The Progressive Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I am really glad to be here today with the
Progressive Caucus Special Order hour, and I would like to thank the
gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman) for all her hard work
on behalf of the Progressive Caucus and on behalf of this issue on the
Trans-Pacific Partnership.

As we know, over the weekend and all last week, the U.S. Trade
Representative Office's cooks have been in the kitchen, and they have
told us now the Trans-Pacific Partnership is done; but from everything
that we can tell, it is not fully baked. In fact, at best, it is half-
baked when it comes to labor, environmental, and consumer concerns.

Now that a final deal has been reached, we asked the administration
to let the American public immediately see the full text of this
agreement. This negotiating process has not been transparent up to this
point, despite claims from the U.S. Trade Representative Office. We
know that about 600 people, largely corporate CEOs, have been involved
in the drafting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but not Congress, and
certainly not members of the public. The secretive nature of these
negotiations is compounded by the pressure to throw together this deal
based on the political timelines of our negotiating partners rather
than with the regard of the U.S. worker in mind.

Reports throughout the course of the negotiating process have raised
serious questions about the impact of this agreement on a number of
areas ranging from workplace and environmental protections to food
safety, but, most importantly, jobs and wages. We all know this economy
has been rebounding. The stockmarket is significantly up from the 2008
crash. Corporate profits are up. CEO pay is up. Productivity is up. But
wages for the American worker have, unfortunately, been dead flat, and
the Trans-Pacific Partnership will lead to the loss of good-paying jobs
right here in the U.S.

Through several decades of unfair trade rules, corporations have
outsourced production and offshored jobs, and the TPP will only
exacerbate this problem. In fact, on Tuesday, in its initial analysis,
The Wall Street Journal has projected an increase in the manufacturing
trade deficit of $38.2 billion. That means jobs and wages right here in
the United States.

Additional reports have also said that the labor standards will
remain subpar, that currency manipulation has not been adequately
addressed, rules of origin for autos have been weakened, and human
rights issues with countries like Malaysia and Brunei have not been
dealt with properly.

Among these concerns, corporations still have the ability to
supersede laws of our country through the investor-state dispute
settlement process, something that Representative Slaughter explained
very aggressively in her comments.

This agreement has nothing to do to effectively address currency
manipulation, which that alone has contributed to the loss of up to 5
million U.S. jobs.

Despite claims by the administration that this agreement is the most
progressive high standard deal that we have ever negotiated, the labor
environmental rules in our free trade agreements are rarely enforced in
our partner nations.

In fact, 4 years ago, when we passed the Colombia Free Trade
Agreement, to the letter of the law the Colombian Government has put
the provisions within Colombian law and not one bit of that has
actually been implemented and over 100 labor leaders in the last 4
years have been killed just in Colombia.

So these trade agreements haven't worked based on past practice, and
without changes they are not going to work in future progress as well.
In addition, the administration has gone out of its way to help cover
up human rights atrocities in order to conclude these negotiations.
Malaysia was demoted in the State Department's 2014 Trafficking in
Persons Report due to its grossly inadequate response to the perverse
tracking of minority groups throughout the country.

By downgrading them within the same year that mass graves were found
of workers in Malaysia is an insult to human rights conditions, and to
include them and countries like Brunei that still stone gays and
lesbians and single mothers is a further evidence that this deal is not
ready for the public or for Congress to accept for the public.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is neither free trade nor fair trade.
In reality, it is a system of rules crafted by multi-national corporate
interests and their lobbyists that work for a select group of powerful
people at the expense of everyone else. This just isn't about jobs or
wages. This is an agreement about corporate profits. Past trade deals
have been a disaster for American workers. So it is imperative that
Congress rigorously review this deal to ensure that the American people
aren't yet taken for a ride again.

Again, I will renew my call and the Progressive Caucus' call to
immediately release the text of the agreement. Six hundred corporate
CEOs know what is in the deal, but the 435 Members of this House and
the American public don't. That is simply wrong.

If this deal is as good as they say it is, put the language on the
table and let's review it with the public. My fear is that it is not.
If it is going to cost American jobs and wages, it is the wrong thing
to do, and we have to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

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