because we recognize that there is more than one side to the U.S. trade equation. There are a great many citizens in our States who have benefited from the liberalization of international trade during the last 20 years. However, there are also a great many Americans who have been harmed by the results of recent trade agreements. The proponents of more free trade acknowledge only the winners. Their reports cite only the businesses, the jobs, and the revenues from increased exports. Those benefits are substantial; however, they form only one side of the trade ledger. On the other side are thousands of bankrupt businesses and farms in the United States, many thousands of lost American jobs, and the massive shifting of U.S. production to other countries.”