Ben Cardin: “I am going to first answer my friend, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), and he is my friend. I deeply…”

“I am going to first answer my friend, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), and he is my friend. I deeply respect his views as to why we would oppose this agreement when we supported the other agreements that he mentioned. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) is correct. In the 18-plus years that I have been honored to served in this body, I have voted for all of the free trade agreements. This will be the first agreement that I will vote against. This is the first agreement in which we actually move backwards on advancing international labor standards. Currently, with the Central American countries, we had the Caribbean Basin Initiative. The Caribbean Basin Initiative has worked. It has provided opportunity for the Central American countries. It has opened up markets for their products. They get preference. But in order to get that preference, they must move towards international labor standards. That is the requirement. We use the threat of withholding trade benefits if they do not adopt international labor standards. That is what we currently have with Central American countries, and it is working. We have made progress. CAFTA repeals those obligations. As the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson) said, what is in place is enforcing your own rules without any adequate enforcement. We have a constitutional responsibility, Mr. Speaker, to approve or reject this free trade agreement.…”