On the recordOctober 11, 2011
I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine a worse time for this job-killing trade agreement with South Korea. Expanding a NAFTA-style trade agenda that has already destroyed 5 million manufacturing jobs would make no sense in the best of times, but to do it when 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, it is totally absurd now. Economists estimate that 159,000 American workers will lose their jobs over 7 years if we pass this agreement, most of these good-paying manufacturing jobs. In exchange, we likely get not only more Chinese imports, but we open up our country to imports from the nuclear dictatorship in North Korea. Manufacturers in my district know this. Workers in my district know this. It only seems that Washington is blind to this. It is well past time that Washington puts American workers and American manufacturers first. We can start by rejecting this trade agreement. We cannot hang our middle class out to dry any longer. We need to support American workers now.
