Executive Session

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to be on the floor today to speak about something of significance, certainly to Kansas but to the country.

We await House action on USMCA--the trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico. It is a trade agreement that is attempting to replace NAFTA and an agreement that is of significance, as I say, to the folks back home in my State.

For the last 2 years, I have engaged in a campaign to try to elevate the importance and to make sure my colleagues, the administration, and people here in Congress understand how important exports and trade are to the United States' economy.

In Kansas, we are an export State. What we produce, what we manufacture, and what we grow in the fields of our State in many, many instances end up someplace else outside the United States.

I have spoken on the Senate floor before. I have met with the President. I have talked to his Cabinet officials. I wrote an open letter to U.S. agricultural groups, encouraging them to fully engage in support for USMCA approval. I have had speaking engagements in places across the country, trying to rally farmers and ranchers and manufacturers and others to fight to preserve our trading relationship with Canada and Mexico.

On Saturday, at home in Kansas, I was with the Kansas Farm Bureau at a townhall. It kicked off their 101st annual meeting to discuss issues facing Kansas agriculture. The topic of trade and its importance to the products that we grow was the most important and most discussed topic at that townhall meeting.

USMCA was signed over a year ago. It is time for the House to pass this important agreement, and, in order for the House to pass it, the Speaker needs to bring it up for a vote.

Canada and Mexico are Kansas's No. 1 and No. 2 export markets. They account for over one-third of exports from our State. Since 2013, unfortunately, farm income at home has fallen by 50 percent. So net farm income in Kansas is down half in the last 6 years.

Many producers are struggling. They have struggled to hang on to their operations, and when farmers aren't doing well, it means that the communities they live in and support aren't doing well. The question is often this: What business will we lose when farmers are not having financial success? What young men and women who grew up on a farm or grew up in that small town will, perhaps, even reluctantly, find a job someplace else because the economy is not helpful to them as they start their careers?

USMCA will continue to provide duty-free market access to farm commodities, while also expanding trade opportunities for dairy producers and leveling the playing field for the wheat we export to Canada.

USMCA is important to manufacturers as well. USMCA will protect the integrated North American supply chain that is critical to manufacturers in our State.

Wichita is known as the air capital of the world due to aerospace and aviation manufacturing. Kansas is also home to automobile, farm equipment, and other manufacturers.

Twenty-five percent of Kansas manufacturers--mostly, small to medium- size businesses--export to Canada and Mexico.

Nearly 25 years after its enactment, NAFTA was due to be modernized and to reflect changes in today's economy. USMCA will strengthen the rules on intellectual property rights and address digital trade issues. This modernized agreement will serve as a template for future trade negotiations, putting the United States in the driver's seat for setting global trade rules and norms.

Kansas, as I said, is an export State. If we are not exporting, the ability to earn a living, to save a family farm, and to keep our small manufacturers across the communities that dot our State disappears. The ability to earn a living in Kansas depends upon selling food and manufactured goods around the world.

We must continue the fight for more trade, not less. Again, I ask the House of Representatives to quickly consider and please do not let this calendar year come to an end without the NAFTA replacement in place. Recognition of the Minority Leader

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source