Democrats Question Value of FTA Negotiations When Trump Is Blowing Up USMCA
At a hearing largely focused on the need to get other countries to lower their tariffs, sanitary and phytosanitary barriers, and discriminatory tariffs on services exports, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee focused on Trump's tariff hikes.
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Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., complained of Republicans sneaking "a hidden provision" in two weeks ago. "This made it so House Republicans wouldn’t have to vote directly on keeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico," she said. DelBene had been a co-sponsor of the measure, which would have rolled back the emergencies that the 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods were built on.
"Republicans on this committee need to speak up and work with us on Congress’s authority on trade and taxes," she said.
She said she wondered why countries would enter into trade agreements, if Trump can blow them up, as he did with USMCA.
She noted that fentanyl from Canada is only 0.2% of all fentanyl seizures, and asked Republicans on the committee if they're OK with Trump's talk of Canada becoming the 51st state.
Canadians are boycotting American products at retail stores, and Canadian tourism, which provides $20 billion to the U.S. economy in a typical year, is down, she said.
"What’s the goal? He says they’re a negotiating tactic. What are we trying to negotiate? Whatever Trump thinks is unfair? None of our allies have clarity."
While DelBene has been a longtime advocate of liberalizing trade, even Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, who voted against CAFTA, said it was ironic to be talking about trade negotiations and ignoring "Liberation Day," what Trump has named April 2, when higher tariffs are coming on trading partners. He said all it will liberate is dollars from our pockets.
He said he talked to a senior representative of a foreign country last week, who told him that the delegation had approached the administration and asked, "what can our country do to avoid these big tariff increases?"
He said they were told, "There’s absolutely nothing you can do, because President Trump is intent on imposing tariffs on almost every country in the world." Moreover, he said, they were given the advice not to complain about it, "because if you complain about it, it’ll upset President Trump, and he’ll just spike the tariffs even higher."
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., another longtime free trade advocate, said the timing of the hearing a week before reciprocal tariffs are announced "adds a bit of absurdity to this exercise." He said those tariffs intend to "remedy all matter of slights, real or imagined."
He said Trump is busy tearing up FTAs, so "it’s hard to imagine an FTA in the current context."
"Are there irritants in the Canada trade relationship? Sure," he said. "This is blowing off your toe to cure a hangnail."
He argued Republicans and Democrats "should be working together to protect the economy … from an ideological and emotional tariff program."
One view on liberalizing trade revealed an across-the-aisle agreement -- Rep. Jimmy Panetta's so-far-unsuccessful push to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Kazakhstan. Panetta, D-Calif., and Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., agreed on that policy.