Robert Weygand: “I believe that, as written, we cannot ensure that U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries will get the safeguards…”

“I believe that, as written, we cannot ensure that U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries will get the safeguards they deserve therefore, I will be voting against granting the president fast-track authority and urge my colleagues to do the same. Mr. Speaker, in the United States we have a great deal of environmental, worker and consumer safeguards that make our standard of living among the highest in the world. We have worked very hard at building a nation where people can live with assurances that their food has been inspected, their roads are relatively free of unsafe vehicles, their air and water are clean and they can earn a livable wage. Why should U.S. citizens or any other citizen of any nation not be guaranteed the continuation of those same benefits? Why should U.S. standards be compromised? One of the purposes of trade agreements should be to better both or all trading partners. Our goal should be to raise the standard of living for everyone. Weak standards should be strengthened, strong standards should not be weakened. As we have seen with NAFTA, not including certain safeguards in the text of a trade agreement itself will result in a lower standard of living. Because we cannot look into a crystal ball to find out how a trade agreement will turn out we must ensure that environmental, consumer and worker safeguards are included, up-front.”