Tariffs and Trade

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the people of northwest Ohio and the Great Lakes region, which is heavily industrial and agricultural, overwhelmingly oppose the Trump administration's ill-conceived trade war with Canada, Ohio's top fair trade partner and our largest fair trade partner.

Apparently there is a plan for a 1-month pause with this tariff relationship with Canada, but remember, Canada has been critical to the automotive industry, the lumber industry, the oil industry, the truck industry, every single industry you can think of, and now we are not sure what is going to happen in 1 month.

There is an old expression that says don't break what doesn't need fixing. There is another stronger adage that says don't shoot yourself in the foot.

The administration's imposition of tariffs across our Great Lakes region adds up to a big lollapalooza-sized mistake. It will cause prices to rise, unemployment to increase, and act as a throttle to economic progress across our Great Lakes region. Rising tariffs will put a brake on our region's economy and strong, two-way trade partnership. They put a 25 percent tariff at the northern border, right, but with China it is 10 percent. That is 25 percent among free traders and 10 percent on those that don't exercise in a manner that creates free trade.

Indeed, the U.S.-Canadian trade partnership is the strongest economic growth engine in our part of the American continent. With meager help from Washington, except for President Eisenhower's investment in our region after World War II, our region's economic growth has been hard- fought, especially recently.

Far too often, firms here have been disinvested and traded away by Wall Street, Big Tech, and Washington bigwigs who don't understand our region's free market struggle. All those billionaires simply love shipping our jobs to penny-wage nations, and I am truly surprised President Trump has joined them.

Great Lakes region economic growth across the U.S.-Canadian border has been hard-fought, not exploitative. Middle-class jobs have grown here, albeit far too slowly, and tariffs will cause a downdraft on economic growth, rising prices, and lost jobs.

The investor class has been shipping out our jobs everywhere in the world. Growing jobs in our mid-continent freshwater economy requires cooperation, not upending U.S.-Canadian relationships that have taken decades to build in both our nations. Frankly, both coasts have made it harder for us to ship through the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway. This is wrong. We should be allowed to compete fairly. Let the President go to that thought.

Our Nation should stand for free trade among free people. Imposing tariffs on North American companies that are struggling to meet penny- wage global competition is driving our economy backwards.

President Trump should study the trade numbers. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that of the United States' top 15 trading partners, Canada is the fourth smallest contributor to the U.S. trade deficit compared to countries like China, Mexico, and Vietnam, each of whom engage in unfair and exploitative labor practices.

Focus on the nations with whom we have mammoth trade deficits, like China. Don't hurt North America. Rethink the administration's costly, unnecessary burden on our Great Lakes region which the President carried. The President should be helping us, not hurting us.

As a result of Trump's tariffs, the prices and costs of doing business already are rising. Layoffs will occur. You will see more foreign cars flood into our country as China will increase shipments of its low-wage produced goods.

Across our Great Lakes States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, and Minnesota, let our people remember President Trump's ill-conceived tariff edict. President Trump is driving up costs in our trusted two-way U.S.-Canada trade relationship. Our Great Lakes coastal economy, the heart of industrial and agricultural America from Duluth to Toledo to Buffalo, doesn't need this stress and lurch into reverse.

Canada is our Nation's largest fair trading partner and Ohio's biggest trading partner. Our region will work with any President and Prime Minister to reinvest in our Nation's industrial and agricultural base. Why not focus tariffs on China where the trade gap is enormous and there is no fair trade, or Mexico where the wages and the gap of wages is horrendous compared to our country? Why pick on the middle- class and hard-laboring people of the Great Lakes?

We live in a fair market economy. We should. Rising tariffs will only cripple economic growth here, and the Trump administration has just shot itself in the foot again. Our Nation's trade gaps need to be fixed with far too many unfair penny-wage nations and exploitative trade relationships.

Don't pick on our part of the country. Don't break what doesn't need fixing.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source