Marcy Kaptur: “I am pleased to be the first speaker this evening in a special order devoted to the North American Free Trade Agreement…”

“I am pleased to be the first speaker this evening in a special order devoted to the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA. Tonight we are going to talk about, since the agreement was signed and passed over the objections of many, many of us here in the House, passed in January 1994, what have been the repercussions in our country and what have been the repercussions in the other two nations on the continent, Canada and Mexico, that are participating in this agreement with us? This past week we saw our President travel to Mexico and to other nations of Latin America to promote additional nations being added to the NAFTA accord. And the question many of us have in the Congress today is, based on the results of the existing NAFTA, the flaws inherent in that agreement, why would anyone want to expand NAFTA rather than fixing the agreement we have now? Since NAFTA's passage, the United States has not exported more than it has imported from either Mexico or Canada. In fact, we have now racked up trade deficits annually with Mexico totaling $16 to $18 billion a year, and with Canada $20 billion a year. If each billion dollars translates into lost jobs in this country and we have racked up on average $40 billion in trade deficit every year since NAFTA's passage, how can the overall agreement be working to the advantage of our Nation and its workers?”