My Third Senate Bill

I rise before you today to demand that we abolish the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement, which costs the U.S. billions of dollars. Colleagues, it was no surprise that the United States' first Free Trade Agreement would be with Israel (1984). At the time, it made absolutely no sense, but that’s the power of AIPAC over this body. It is just another example of the way you fall all over yourselves to prove that you are more pro-Israel than the guy or gal sitting next to you; it is a love-fest - especially during election years. So, let's read about it and discuss how your putting your own elections before the well-being of your country has impacted your constituencies. Specifically, the U.S.- Israel FTA has cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs: just another example of Israel benefiting while the U.S. pays the price. This bill is to abolish the U.S.-Israel FTA for two reasons:  economic and political.  When I say political, I mean that Israel should not receive preferential treatment, as it will not lift a finger to solve its ongoing discriminatory domestic conflict – an ongoing conflict that makes all of us unsafe.

Let's read about the economic facts from Grant Smith at http://irmep.org/US-Israel_Trade.htm:

“Since the agreement was signed in 1985, U.S. trade with Israel shifted from  surplus to a cumulative $71 billion deficit (adjusted for inflation). The 2008 $7.8 billion deficit with Israel was equivalent to 126,000 U.S. manufacturing related jobs. It is the only bilateral FTA producing multi-billion dollar losses to the U.S. every year for the last decade, but total losses are still unknown. According to IRmep director Grant F. Smith, the agreement was the beginning of a chain reaction of intellectual property theft documented by industry associations and U.S. counterintelligence agencies: "U.S. corporations were betrayed by the leaks of their intellectual property during treaty negotiations in 1984. U.S. pharmaceutical, defense, and other industries continue to lose billions in revenue to Israeli copy-cat merchandise. We are only beginning to fully understand the larger impact of AIPAC and the Israeli government's ongoing acquisition of classified US information.”"

ITC confirmed the 1984 report titled "Probable Economic Effect of Providing
Duty Free Treatment for U.S. Imports from Israel, Investigation No. 332-180"

Colleagues, by abolishing the the Free Trade with Israel, we will restore thousands of jobs to the United States annually, jobs that we could not afford to lose in the first place.