Finance Committee Meets to discuss u. S. Trade policy. This as Congress Gets to set legislation that will establish rules for International Trade negotiations. Tom donahue and the perfect of the aflcio trade union will testify this morning. It was expected to start at 10 00 eastern today. We understand it will get a little bit later start. About 10 15 eastern. Well have it for you when it gets under way on cspan. While we wait for that we got a preview of the pending congressional debate and a look at its current status from this mornings washington journal. Joining us now, Linda Dempsey of the National Association of manufacturers. She is the Economic AffairsVice President , here to talk about trade issues specifically something called fasttrack authority. Guest good morning, pedro. Host what do you make of this type of authority . Guest manufacturers, small and large, are competing in a Global Economy. And it is tilted against us right now. Our manufacturers are facing high barriers and around the world and the u. S. Market is largely open. We need trade agreements to supercharge our sales and exports and opportunities in a growing Global Economy. Tpa, the trade legislation that was introduced on a bipartisan basis last week is exactly the kind of legislation that allows these trade deals to be negotiated by congress. Tpa gives our negotiators leverage at the negotiating table. It is really hard when our negotiating negotiators are telling other countries do we need you to lower your terrace and protect our negotiations. Having tpa will make sure that our negotiators can bring back strong agreements and make our manufacturers better able to compete. Host ultimately, Congress Laughter vote on it congress will have to vote on a package that they cannot amend and it will have to vote up or down. Guest absolutely, and this is the way we have done these negotiations since 1970 on and we have had terrorists negotiations tariff negotiations that way longer than that. It will be a 1000 page agreement. There are a lot of issues. And its a negotiation. This issue that this country moves on is dependent on something happening in another country. If congress says, i dont like this one provision, you unravel the entire agreement and the it will and it will not be able to move forward. The president has the ability to negotiate with foreign institutions. Congress has the ability to regulate trade. This helps them to Work Together in a way to get successful trade agreements. Host on this program we had a woman in Laurie Wallace talking about agreement when it comes to jobs specifically she talked about the outsourcing of jobs because of trade agreements. I want to show you something to your response. [video clip] guest the agreement the wade is written would make it easier for outsourcing jobs to lowwage countries, and specifically putting u. S. Workers in competition with workers from countries like vietnam, which is a tpp partner where workers make less than . 60 per hour. When the president talked about opening markets, there is one catch. We already have trade agreements with more than half of the countries in this deal. In japan, the issue there is not tertariffs the issue is that it drops its currency. And it makes exports cheaper just by dropping the currency. And there are 60 partners, 230 house members writing the president in 2013 saying the tpp have to have disciplines against cheating on currency to make sure that we could help their that we could sell our stuff there is that of only them selling here. The president refused. Host there would be outsourcing of jobs because of this deal . Guest there is no evidence of that. We have a lot of european, asian, other businesses investing in america, creating highpaying manufacturing jobs because they want to reach our consumer. But investments are already ongoing. The biggest investment for u. S. Companies is actually europe. It is not lowwage countries. When we have had these issues in the past to protect our investment overseas, which is a very important issue across many sectors, those agreements have been powerhouses to advance our exports. When Companies Invest overseas, they power exports to those markets. Those companies that invest overseas, sustain and create jobs here, they invest more here in terms of Capital Investment and research and development. These agreements have already produced Massive Gains for u. S. Businesses gains that we already have for our manufacturers. We have Free Trade Agreements that eliminate all of these barriers, protect our innovation with just 20 countries around the world, about 10 of world gdp. Its 6 of the worlds. Those 20 countries purchase nearly half of u. S. Exports. Why . Because they have lower the barriers and make it fair for us to compete in these markets. And when you talk about investing in manufacturing there is a wage premium. We know that manufacturing jobs in the u. S. Are good high jobs and pay on average about 20 than an average job 23 more than an average job in the u. S. Economy. Export intensive sectors have a wage premium even about that. Host is there a big scale manufacturer that only benefits . What about the smaller manufacturer people will call about the smaller manufacturer, like textiles and others who were deeply affected by previous trades deal like nafta. Host you bring up many issues. We have over 14,000 manufacturers as our numbers and 90 are Small Businesses. We hear every day about how manufacturers are able to grow. There is a company up in maryland bte technologies, under 100 employees that sells medical equipment around the world. When korean freetrade was supported, they were able to increase their sales by 100 in two years to korea and helping to sustain jobs in maryland. We have stories like that across the country of Fire Equipment and truck manufacturer across the country. A Fire Equipment and truck manufacturer was able to sell it equipment overseas and support jobs here in america. It is probably more important for Small Businesses to get these barriers down that it is for larger business than it is for larger businesses. Host Linda Dempsey is our guest, talking about trade issues. The first call for you is from james in kentucky, democrat line. Go ahead. Caller yes hello . Host you are on. Go ahead. Caller i have a question about terrorists tariffs for the u. S. American workers have to compete against lower wage workers in china and so forth, and american factors factories have to comply with higher standards. Why cant we raise our tariffs on what is coming in . That would help keep our workers pay up. Guest the u. S. Actually did that back in 1930, where we raised tariffs on all our goods before we had a lot of these International Agreement out there. And the result was to deepen the great depression, make it harder for consumers to buy the products because prices just went up in the u. S. And it really did not add jobs to the economy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1934 started what was called the reciprocal Tariff Program where the u. S. Negotiated with other countries, saying if you lower your tariffs, we will lower hours. And that started a several decades process ultimately resulting in the wto, the consisting of 60 countries with very basic principles in trade agreements. Some of those countries that have joined, particularly those who joined earlier, have high tariffs, countries like brazil or india. They have tariffs 10 times that of the u. S. Or canada. China and the wto actually agreed to lower tariffs in the rest of the developing world. We have seen a huge increase in exports from china, but we are seeing a lot of imports from china as well. How are we going to compete absolutely . At this point, we have agreed that the u. S. Tariffs rates are at the level they are. What we are trying to do with our trade program is to get other countries to eliminate all of the barriers that we have in the u. S. The tpp negotiations, if done right and let me stress that, pedro, because that is absolutely critical to manufacturers. We want a great an agreement that is the gold standard, that will eliminate tariffs and make sure our intellectual property is protected, and make sure our Small Businesses can use internet black arms to be able to internet platforms to be able to sell overseas. By moving forward on the tpp we put pressure in asia, and in fact globally for other countries to compete. The other issue here is the u. S. Has not negotiated a new trade agreements since the korea agreement in 2007. Other countries are not standing by. U. S. Exporters face higher tariffs than any free than every other major country, like china, canada, mexico, chile every member state of the european union, because those countries have negotiated these types of trade agreements. They then get special tariffs and lower barriers. Our exporters are still facing those tariffs. We need to get back in to the trade Game Authority fully with tpa authority. And there are lots of other countries out there where we want to lower tariffs and barriers. Host caller my question is, how can you say that this president showing his current negotiating tactics and everything with iran , talking to cuba he gets nothing but gives everything away, and for us to go into negotiations and to really wanted to get a good deal, it almost looks like this president does things to undermine the power of this country instead of giving us power. How can your organization tell your members that you have faith that this current president is going to be up to negotiate a good deal for us . Donald trump says our trade agreements with other countries are ludicrous. He says that it is awful. We are giving things away. This president , in my opinion, will give things away. I do not want to see that happen to our country. I really think is undermining u. S. Power on purpose. If your organization has faith in him, i think you are really of a wrong tree. Thank you. Guest let me address that. You raise a concern that we here in some of the halls of congress, as well. It is exactly that concern that is why trade Promotion Authority legislation is so important. The president can go negotiate with any foreign nation he wants right now. The tpp negotiations were actually started under president bush with just a few other countries. It has expanded under president obama. This president started our negotiations with europe. What a Promotion Authority will do, and we have not had it since it expired in 2007, is congress, as a whole, gets to tell the president that this is what we want you to negotiate. We want you to come and tell us what you are negotiating and how the negotiations or proceeding. We want you to share information with the public. We want you to take our views into account. At the end of the day, as pedro mentioned, the ultimate deal has to be approved by congress on an up or down bases the cause we cannot start amending a trade agreement, certainly not a trade agreement with several Different Countries the way both the big negotiations the United States is in right now include. Weve leave this segment at this point. You can see the rest of it in our Video Library cspan. Org. Well go live now to capitol hill. The Senate Finance committee is meeting this morning to discuss u. S. Trade policy. This is just getting under way. Senator hatch id like to thank you. Today we have a panel of very distinguished witnesses that will help us discuss the ongoing trade agenda. As everyone know last week senator wyden and i and house ways and means chairman ryan introduced trade Promotion Authority or t. P. A. We want to mark up the t. P. A. And related bills later this week. T. P. A. Expired in 2007. While talks with various trade agreements have gone on since that time without t. P. A. In effect, our neighbors and negotiators have been effectively negotiating with one hand tied behind their backs because they have not been able to assure that the deal they signed is the one congress will vote on in the end. Our legislation will fix that. I want to thank Ranking Member wyden for his senator and assistans thus far and also assistance thus far and also congressman ryan. We got a long way to go but working together im confident we can get there. Now, some expressed concerns about the process by which were moving this bill forward. For example, ive heard arguments that were moving too quickly without adequate discussion or examination. Those concerns are in my view very unfounded. First of all, the bill on which our current t. P. A. Legislation was based was first introduced in january of 2014. Almost a year and a half ago. And since that time its been available for examination dissection, discussion and comment. Thousands of organizations have weighed in on the merits of that bill, including Business Organizations, organized labor, think tanks and advocacy groups. Many members of congress are on record either praising or criticizing that bill. Officials in the Obama Administration expressed their support for it. True enough in our discussions, senator wyden, chairman ryan and i made some improvements of that original bill but the fundamentals remain the same and weve been very transparent as to what the changes really have been. Second, in the 113th congress, the finance Committee Held nine hearings on trade and t. P. A. Was wrote up in virtually every one of them. I know this because more often than not i was the one bringing it up. One of those hearings was devoted specifically and entirely to t. P. A. And included the testimony of witnesses across the spectrum, including one representing organized labor as well. Finally, since the 114th congress convened just about fleents ago, this committee has had three hearings in which trade and t. P. A. Was a major topic of discussion. Todays hearing is the fourth. In other words, this is a wellcovered territory for this committee. So while i understand and respect there are sincerely held views on this topic, some of which are different than mine, any arguments that we have been forthcoming and transparent with this t. P. A. Legislation are to put to fine point on it nonsense. Ive been in the senate a long time and i think im generally considered to be pretty reasonable. Im certainly willing to listen to and consider any genuine concerns that some may have about process. I want all sides to be heard. I want to have a fair and open debate. Thats why were having this additional hearing. By all means we should have a frank enough discussion about these issues and i hope we will continue to do so today. But lets not dress opposition to t. P. A. Is concern about process. During the hearing last week i made two assertions about trade. I stated plainly that u. S. Trade with Foreign Countries is a good thing. And i said that t. P. A. Is the best tool congress has in its arsenal to help influence and facilitate trade. Those are pretty fundamental assertions and at the end of the day people are either going to agree with them or they wont. Now, more hearings and weeks of additional delays wont change many minds one way or the other on these essential issues. With that in mind i welcome todays hearings. Like i said, we have a very distinguished panel of witnesses. It doesnt get more distinguished than these two gentlemen who are before us today. And i think they will speak to the heart of these matters. I look forward to a spirited discussion. For my part i want to make clear if its not clear enough already that i believe congress should be working hand in hand with the administration to break down barriers to foreign markets in order to give our businesses and job creators a chance to compete in the global marketplace. The United States should be a leader in International Trade. We should be setting the standards and making the rules. We simply cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and let other countries dictate where the world goes on trade. Trade is an essential element of the healthy economy. We should be doing all we can to advance the trade agenda that works for america and advances our interest on the world stage. I might add this trade agreement will cover 11 nations in the Transpacific Partnership plus ours and 28 different nations in the ttip european Partnership Plus ours. So it involves High Percentage of trade throughout the world and it puts us in a position to be able to do a good job with regard to trade and to advance our crun in many ways we will not be able to do without this agreement. Now, thats where we are. Ill stop right there. Senator wyden. Senator wyden mr. Chairman colleagues, normally id make an Opening Statement the focus of which would be to lay out the significant differences between this bill and the trade bills of the 1990s. And under normal circumstances i would detail that before the committee at this time. Given the interest, however, with colleagues on the committee and engaging with our two witnesses and we thank them both, mr. Trumka and mr. Donohue. I visited with a number of the members of the chamber and the interest of my colleagues who are here to ask questions, i will fore bear any further statement at this time, mr. Chairman. Senator latch thank you, senator wyden. Our first witness is thomas j. Donohue, the president and c. E. O. Of the u. S. Chamber of commerce,