On the recordJuly 25, 2005
I notice, too, the gentleman serving on Ways and Means, all we hear about is NAFTA; but what the critics do not tell you is that there is one huge difference between the two agreements, ignoring for a minute that during NAFTA years Texas grew by 1.7 million jobs. Our economy grew by 75 percent, we doubled our sales to Mexico, ignore all of that. But the big difference is, Central America already sells most of its products in the United States today; they have for 20 years. If a company wanted to move away, they had 2 decades to do it. Now it is our turn to sell into Central America. Those are the ag sales and manufacturing sales and financial and insurance and telecommunications and chemicals from the Gulf Coast and forest products from east Texas, and ag from west Texas, and a number of products that we are looking for the new jobs and the new customers that this agreement provides us.
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