mr. speaker , i thank my friend from california ( mr. stark ) xz4003870 for his leadership on the ways and means committee on trade issues and especially on health care issues . 
i today rise to announce that i will reluctantly vote against the bahrain free trade agreement . 
unfortunately , despite the tough battle in this institution over the central american free trade agreement , very little has changed . 
it is too bad because this agreement could have been a step forward , but it is the same rubber-stamp trade template this administration refuses to alter . 
people praise u.s. trade representative portman for being a nice guy , which he is . 
they praise him for his good manners and intelligence and straightforwardness , all of which he deserves . 
he comes to the hill and talks to democrats occasionally and says he wants to work with us . 
but then when you look at the text of the bahrain trade agreement , labor and environmental provisions are again given short shrift . 
meanwhile , intellectual property protections , financial protections are as strong as ever . 
we continue to protect corporate interests without protecting workers . 
we continue to protect drug company interests without protecting the environment . 
we continue to protect financial institutions without protecting food safety laws . 
when i first ran for congress in 1992 , our country had a trade deficit of $ 38 billion . 
a dozen years later , last year in 2004 , our trade deficit was $ 618 billion . 
in this year , by the end of the year , it will probably exceed $ 700 billion . 
from $ 38 billion to $ 618 billion to $ 700-plus billion in less than a decade and a half . 
the deficit with china alone will approach $ 200 billion this year . 
many of our trading partners succeed because they use forced labor , child labor , sweatshop labor . 
they do not have the environmental protections and health regulations we enjoy in the united states . 
other countries like china and japan manipulate currency to their advantage . 
they do not play fair . 
the united states again loses . 
i would like to caution my colleagues , just because ustr is giving us major face time on capitol hill does not mean they are actually listening to what we are saying . 
the overwhelming majority of members of this congress support strong labor and environmental standards for trade agreement . 
we know that because they were in the core text of the jordan trade agreement which passed by a voice vote . 
i was sitting on the house floor at the time . 
no one , no one voiced opposition to the jordan free trade agreement which included those core labor and environmental standards . 
but today the template is always the same . 
the bush administration changes nothing . 
every trade agreement , every trade agreement we voted on since jordan has been a step back and there is no indication that the administration even cares about that . 
so do not be fooled by smiling faces and hollow pledges . 
until the text of these agreements contain the same protections for labor and the environment , the same protections for labor and the environment as these agreements always include for multi-national corporations and the drug industry , the pharmaceutical industry , we should stand against them . 
we all remember in july , in the middle of the night , we remember passing the central american free trade agreement . 
same old story . 
the debate took place late . 
the votes were cast in the middle of the night . 
the roll call was kept open for over an hour . 
republican members had their arms twisted . 
some , perhaps , were bribed . 
perhaps , we do not really know that . 
some may have been bribed . 
some were certainly offered little goodies or at least given threats if they did not change their vote . 
we know all that . 
to pass cafta they had to do that in the middle of the night . 
it passed by two votes . 
if one member had not switched a vote , it would have been tied . 
it would have been defeated . 
we heard the same promises on cafta as we hear today . 
more jobs , better everything for the developing world . 
after hearing all of that for cafta , let me just quote from the boston globe . 
the headline was : `` cafta blamed for layoffs at edenton textile plant. '' edenton , north carolina . 
more than 200 employees will lose their jobs at an edenton manufacturing plant when the company moves most of its operations to central america in the coming year . 
edenton town manager anne-marie knighton said the decision by the moore company is the result of the recently adopted central american free trade agreement . 
it did not take long for cafta to begin to cost us jobs . 
we hear the same promises in bahrain as we heard on cafta , the same promises on cafta that we heard about china , the same promises on china as we heard about nafta . 
if the administration continues on its current course , we can count on a few things for certain . 
our trade deficit will skyrocket and more u.s. jobs will be outsourced . 
