Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PETERS. Mr. Chairman, there's a lot of talk here in Washington about the need to cut our budget deficits; and while that is certainly true, we also need to be talking about another deficit, and that's our country's trade deficit.

Last year, the United States ran a trade deficit of $558 billion. If you look just at the trade in goods, this number jumps to an astounding $737 billion.

According to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, the growth in the U.S. trade deficit with China alone has led to the loss of almost 3 million American jobs in the last 10 years.

Too often, the U.S. opens its markets to foreign competition without reciprocal access. And while we play by the rules here in the United States, other countries impose unfair tariffs, duties, and technical barriers, and even use techniques like currency manipulation to game international trade rules.

China aggressively uses trade policies, including currency manipulation, to protect and subsidize their domestic industries, while undermining American companies. In response to the World Trade Organization case that the United States brought against China, the Chinese Government recently imposed new retaliatory duties on American-made vehicles which are clearly in violation of WTO requirements.

Additionally, China consistently advances policies to force technology transfers from non-Chinese companies and obtain the intellectual property that drives these advanced technologies. China has also used these policies to help gain an advantage in a number of different industries, including wind turbines and water purification.

Given the aggressive actions taken by China and other countries, we simply cannot afford not to use every tool at our disposal to combat unfair trade practices. This is why Representative Michaud and I have joined with our colleagues from across the aisle, Representatives MCCOTTER and LATOURETTE, to put forward a bipartisan amendment to fully fund the new Interagency Trade Enforcement Center, or ITEC.

President Obama created ITEC to enhance the administration's capabilities to proactively challenge unfair trade practices around the world, including in China. ITEC represents a new, aggressive ``whole-of-government'' approach to addressing unfair trade practices and will serve as the primary forum within the Federal Government for executive Departments and Agencies to coordinate enforcement of international and domestic trade rules.

It is now up to us here in Congress to fund ITEC and give it the teeth it needs to aggressively attack unfair and illegal foreign practices. It is certainly a step in the right direction that the Appropriations Committee provided $15 million of the requested $26 million in funding for ITEC to get it off the ground. But with our Nation running a half-a-trillion-dollar trade deficit, now is not the time for half measures.

We must do everything possible to level the playing field for American workers and American companies. Our budget-neutral, bipartisan amendment will fully fund ITEC by making a small reduction in the Cross Agency Support in NASA, an item funded at $2.84 billion. This amounts to a reduction of less than sixth-tenths of 1 percent for this item. And while I certainly support NASA, this reduction does not come from their core budget items of education, exploration, or aeronautics.

American workers are the best in the world, and they can out-compete anybody, but Congress must pass legislation to ensure that they compete on a level playing field.

Whether you believe in aggressively moving forward with additional trade agreements, or you believe that we need to rethink American trade policy, we should all agree that we cannot and must not let foreign governments cheat because when they do, American workers and American firms lose.

A vote against this commonsense amendment is a vote to allow China and other nations to continue gaming international trade laws. Stand up for American workers. Fully fund ITEC, and vote ``yes'' on the Peters-McCotter-Michaud-LaTourette amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source