Trade agreement, the trade agreement with colombia and south korea, one after another, every one of these trade agreements, every one of these trade actions were written fundamentally in secret by corporate interests to serve corporate interests. Workers were never at the center of these trade agreements. One of my proudest votes in the house was against the north American Free trade agreement. I voted no ever since. Again because all of these trade agreements were written by corporations to maximize profits and compensation for executives and to enrich stockholders always, madam president , always at the expense of workers. At the expense of communities like mansfield, ohio and like portsmouth, ohio, and toledo and youngstown. I was talking to a friend of mine in trumble county. She knows. A former senator. She knows whats happened with these trade agreements w. Know how that he undermine communities and hurt workers. Always because these trade agreements were written by corporations in secret. Weve watched the spread of the corporate Business Model. Because of nafta and these trade agreements and because of trump tax policies where you pay a lower tax rate if you move overseas than if you than you pay in the United States, Ranking Member wyden in those days, despite his efforts to stop those kinds of tax breaks that go to the richest people in the country. But this Business Model as you shut down protection in lima, ohio or shut down production in zanesville or cleveland, you move over, you get a tax break. You move overseas and then you sell your products back in the United States. Thats been the Business Model based on our trade policy for years. President trump, candidate trump promised something different. He promised to renegotiate nafta. The problem is when he put that his agreement in front of us, it was the same old, same old. It was the same old economic policies. It again put corporate interests in the center of this trade agreement. It was a trade policy that was like all of our trade policies of the past. Over and over again this president s portrayed workers from tax giveaways to corporations to his judges, his judges that put their thumbs on the scale always supporting corporate interests, corporations over workers, always supporting wall street over consumers. And as we know, down the hall where senator mcconnells office s. Almost every day he walks down here to try to confirm farright extremist judges, always young judges that do that same thing, that put their thumb on the scales of justice, always supporting corporations over workers. And as i said, last year we got an initial draft of president trumps agreement, another betrayal. His first nafta draft was nowhere near the good deal that the president promised. He had negotiated pure and simple another corporate trade deal. Meant nothing for workers and it was a sellout to drug companies. In fact, the white house, madam president , the white house looks like a retreat for wall street executives except on tuesdays and fridays when the white house looks like a retreat for drug company executives. It took us, it took senator wyden and Speaker Pelosi and unions months and months and months working together to improve this deal. The president resisted and resisted and resisted but we finally approved a deal to put workers at the center of our trade policy. We have a provision that senator wyden and i will talk about. It says violence against workers is a violation of the agreement. Might sound obvious. Never been in a trade deal before. For the First Time Ever we strike we spell out workers right to strike. Again it should be obvious but never included before. If the workers dont have that right to strike, not something that workers want to do very often if ever. My wife whos whose dad was a utility worker in the union for 35 years talks about growing up. They went on strike twice when she was a kid. Workers never get back from a strike never really recover from that strike but sometimes they have to. It needs to be in trade agreements to make sure Worker Rights are protected. Weve improved some of the league lease that since the beginning has been legalese has been included in trade agreements that make it nearly impossible to win a case when a country violates its labor commitments. Most importantly we secured our brownwyden provision that amounts to the strongest ever labor enforcement ever in a u. S. Trade deal. The provision that senator wyden and i wrote and fought for is the first improvement to enforcing the labor standards in our trade agreements since weve been negotiating them. We know why Companies Close factories in ohio, in oregon and open them in mexico. They pay lower wages. They take advantage of workers who dont have rights. They have weaker nonexistent environmental laws. American workers cant compete when Companies Move overseas and exploit lowwage workers. We essentially, madam president , get a race to the bottom on wages. The only way to stop this is by raising labor standards in every country we buy and sell to and every country with which we trade and export and import. Raising labor standards making sure those standards are actually enforced. If corporations are forced to pay workers a living wage and treat them with dignity and really honor the dignity of work no matter where those workers are located, then we take away the incentives to make move jobs overseas. Think about this. Companies in the u. S. , the missions state sort of the business practice of shutting down production in nice, ohio niles, ohio and moving overseas, they will be less likely to do that if the workers are paid decent wages. Then those workers will be able to buy our products you because theyre more likely to be in the middle class. Thats what brownwyden is all way. Its a completely new way of Holding Corporations accountable. A worker in mexico will be able to report a company violating their rights. Within months we can determine whether Worker Rights had been violated and we take action against that company. We apply punitive damages when companies cheat, break the law, stop workers from organizing, and if they keep doing it, the final strong enforcement, we stop their goods from coming into the United States. We in essence si okay, youre cheating. Youre breaking the law. Youre violating your workers rights. Youre not going to have access to the u. S. Market. Thats enforcement. When they have the power to form real unions and negotiate for higher wages, it helps our workers. Mexican workers can be paid as little as 6. 5 a day right now. The minimum wage in tennessee, ohio, minimum wage is higher in our country per hour. This is 6. 50 a day. Weve been asking American Workers to compete with that. We heard critic say that brownwyden will force mexican wages to rise. I know a lot of c. E. O. s that make 7 million, 8 million a year, want to keep wages low in other countries but they accuse us of forcing mexican wages to rise. Thats kind of the point. Thats what we want to do because it takes away incentives for those c. E. O. s, those 7 million, 8 million, 9 million a year c. E. O. s in america looking abroad to hire cheap labor and to exploit workers and make more money for themselves. I want to especially thank senator wyden. Without him and his staff, without him endorsing the proposal, without him pushing aggressively, we would not be here. I want to be clear, though. We will be straight with American Workers. Its not a perfect agreement. One trade deal that democrats fixed over the president s opposition but the democrats fix is not going to bring back auto plants like the president promises. I have real concerns that the auto rules of origin are much weaker than the Administration Says they are. We know the administration always exaggerates its successes and doesnt tell the truth about many of the things it does. We know that this trade agreement was a corporate trade agreement, not a worker trade agreement. Now workers are at the center. Well be watching the president. He needs to ensure companies actually comply with these rules. Ill demand we strengthen them if we need to. One trade deal that democrats fixed also wont undo the rest of trumps economic policies. It is policies that put corporations over workers. We havent raised the minimum wage. The president took overtime pay away from 50,000 ohioans by changing the rule on how overtime is paid. This deal isnt going to fix all that. This usmca isnt going to fix outsourcing when we have president trumps tax plan that gives companies a tax break to send jobs overseas. Im going to keep fighting president trumps corporate trade policies and tax policies, just as we did with this agreement. We have more work to do to make our trade agreements more proworker. I will vote yes, as i said at the outset. I will vote yes for the First Time Every on a trade agreement. But because by including brownwyden, democrats have taken another corporate trade deal brought us to by president trump, democrats have made this agreement much more proworker, and, as the senator from oregon know, we have set an important precedent that brownwyden will be included, must be included in every future trade agreement. Mr. Wyden madam president , id like to the presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Wyden i id like to id like to pose some questions to my colleague from ohio who has done so much on these issues, not just for the last few months, but for years and years. And i want to thank them h. R. Foys extraordinary commitments to the rights of workers and to all these communities, senator brown, who you have pointed out essentially lose their economic heartbeat by trade policies that cheat workers. So i want to ask you about this. Ive, and ive heard this lots of places, that people have said these ideas seem good, but are they really that consequential . And youve been at this for more than a quarter century. Weve watched you come out on the floor, you know, year after year after year. And let me give you my calculation of what this package that weve worked on that you deserve so much credit for consists of. As far as i can tell and weve worked on it with the staff this is the fastest enforcement process by more than 300 because of what you have done to speed up the time line for protecting workers. It is the toughest because for the first time it allows our country to hit the worst actor the hardest by stopping ripoff artists at the individual factory level and its the strongest because it allows us to hit companies who repeatedly violate, you know, the law. Were able to stop the products of exploitative labor at the border. Now, my question you to and i want to ask you a couple, but i wanted to get this overview first. Youve been at this for more than a quarter century. Is there any trade enforcement regime that, in terms of those specifics, comes close to what that new regime would consist of . Mr. Brown yeah, thank you, senator wyden. And thank you for your help in putting all this together. Not even close. Weve seen trade agreement after trade agreement that simply is not even when labor standards look fairly strong, theyre not really ever enforceable. Part of what we recognize weve seen this. We wont back and looked at what happens after nafta passes. What h we have seen attempt at labor enforcement. Companies or governments that dont want to enforce labor laws find a way as lawyers are good at doing, taking forever, they slow walk. When you push them to do something, they stay in court. There was a case in Central America that we went on in guatemala for 7 or 8 years. The old saying, justice delayed is justice denied, you cant get enforcement of people who have done the violation committed the violation take forever. Speed is one of the things, how important that is. The other parties one of the things we knew would speed it up and would mean enforcement would work was that the workers would have an ability to kick off the investigation, call a tollfree number that they can register, they have seen child labor violations. They have seen workers attack violence aimed against workers, wages denied for illegal reasons, the workers can speak out and ban together and go to a panel and get quick action. We found cases where the company could get a slap on the wrist and do it again. For the first time. And the third time we can deny, nafta benefits if they are going to break the law, attack workers or keep the union out illegally or deny paid to workers who earned it, you are going to see your market dry up. And keep the market out of the United States if youre a serial cheater in a company that does that. Faster, tougher, because it gets at the individual factory level and stronger because it stops repeat offenders who come up with products using exploited labor, to know and have it highlighted in records that might take is given what we have seen in the last 25 years is better than we have ever seen before. We find people tripping over themselves to cheat because they were merchandise laundering, a little different from this, we set up a w website a dummy website to keep track of people who were cheating and we would remember, didnt know whether to laugh or cry but all over the world people are coming forward to cheat but that was useful. It didnt come close to the breadth of what was done here. Let me ask more specific questions. Lots of people in all the campaigns and the like talking about was the smartest or was this a bold set of changes. We have walked through how much stronger this is than anything we have seen in the last quarter century. If a worker report, you mentioned how they can use the hotline to enforce the rights. At a call center. And the government to send labor inspectors to that facility. Is that correct. Whether it is an auto factory. And there is evidence of violations. And corporations dont what kind of inspectors looking at. And that would mean a quick break in the law. They moved to mexico because it was easy to evade labor law. They see the us mca, and and we will enforce these labor laws. They must think twice about shutting down production in marianna or toledo overseas and that was the goal of enforcement too. Can you take us through what kind of actions can be taken against a facility. My understanding of labor inspectors violate, and what actions are taken against that particular facility. Let me talk for a second about a sector that was important in my part of the country, the auto sector. Of the company cheating auto facility and a Mexican Community that company sheets and we find labor violations and we take action against the company does not just against the companys facility in the community. If the Company Cheats and is trying to if a Company Cheats its workers and has broken the law on any number of labor violations that applies to any product the company normally sends, they cheat there but bring in products from somewhere else, and it works this way. If you find a violation first there is a fine. It was essentially proportionate to the violation meaning it is not as punitive, the first offense, the second and third offense get more serious, it is much greater, beyond proportionality, the third offense is when we step in and deny half the benefits, deny access to the markets, deny them the brakes they get on the border. On the third violation whether it was violation of labor law, by the third violation the enforcement and penalties are such they are going to keep doing it. Labor law the Mexican Government passed in labor law that are under the nafta government. Would you be saying that if it is found there were labor violations at a car factory the penalties could apply to any car that might come into the United States throughout the investigation, not just Going Forward. From that factory and also other factories owned by the same automaker so you cant cheat one place and get your autos into the other place without tariffs. We looked at what happened and look back over the last couple decades working with very good staff, finance committee and found every example we could about how violations occur and how to stop those violations. It took a while, the president handed down another corporate trade agreement that helps corporations at the expense of workers and that is why the trump us mca took a long time to pass because for a year they were resistant to good labor enforcement and to help corporate buddies. Remember senator wydens provision to help the drug companies. And we stripped that out of the agreement. To help the drug economies or wall street or outsource jobs. I have appreciated this colloquy. I have a couple town meetings, workingclass neighborhoods four jobs in my state revolve around trade jobs that often pay better to do the nontrade jobs. You think anything will be accomplished with what you and senator brown talked about, i went through the entire enforcement profits and laid out the country and the senate. The timeline for an enforcement action, it used to take years and years sometimes, you have shortened that. You have been part of an effort that is tougher because you can go after individual factories and finally i think this enforcement proposal gets to the heart of what you need to be doing because it means if you rip off workers we will stop products workers produce. And in the finance committee that was heavily involved in those issues for a lot of years. I want to say this didnt happen by osmosis because when we got that bill everybody said they will have discussions about it and that will be it. Senator wyden and i announced the success of getting brown wyden into the bill. I heard a lot of pro trump, procorporate lawmakers, they thought this was going to be another trade agreements, us mca, written by corporations, mostly in secret that will serve corporate interests and have a bottom line and help executives make multimillion dollars a year, major stockholders and ignore workers and they were fine with that. They found this trade agreement puts workers at the center. And at town meetings in eugene and portland. And this is what we will be debating and voting on. I want to thank senator brown, this would not have happened without tough trade enforcement led by senator brown. This would not have happened. I yield the floor. Senator from delaware. Senior democrat and Ranking Member, i thank them both. We would not be here on this day without you and your leadership. When sherrod brown, and it is my highest regards. Over and over, madame president , i rise today to discuss north American Freetrade agreement known as nafta. And they had an opportunity to evaluate the new nafta. And as you know, trade deals have hundreds of a number of issues that ultimately. They move through the Senate Finance committee and as a Senior Member of the committee and the impact of those bills on American Consumers and businesses. Making sure other countries consult to us and we can sell to other countries especially close allies like canada, mexico to the south. Following years of uncertainty, this agreement will provide a measure of certainty for those who help the economy. Provisions included in the new nafta help in our state, poultry producers gain better access to canadian markets, important for maryland, virginia and other places where they raise chickens and increase market access, Dairy Farmers in delaware and those across the country. The trade commission estimates this will allow 315 million in exports, 315 million increase in exports on the dairy side. And the trade deal, it makes improvement on past trade agreements including the original nafta. And the obligations to parties under multilateral environmental agreements including amendments to the montreal protocol can be fully enforced as i will talk about that. Thanks to democrats, no longer the case to ratify environmental agreement can be used to prevent the others from being held accountable for failing to honor their obligations. New nafta includes provisions that have never been included in trade agreements before. Environmental violations treated as trade violations. When the United States, the nafta environmental obligations, those cases are easier to win Going Forward. And significant new winds for coastal states including information around overfishing, conservation of marine species and Marine Debris. When we talk about Marine Debris keep this in mind. There is a Great Pacific garbage patch, largely plastics, it is twice the size of texas. Not twice the size of delaware, not twice the size of maryland, twice the size of texas. An agreement to pay 8 million for environmental monitoring, the new nafta create an enforcement mechanism that brings stakeholders an expanded role in enforcement matters. This will go a long way toward ensuring they will be investigated, and in a timely manner. My colleagues safe i ask how he is doing and he says compared to what . With what this body has considered, new nafta, the strongest Environmental Enforcement provisions we have seen to date. That is good news especially for a trade deal put forth under this administration. Does it include everything, some republican colleagues would like to see with regard to environmental protections, it does not. The new nafta fails to commit the United States to the paris accord, fails to provide the amendment i mentioned earlier to the montreal protocol which could bring the Global Community to reduce the use of hscs hydro fluorocarbons found in products like airconditioners and freezers and prevent by the use of those products prevent up to a half degrees celsius increase in Global Warming by the end of this century just by doing this one thing. Like so many of the trump administer jeanettes proposals the new nafta fails to even mention the word climate change. This trade agreement does add important tools and resources primarily negotiated by democrats to strengthen the deal, hold the Administration Accountable that would enforce nafta countries. That will be in order. Would you say that again . The senate will be in order. Thank you, madame president. With this agreement the trade agreement does an important tools and resources that were negotiated by democrats to strengthen the deal, hold the Administration Accountable, enforce nafta, environmental obligations and ensure those who break the rules are held accountable. Madame president , madame president , as senior adopt democrat on the Public Works Committee im especially aware of the extreme Environmental Policies put forth by the current administration. Week after week i helped to lead the fight against reckless unbelievably qualified candidates and their relentless attempt to chip away at our nations bedrock environmental protections. We know what to expect from this administration when it comes to environmental policy. As a result i know the environmental provisions in new nafta thanks to the hard work of democrats in the house and senate and some republicans too are far stronger than where we started. Not perfect and we must do more Going Forward but it is better than we have ever done before and that must be recognized. I want to pause and thank ambassador Robert Lighthizer and his staff for their hard work and willingness to engage with my colleagues and with me. Extraordinary outreach and responsiveness and i want to say thank you to the ambassador and his team. When Michael Foley was a trade rep in the last administration. Let me end with this. While it is good news we were able to reach an agreement on the new nafta i want to caution my colleagues the uncertainty caused by Donald Trumps haphazard approach to trade is far from over. The multifront trade war with allies and trading partners is approaching two years, two years of american farmers, american manufacturers, retailers, experiencing increased cost from Donald Trumps tariffs while being left out of overseas markets due to retaliatory tariffs, two years of uncertainty and disruption putting investments and hiring decisions on hold. Two years of uncertainty for the American Workers who are not sure their jobs will continue as trade wars drag on. Where has that gotten us . Limited trade agreement with japan may be better than nothing, and attempt to cover up negative affects that withdraw from the transpacific trade partnership, tpp, has had on our economy and global competitors. And negotiated in the last administration was a 12 nation trading block negotiated by Michael Foley and his staff, including 40 of the worlds economy, 12 nations, guess who read it . We did. Guess who was exploited . China for the bad behavior they follow. On the outside, looking in and they walked away from that and what we came up with in its place is something that in my view, not nearly as bold. I am reviewing the text of phase one, and the agreement fall short of the structure reforms to chinas planned economy, has trumpeted for some time. The structure reforms just did not make the final cut. As we enter this new year, to rethink approaches to trade, return to a multilateral approach much as we had on transpacific partnerships. It works with allies and trading partners to conduct a leak with the global rules of trade. Campaign 2020, watch continuing coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind as voting begins next month, watch live coverage of the iowa caucuses. On monday, february 3rd, cspans campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. Former National Security adviser susan rice joined a panel with Obama Administration officials to discuss the National Security priorities, progressive government should focus on during his first 100 days in office. Good morning. Welcome to the National Security conference. It is wonderful to see so many friendly faces, former officials, advocates, congressional staff. Thank you again for joining us this morning. It feels like a big Family Reunion which is nice to have but it is more than a reunion, more than an