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Floor Speech

Date: June 12, 2025
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I don't often agree with the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board, but they had it right this morning in their op-ed. They said:

Trump Has No China Trade Strategy.

That is what The Wall Street Journal said.

Trump Has No China Trade Strategy.

I agree, Trump has no China trade strategy.

Yesterday, President Trump shouted from the mountaintops that a trade deal with China has been ``done,'' but in reality, nothing of the sort happened.

It is typical Trump. He just makes things up that he thinks please himself and please his rightwing for the moment. In truth, Donald Trump struck a feeble truce and calls it a victory.

In fact, calling this a ``truce,'' calling it ``feeble'' would be putting it kindly. Donald Trump's actions with China and the handshake yesterday accomplished virtually nothing. China has outfoxed him, and we are just back where we started.

After months of Donald Trump trying to talk tough on China, China today has more leverage over the United States than when Trump started on this venture. Donald Trump's trade war has been a colossal failure and a chaotic mess, with virtually nothing to show for it.

Donald Trump should go back to the drawing board and start over and come up with a plan that actually goes after China, by joining with our allies instead of going to war with them, by having them be allies with us to put pressure on China. And that will make action against China much tougher and more successful, instead of what Trump did, alienating our allies and having them ally with China instead of us.

And Donald Trump should tell Mr. Navarro to get another job. This man has had terrible advice, in Donald Trump's first term and now in Donald Trump's second term.

Two months since America's supposed ``Liberation Day,'' it is clear that Donald Trump's trade strategy is not working, and his main problem is that he doesn't have a coherent strategy at all. Donald Trump's only move seems to be creating chaos. It is as if he wakes up in the morning and picks a country out of a hat. It just pops into his head, and he runs with it--no strategy, no coherence, no understanding or appreciation of what occurred the day before or might occur the day after. He has turned markets manic, and he has paralyzed business.

Business leaders you talk to, from one end of America to the other-- big business, medium-size business, small business--say they are paralyzed. They can't move because they don't know what he is going to do next on tariffs. And given how erratic and inconsistent he has been, who can blame them.

One Kentucky small business owner, a Trump supporter who runs a baseball goods company, described this trade war as ``a vacation from hell.'' To millions of American businesses, that is exactly what has happened. This is a vacation from hell, self-imposed by Donald Trump.

As the summer break begins, and families start traveling around the country, that is exactly what Americans are feeling as well: a vacation from hell, thanks to Donald Trump's tariff policies.

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