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Issues
Working Wisconsin Fair
Trade
It’s time that our trade policies work
to the benefit of American businesses, family farmers, and
workers. In particular, we need trade agreements that give
them a fair chance to compete, while also ensuring adequate
protections for the environment and public safety. The trade
policies agreed to over the past fifteen years have largely
failed to do that, and have contributed to the tough economic
times many Wisconsinites face.
Tens of thousands of good, family-supporting jobs have left
Wisconsin for China, Mexico and elsewhere, often devastating
entire communities. I opposed agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA,
Permanent Most Favored Nation Status for China, and others
that create a race to the bottom by failing to require fair
labor, environmental, safety, and other standards of our trading
partners. Wisconsin firms, farms, and workers can compete
very well in the global marketplace if they are given a fair
chance.
TRADE Act
I have proposed ways to fix our current
trade agreements and improve future trade agreements in a
bill I am cosponsoring with Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH),
the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development, and Employment
(TRADE) Act of 2008.
The TRADE Act requires a review of existing trade agreements,
and renegotiation of those agreements based on that review.
It would give Congress the chance to fix these agreements
that have proven over time to be nothing short of a disaster
for American workers.
This legislation will also lay the groundwork for how to negotiate
future trade agreements. Congress must put a far greater emphasis
on improved labor, environmental, food and product safety
standards in our agreements. Of course, those standards mean
little unless we also include rigorous enforcement mechanisms
and penalties for failing to meet them.
We can negotiate trade agreements in a way that avoids the
problems we have seen with NAFTA and other agreements. We
can do it with the new direction provided by the TRADE Act
that will strengthen economic security, maintain family-supporting
jobs in the U.S., and encourage sustainable development in
countries that are our trading partners.
Buy American
The federal government should be the first to support our
nation’s manufacturers. The Buy American Act of 1933 is supposed
to ensure that the federal government supports domestic companies
and domestic workers by buying American-made goods. However,
the existing law allows federal agencies to waive Buy American
requirements in a number of circumstances.
I introduced the Buy American Improvement Act, which would
fix these loopholes and require federal agencies to submit
public reports on their non-U.S. purchases in order to better
protect American workers and their jobs. In 2007, I was able
to get the reporting requirement in my Buy American Improvement
Act enacted. For five years, most federal agencies will have
to report on the agency’s purchases of foreign-made goods.
This Buy American reporting requirement is stronger than
previous requirements because it will require federal agencies
to specify for the first time the specific legal provision
or exception in the Buy American Act that allows them to purchase
foreign-made goods. The increased information obtained from
these reports will help my efforts to improve the Buy American
Act. I will continue working to make the reporting requirement
permanent and to pass other parts of my Buy American Improvement
Act that would close the loopholes in the existing Buy American
law.
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