Nomination of Katherine C. Tai

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, the Senate will soon take a procedural vote on the nomination of Katherine C. Tai to serve as the next U.S. Trade Representative.

For Senators who watched any of Ms. Tai's nomination hearing before the committee, you will know that Ms. Tai has a whole lot of fans on both sides of the aisle here in the Senate. So I am just going to take a few minutes to discuss some of the reasons why I think Ms. Tai is a terrific choice for this job.

First, she knows that the name of the game when it comes to this country's trade policy is protecting and creating high-skill, high-wage jobs. Our country saw, for the past 4 years, that a strategy of sending mean tweets and acting on chaos does not translate into more good jobs. Under President Biden, and with Katherine Tai leading USTR, I am confident we will have a more effective approach

Ms. Tai also has exactly the right experience for the job. She led crackdowns against China's trade cheating and job rip-offs. As the top trade staffer on the Ways and Means Committee, she was at the forefront to improve the new NAFTA when the Trump administration handed to Congress a deal that just wasn't strong enough for American workers. She already has a long track record of achieving wins for America's workers, businesses, farmers, and ranchers.

Second, Ms. Tai has committed to the Finance Committee that she will work to bring more transparency to trade policy. Bringing more sunlight to the country's trade agreements ought to be a priority that every Senator shares. That is why I am glad that President Biden has chosen somebody with congressional experience for the role of USTR.

The Constitution gives the Congress authority over international trade. Unfortunately, Congress, over the years, has delegated some of its power to the executive branch. So what that means is, now, all sides need to work together as partners, with open channels of communication, accountability, and transparency. And when I talk about transparency, I am talking about transparency with the American people. I know that Ms. Tai will continue to raise the bar for transparency and communication with Congress because she has been on our side of policymaking, and she has already proved that that kind of openness and accountability is a key priority for her.

With a former Senator in the White House and a former House staffer at USTR, I believe there would be a productive partnership with Congress so we can get trade done right and make sure that trade policy creates those high-skill, high-wage jobs that are a priority for every elected official.

Finally, there is another Finance Committee priority that I will just mention. On Thursday, the committee will hold a hearing on the subject of stamping out forced labor around the world. Forced labor is evil, it is morally repugnant, and it is a direct attack on workers in our country because, when American workers have to compete against slave labor, everybody loses. It is truly a race to absolute rock bottom when it comes to labor rights.

Ms. Tai is committed to President Biden's Build Back Better agenda. A key part of that agenda is ensuring that our workers are competing on a level playing field with the rest of the world. It is certainly not a level playing field when other countries are producing goods with slave labor.

Our government has laws on the books that can crack down on countries using slave labor and keep those products out of our market, but it is going to require an unwavering commitment to tough trade enforcement. This will continue to be an area of special focus for the Finance Committee.

Our colleague Senator Brown and I have worked on this issue for a long, long time. I know Ms. Tai is committed to working with us on it, and I know that she will work with colleagues on the other side of the aisle on this and other issues. It is an opportunity to stand up for what is right around the world and protect American jobs and wages at the same time.

So Katherine Tai is qualified. She has the right diversity of experience. She has her priorities right, which is to get more American workers into the winner's circle of trade policy, and she is going to do it in a way that promotes openness, accountability, and transparency.

I believe Ms. Tai is going to have strong bipartisan support here in the Senate when we vote in just a few minutes. I want Senators on both sides of the aisle to know that Ms. Tai has consistently, throughout her time in public service, worked in a bipartisan way with respect to ensuring that, at a time when modern communications and transportation have, to some extent, shrunk the world and trade has gotten to be more and more important, she is going to be on the side of workers. She is going to be on the side of trade done right. I am with her 100 percent of the way.

I urge all Senators to support Katherine Tai for this crucial post at USTR.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source