Trade Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for her question because she is right on the pinpoint of what this issue is about. It is really about small businesses that don't have huge capital reserves to set aside money so that they can guarantee the sale of their product.

As I said, there is $9 billion of pending issues before the Bank right now, and many of those are small businesses. So those small businesses could be opening up economic opportunity that might grow their revenue significantly and allow them to create more jobs. When we think about the motion I just made, if no one had objected, that $9 billion would have been free to go out into the economy, those deals would have gotten done, those small businesses would have been empowered, and we would be on our way to winning in what is an export economy.

Why is it an export economy? Because the growing middle class around the globe is going to double in the next several years. Ninety-five percent of consumers live outside the United States of America. So we want to win economic opportunity, and we have to be able to sell outside the United States of America. It is hard because not every place in the United States of America is so developed that their banking system is there to do deals.

This great company in my State, in Spokane, SCAFCO--two of my colleagues here--the ranking member on the Agriculture Committee, from Michigan, and my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Heitkamp--are very active in agriculture issues and will get it. He is basically making and selling aluminum grain containers, silos, all over the world. That is his business. He has expanded it, built new buildings, and he has an incredible workforce.

As the rest of the world--particularly in Africa and South America but even in Asia--starts to grow their agricultural economies, guess what they need. They need agriculture equipment. I am sure the Senator from Michigan understands that because she has some of those manufacturers. So those manufacturers have a huge opportunity to sell U.S.-made agriculture equipment.

I like to say: Guess what we are still No. 1 at in the United States of America? Agriculture. We know how to do agriculture. Guess what the next big opportunity is around the globe? Feeding the growing middle class around the globe. It is one of the biggest economic opportunities. But we have to be able to sell them things. We have to be able to sell them Michigan-manufactured products. We have to be able to sell them agriculture products that my colleague from North Dakota makes. SCAFCO needs to be able to sell their grain silos, but they can't because people want to hold up this process, all to put a trophy on someone's desk saying they did the bidding of a very conservative think tank that--the last I know, I don't think they created any of these manufacturing jobs in America.

I hope my colleagues will help us continue this debate because I know there are some who will say: Well, we passed this bill, and it is going to get done someday. Someday, really? Because everybody said we will get it on the Transportation bill in April. OK. That didn't happen. They did an extension. It didn't happen. We will get it on the Transportation bill in July. The Bank won't expire. Guess what. It expired. Now they are telling us to wait again, and we do not want to wait on creating more U.S. jobs.

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