On the recordJune 12, 2015
Mr. Speaker, I come from Flint, Michigan. Flint, Michigan, was the birthplace of General Motors, a place that put the world on wheels. In the last couple of decades, it has seen 90 percent of our manufacturing jobs go away. Now, true, not all of them were lost because of bad trade deals, but many of them were. And bad trade deals have exacerbated that job loss and have ruined many parts of that community. I support, as virtually all of us do, expanded trade as a way of growing the U.S. economy. I am a member of the President's Export Council. This is something we have to do. But this TPA is not a ``yes'' or ``no'' question on whether we should expand trade. This TPA is flawed. It fails to address the most significant trade barriers hurting American manufacturers. It fails to address currency manipulation by our trading partners. And if we don't address the most significant barrier, how can we expect any trade deal to have the effect? All we have to do is look at the performance of past deals that have had similar flaws and we can see why we have failed. If we are going to engage in expanded trade, we have to do it right, in a way that deals with currency, that deals with labor obligations, that deals with environmental obligations.
