U. S. Trade representative Robert Lighthizer was on capitol hill to testify on the Trump Administration trade policy. The use of tariffs, trade with china and implementation of the u. S. Canada trade agreement. Mr. Lighthizer was asked about the Global Supply chain of the inquisition of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. The Senate Hearing is just under three hours. Im pleased to welcome ambassador lighthizer. Thank you for joining us. We need to have you here because we face great challenges whether its the murder of floyd or whether its the economic downturn we had because of the pandemic or the pandemic itself. We have a lot facing our country. Its not going to be easy to bring us back on the course of iran and their brave but good trade policy will be one important part of doing so so im glad we have that discussion today. Trade policy is immediately significant because we need to make sure we dont have any unnecessary taxes on goods g2 the recovery or in fighting the pandemic. Thats why a vastly International Trade condition commission on what those goods are, where they come from and how much they are taxed. This study which is ongoing will provide an independent and transparent snapshot of the medical and ppe supplychain. Its important that we carefully study the supplychain before we rush to judgment and act. We have two take a long hard look at our ability to protect ourselves with this crisis but we have to find a Smart Solution that accepts the realities that trade is fundamental to our supply and prosperity. The longterm trade is a key part of the solution because it promotes freedom. It provides customers for our best in the class Agricultural Products. It eliminates arbitrary areas and exhibits entrepreneurship and independence. He particularly trade empowers Small Businesses that are the back long of our communities and in fact 97 of u. S. Export our Small Businesses. It could start to empower people in fixing our economy. Making sure as many people as possible have the option of being their own boss. Well attend them and our communities to press for even more opportunities. This is especially true because our trading partners already enjoyed the fact that we have one the most open economies in the world. Ambassador lighthizer, you have taken important steps to help with these issues. I am pleased this year starting off with congress approving the u. S. Mexico agreement. U. S. Mca is expected to spur 176,000 new jobs and create new opportunities with their two most important trading partners. We are couple of weeks away from it entering force and we all went to our American Farmers workers and businesses and innovators to make sure this agreement delivers. I look forward to implementing a new era of north American Free trade and focusing on many other agendas on the president s trade agenda. The issues are complex and challenging but the Trump Administration is ambitious. If we get it right the opportunities for americans are immense and i want to highlight a few in particular. First we have a free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom. Good trade relations with the United Kingdom are crucial. 2017 we exported 125, almost 126 billion of goods and services to the uk. The uk companies in turn have invested more than 540 billion in the United States. Unfortunately those numbers dont reflect our full potential. In large part he who rules stood in the way and he who rules unfairly restricted our goods without any scientific basis and required unnecessary testing for industrial goods and now that the uk has been free from those eu rules we can bring our a tonomics relationship to a level befitting our longstanding political special relationship and improve trading relationships with the uk and also signaled severe peanut union that its past time for them to start regulating on the basis of sound science for them also looking forward to trade negotiations advancing with kenya as you have the earlier talk to us about the next step. We dont have a single Free Trade Agreement. I applaud the Trump Administration for being the First Administration to take this on. A High Standard of Free Trade Agreement with kenya can be a model for both good economics and Good Governance throughout the regions. Third im glad the Administration Remains committed to wto reform. The rules of that organization including those on Services Agriculture procurement and intellectual property are vital for workers and businesses. They reflect decades of persistent american leadership. We cant let china take the pan when it comes to writing the rules for that organization. Instead congress and the best ration must Work Together to fix this vital vitally important institution. We will revitalize the wtos negotiating function so the rules reflect the modern economy including ecommerce. Additionally congress will who continue to insist that rules remain enforceable and applied as written. Thats why i am glad that trade agenda highlighted in the administrations wto enforcement against the eu launch aid and against china over its policies on puig corn and rice and india over tech support subsidies. There are a lot of problems with the wto but it has an Important Role to play including through the use of dispute settlements. The trick is to make sure those rules are followed rather than rewritten by wto judges. Mr. Ambassador i think together we can accomplish this task. Finally i note that the trade agenda highlights that the administration took strong discriminatory Digital Service packs with the recent announcement of more investigations. The Trump Administration is demonstrating that america will not stand for discriminatory treatment that treats americas companies as banks. Our businesses are entitled to fair and equitable treatment and we will defend our right to probe relay. In closing i want to emphasize this point. The president has laid out an agenda that can improve the lives of our fellow citizens but it will require commitment and cooperation from all of us. The constitution vests congress with the authority of her trade not some generalized interest in trade. We cant simply be passengers along for the ride. We must fulfill our constitutional role so that our trading partners know that ambassador lighthizer has the full support and power of the United States behind him. Thank you and senator. Thank you mr. Chairman welcome ambassador. This is the nance committees Fourth Annual hearing on the trump trade agenda and that means it is the fourth time the committee has heard a familiar old routine, donald trump is getting tough on china and he is protecting american jobs everywhere. The president is cracking down once and for all, big changes around the corner and americas economy on the brink of transformation. It has been three and a half years of those big promises. I want to start by laying out the actual results. The phase 1 trade deal with china that the president calls and i quote the biggest deal there is anywhere in the world so far is already coming apart with china falling behind. According to an analysis by the Peterson Institute looking at the first four months of the deal chinas purchases are u. S. Manufactured goods were at 56 of the target level set by the phase 1 china deal. Chinas purchases are u. S. Agriculture goods were at 38 . President trump said it stops the over production of steel in china that has wiped out so many steel jobs here in the United States. But colleagues mills are producing steel at record levels. The president said he would fix the most damaging rebuffs the target american jobs it when it comes to i. T. Report Technology Transfers the phase 1 china deal recycles existing laws and repeats the same promises that china has broken again and again. According to the Economic Policy institute the United States has lost 3. 7 million jobs to china in the last two decades. Threequarters of them in manufacturing. Donald trump is not meaningfully changing any of the conditions that allowed these job losses to happen. Now the bottom line with respect to china trade policy is real clear. The status quo under President Trump is good for china and the Chinese Government is reportedly interested in maintaining it. Now onto the new new nafta. Ambassador lighthizer and i has long agreed that nafta needed in the overhaul. To a great extent in economy driven by activity industry and wasnt Strong Enough on enforcement to protect the american worker. When the Trump Administration right its renegotiated deal to the congress get made some progress on several issues but it didnt go nearly far enough to protect family wage jobs and workers on labor and environmental protection. In fact the old broken down system of enforcement from the old nafta was really pretty much a star to the Trump Administrations approach to the new nafta and that meant all the big claims about getting a great deal for workers was more of the same old happy talk on trade. Now when that was rocked to the Congress Democrats in the senate and the house said that some acceptable and we went to work to improve the area where the president s proposal and nafta came up short. Senator brown and i worked for example with our colleagues on a more aggressive approach for labor enforcement so American Workers wont have to spend years literally waiting for action against the trade chief in the trade ripoff. Ambassador lighthizer help us get that done. The deal is set to go in effect in two weeks at the start of the deal colleagues means that the work is just getting started. I have Major Concerns about staying on track with implementing their obligation and our ability to monitor and enforce it through demonstrations has to get hit the ground running on trade loves and enforcement on day one. There are a few other areas where american distances and producers and workers need more information and more certainty as the agreement comes into effect at our Dairy Farmers for example need to know that their product wont face unfair discrimination by canada and mexico. American innovators need to make sure that mexico will made changes that promise intellectual property laws and finally American Automakers need to know how usd or the department of labor will apply the auto rules which impact their supply chain and their ability to qualify for tariffs. My bottom line on nafta is that it made Real Progress on several key issues. Thats why it got overwhelming support in the committee and the senate but we better understand and why this hearing is so important that progress can be on done very quickly if the administration doesnt take strong steps needed to enforce the deal particularly using the enforcement tools that congress created to protect american jobs. Thats going to be a prime focus of our work in the days ahead to make sure the administration uses those trade enforcement tools that were given to them and finally let me thank ambassador lighthizer for joining us but im quite certain im not the only democrat on that committee who has been appreciative of him constantly reaching out and trying to find bipartisan ground and i think my colleagues know the questions and answers with ambassador Bob Lighthizer will never be dull. Thank you mr. Chairman. We have got a lot of business to cover. I only have a one sentence introduction for ambassador lighthizer. He was sworn in as the 18th United States trade representative on may the 15th , 2017. Please give us your Opening Statement to ambassador lighthizer. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman Ranking Member and members of the committee i want to start out by saying i cant see most of you in any event. I cant accurately say that. This is for me at least an unusual experience. Im assuming youre out there. We have been going through two crises recently and these indeed are challenging times. I wont go through all of the history of it but i want to say that i am confident irking together in good faith we can all help to heal the wounds of this nation and i certainly at the ustr want to play my part in some ways the problems have been facing make talk about International Trade seem less important but in enough ways rebuilding our economy and helping to create goodpaying jobs from americans insecure and fairness for business and bringing back manufacturing can be some part of the solution. We have a nice waited in quarantine for so long i fear we might have forgotten what it great achievements we had during the early part of this year all of us together. Republicans and democrats house and senate worked closely with the administration to write and pass the biggest and i would say thats trade agreement in u. S. History usmc april i would like to again thank you for working with me and my team to achieve the historic accomplishment. I would also like to thank you for your support and help as we worked our way through the china phase 1 agreements a very important usjapan agreement and numerous other smaller agreements during this last year or together i think we have helped American Workers businesses farmers and ranchers. Going forward there is much to achieve. As you all know we have an active agreement under negotiation with United Kingdom. We have also very soon in the next couple of weeks commence talks with kenya. We have active agreements engagements on trade issues with numerous other countries and i look forward to working with all members on the crucial issue of wto reform. Thank you to all the members for working so closely with me and for making time to talk in the meet with me and perhaps her staff which is so crucial to this worked with ustr and making our end product consistently better as a result of your work and your staffs work. Thats my statement that i will just continue for a second because senator wyden was so kind as to bring up that i agree with the president that the greatest trade agreement. China is a very very big problem. We move to the next step every administration before the president did nothing, absolutely nothing. Im sitting here thinking i feel a little bit like what hoover would have felt like are what roosevelt would have felt like if hoover came forward and said i want to talk to you about depressions or as chamberlain had talked to churchill about german policy per the reality is nobody did anything. There was this great agreement on cybersecurity that the Obama Administration do with china protest and show me the agreement. There is no agreement. It wasnt even coordinate it. There was nothing. We have now an agreement and i have it right here and it covers Ip Tech TransferFinancial Services currency are the covers at an enormous amount of ag and china is doing for the most part what they said they are going to do. It contains 370 billion worth of tariffs on china. So compare this to anything that was done before is just critically totally unfair. This business about the purchases just so we understand these are exports many of which were booked months in advance. Everybody has knows agriculture if we look at what was shipped in march it wasnt bought in march. It was bought weeks and weeks before that so those numbers really are not telling. Im happy as questions come and go through the numbers with members. With my stated opening comment and slightly less staid reaction to my good friend senator wyden i will now stop talking. We will start with questions and we will do five minutes of rounds. The steel and aluminum tariffs on canada, mexico are one of the factors that delayed the usmc approval. Im glad they are gone and we are about to start a new era of free trade in north america however im concerned that some groups are trying to push to rancid to tariffs worth they dont rancid to them to putting section 230 to tariffs on closely related goods. My view is that any issue concerning steel and aluminum tariffs need to be through the framework of the may 17, 2019 understanding that you negotiated with canada and mexico. The first question but dont answer until i ask the second question. A commitment from you that the United States will continue to abide by that understanding and will you also commit to this committee in the event the administration agrees theres a surge in imports and before any request for consultations made under the understanding . Im sorry. I do want to answer until you ask the second question. We will certainly consult with the committee. I would say there have been surges on steel and aluminum. Some from canada substantially from canada and some from mexico and it is something that we are looking at and talking tube mexico and canada