mr. speaker , i thank my friend from california ( mr. stark )  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 .  