Ron Kind: “I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the legislation before us today, trade promotion…”

“I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the legislation before us today, trade promotion authority as well as Trade Adjustment Assistance. What we are debating and what we have to decide today is whether to grant this President, this administration, the same type of trade negotiating authority that every President since FDR, minus Richard Nixon, has enjoyed. As a Democrat who has supported this administration, I wonder why we would not at least have a modicum of trust in this President going out and trying to get the best trade deal that he can. We will have an opportunity later to analyze any agreement that is reached to make sure it makes sense for our constituents, for our States, and, ultimately, for our country. Let's be clear here. We are already trading with these nations: Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia. The question moving forward now is what the rules of trade are going to be. That is why we need to be at the table, negotiating those rules, elevating standards. Now, we are going to be negotiating core labor, environmental, and human rights standards in the body of the agreement, fully enforceable like any other provision in it, which is something that we have lacked in past trade agreements. When President Obama first ran for election, he was hoping for an opportunity to go back and amend NAFTA because he felt, as I did, that there were deficiencies in that agreement.…”