Sherrod Brown: “I see them all over Ohio, Toledo, Hamilton, Lima, Youngstown, Mansfield and Dayton. In every community, there are signs…”

“I see them all over Ohio, Toledo, Hamilton, Lima, Youngstown, Mansfield and Dayton. In every community, there are signs that the Federal Government's trade policies are undermining American manufacturers, especially small machine shops, tool and die makers, other manufacturers, and encouraging the spread internationally of abusive sweatshop practices. China is the sweatshop of the world, with oppressive labor policies resulting in wage suppression of as much as 85 percent. We all know that American workers can compete with workers anywhere in the world on a level playing field, but no one can stand, no one can compete with child labor, with sweatshop labor, with prison labor. The year I first ran for Congress in 1992, the United States had a trade deficit of $38 billion. Today, just last year, in 2005, that trade deficit had jumped from $38 billion in only 13 years to a $720 billion trade deficit. The result of the sweatshop labor of this trade policy with China alone is trade deficit records being broken year after year and ever- increasing losses of manufacturing jobs to China. In my State alone, 200,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost since the year 2000, yet America's trade agreements are actually encouraging the development of new sweatshops. All of us in this body supported the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement because Jordan's labor protections were seen as meeting international standards.…”