You do not export democracy through the Defense Department or the Defense Secretary. You do it through trade agreements, through the Department of Commerce and favorable agreements with our friends and neighbors across the globe.

Now, given the experience that we have had thus far, with our subsequent trade agreements with NAFTA and others, you would think that with our experience of job loss that we have had there that when you find yourself in a hole that you might stop digging.

Likewise, free trade does not, as evidenced in CAFTA, mean fair trade.

Free trade should not mean free labor.

Instead of trade policy that is beneficial to American businesses and workers as well as our trade partners, we have a flawed trade policy that hurts all parties.

Proponents of the Central America Free Trade Agreement have conveniently ignored this fundamental fact: the effect of trade on incomes in Central America and how to alleviate the adverse consequences of trade liberalization on the poor.