Transcripts For CSPAN3 U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Testifies Before Senate On... 20240712

U. S. Trade representative Robert Lighthizer is making his second appearance on capitol hill today. This morning, he was before a House Committee and was answering questions from the Senate Finance committee on President Trumps trade policy. Ourselves in future crisis, but we have to find a Smart Solution that accepts the realities that trade is fundamental to our survival and prosperity. In the long term, trade is a key part of the solution because it promotes freedom. It provides customers for our best in the class Agricultural Products. It promotes entrepreneurship and independence. And particularly trade empowers Small Businesses that are the backbone of our communities. In fact, 97 of the u. S. Exporters are Small Businesses. A good start to empowering people and fixing our economy is making sure as many people as possible have the option of being their own boss. We owe it to them and their communities to press for even more opportunities. This is especially true because our trading partners already enjoy the fact that we have one of the most open economies in the world. Ambassador lighthizer, you have taken important steps to help with these issues ive just raised. Im pleased this year starting off with congress approving the u. S. Mexico Canadian agreement, usmca is expected to spur 176,000 new jobs and create new opportunities with our two moencht trading partners. We are just a couple weeks away from the usmca entering force, and we owe it to our american farmers, workers, businesses, and innovators to make sure this agreement delivers. I look forward to implementing a new era of north american freetrade agreement and focusing on free trade, and focusing on the jaentds agenda president traptsd agenda. The issues are complex and challenging, but the Trump Administration is ambitious. If we get them right, the opportunities for americans are immense. And i want to highlight a few in particular. First, we have a free trade negotiation with the United Kingdom. Good trade relations with the United Kingdom are crucial. In 2017, we exported 125 almost 126 billion of goods and services to the uk. Uk companies, in turn, have invested more than 540 billion in the United States. Unfortunately, those numbers dont reflect our full potential. In a large part, eu rules stood in the way. These rules unfairly restricted our agricultural goods without any scientific basis and required duplicative and unnecessary testing for industrial goods. Now that the uk has been freed from those eu rules, we can bring our economic relationship to a level befitting our longstanding political special relationship and improve trading relationship with the uk and also signal to the European Union that its past time for them to start regulating on the basis of sound science. Im also looking forward to trade negotiations advancing with kenya, as you had earlier talked to us about that step. We dont have a single Free Trade Agreement with subsahara. I applaud the Trump Administration for being the First Administration to take this on. Eye highstandard Free Trade Agreement with kenya can be a model for both good economics and Good Governance throughout the region. Third, im glad the Administration Remains committed to wto reform. The rules of that organization, including those on Services Agricultural procurement and intellectual property, are vital for workers in businesses. They reflect decades of persistent american leadership. We cant let china take the pen when it comes to writing the rules for that organization. Instead congress and the Administration Must Work Together to fix this vital vitally important institution. We will revitalize the wtas negotiating functions so that it so that the rules reflect the modern economy, including ecommerce. Additionally, congress will continue to insist that rules remain enforceable and applied as written. Thats why im glad the trade agenda highlighted the administrations wto enforcement wins against the eu over its airbus laws, launch aid, and against china over its policy on wheat, corn, and rice, and india over its export subsidies. There are a lot of problems with the wto, but it has an Important Role to play including through the use of binding dispute settlement. 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 action against discriminatory Digital Service hacks with the recent announcement. More investigations. The Trump Administration is demonstrating that america will not stand for discriminatory treatment that treats Americans Companies as piggy banks. Our businesses are entitled to fair and equitable treatment, and we will defend our rights appropriately. In closing, i want to emphasize this point the president has laid down an ambitious 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 over trade. Not some generalized interest in trade. We cant simply be passengers along for the ride. We must fulfill our constitutional roles 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 wyden . Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Welcome to the ambassador. We can actually see him out there. This is the finance 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 hes protecting american jobs everywhere. The president is cracking down once and for all big changes around the corner, an American Economy on the brink of transformation. Its been 3. 5 years of those big promises. So i want to start by laying out the actual results. The phaseone trade deal with china that the president called, and i quote, the biggest deal there is anywhere in the world so far is already coming apart with china falling behind on commitments. According to an analysis by the Peterson Institute looking at the first four months of the deal. Chinas purchases of u. S. Manufactured goods were at 56 of the target level set by the phaseone china deal. Chinas purchases of u. S. Agricultural goods were at 38 . President trump said hed stop the overproduction of steel in china that has wiped out so many steel jobs here in the United States. Colleagues mills in china are producing steel at record levels. The president said hed fix the most damaging ripoffs that target American Innovation and jobs. But when it comes to ip theft or forced Technology Transfers, the phaseone china deal recycled existing law and repeated 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. Three quarters of them in manufacturing. Donald trump has not meaningfully changed any of the conditions that allowed these jobs 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 on to the new nafta. Ambassador lighthizer and i long agreed that nafta needed a major overhaul. It wasnt built, for example, for an economy to a great extent driven by digital activity and industries, and it wasnt Strong Enough on enforcement to protect American Workers when the Trump Administration first brought its renegotiated deal to the congress. It made some progress on several issues, but it didnt go nearly far enough to protect family wage jobs and workers tough rules on labor and environmental protection. In fact, the old broken down system of enforcement from the old nafta has really pretty much at the start the Trump Administrations approach to new nafta. That meant that 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 brought to the congress, democrats in the senate and house said thats unacceptable. And we went to work to improve the areas where the president s proposal on nafta came up short. Senator brown and i worked, for example, with our colleagues to develop a faster, more aggressive approach to labor enforcement so that American Workers wont have to spend years literally waiting for action against the trade sheets and the trade ripoff artists. Ambassador lighthizer helped us get that done. Now the deals set to go into effect in two weeks. But the start of the deal, colleagues, means that the work is just getting started. Ive got Major Concerns about mexicos ability to stay on track with implementing their labor obligations and with our ability to monitor and enforce them. The administration has to hit the ground running on trade Law Enforcement on day one. There are a few other areas where american businesses, producers, and workers need more information and more certainty as the agreement heads into effect. Our dairy farmers, for example, need that their products wont face unfair discrimination by canada and mexico. American innovators need assurances that mexico will make changes that it promised to intellectual property laws. Finally, American Automakers need to know how u. S. Tr and the department of labor will apply the auto rules of origin which impact their supply chains and their ability to qualify for tariff benefits. My bottom line on nafta is that it made Real Progress on several key issues. Thats why it got overwhelming support from this committee in the senate, but we better understand and why this hearing is so important, that progress can be undone very quickly if the administration doesnt take the strong steps needed to enforce the deal, particularly using the enforcement tools that congress created to protect american jobs. And thats going to be a prime focus of our work in the days ahead is to make sure the strathz uses those trade enforcement tools that were given to them. Finally, let me thank ambassador lighthizer for joining us. Im quite certain im not the only democrat on this committee whos been appreciative of him constantly reaching out trying to find bipartisan ground, and i think my colleagues know that questions and answers with ambassador Bob Lighthizer will never be dull. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Weve got a lot of business to cover. Ive only got a onesentence introduction of ambassador lighthiz lighthizer, he was sworn in as the 18th United States trade representative on may the 15th, 2017. Please give us your opening stateme statement, ambassador lighthizer. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member wyden, and members of the committee, i want to start off by saying ive missed seeing you. But i cant see most of you in any event, i cant probably accurately say that. I got ive got senator young that i can see in this room. This is for me at least, an unusual experience. But im assuming youre out there. Weve been going through two crises recently. And these indeed are challenging times. I wont go through all the history of it, but i want to say that im confident working together in good faith we can all help to heal the wounds in this nation, and i certainly as the u. S. Tr want to play my part. In some ways, the problems that weve been facing recently make talking about International Trade seem less important. In other ways, perhaps rebuilding our economy, helping to create good paying jobs for all americans, securing fairness for our businesses, and bringing back manufacturing can be some part of the solution. Weve been isolated and quarantined for so long, i fear that we might have forgotten what 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 best trade agreement in American History, usmca. 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 to the china phaseone agreement, the very important u. S. Japan agreement, and numerous other smaller agreements during this last year. 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 fda agreement negotiation with the United Kingdom. We have also we will soon in the next couple of weeks commence talks with kenya. Finally, we have active agreements engagements on trade issues with numerous other countries and, of course, 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, for making time to talk and to meet with me for having your staffs which are so crucial to this process work so closely with u. S. Tr. And for making our end product consistently better as a result of your work and your staffs work. So i would you know, thats my statement. But ill continue for a second because senator wyden was so kind as to bring up what i agree with the president is the greatest trade agreement. So we start off with a proposition that china is a very, very big problem. We move to the next step of the logic which is every administration before the president did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The problem got worse. None of them did anything. Im sitting here thinking, i feel a little bit like what hoover would have felt like i mean, what roosevelt would have felt like if hoover came forward and said i want to talk to you about depressions, or or if chamberlain had talked to churchill about german policy. The reality is nobody did anything. There was this great agreement on Cyber Security that the Obama Administration did with china. I went and said show me the agreement. There is no agreement. It was two press releases that werent even coordinated. There was no agreement. It was nothing. We have now a written agreement. I have it here. It covers more than just purchases. It covers ip, tech transfer, Financial Services, currency, it covers enormous amount of ag sps issues, and china is for the most part doing what they said they were going to do. And in addition, it contains 370 billion worth of tariffs on china. So to compare this to anything that was done before is is just critically it is totally unfair. And this business about the purchases which we get from the Peterson Institute, so we understand, these are exports, many of which were booked months in advance. Everybody who knows agriculture knows if you look at what we shipped in march, it wasnt bought in march. It was bought weeks and weeks before that. So those numbers really are not are not telling. Im happy as questions come to go through the numbers with members. So with my with my staid opening comment and lightly less staid reaction to my good friend, senator wyden, ill now stop talking. Okay. Well start with questions, and well do five minutes rounds. The steel and aluminum tariffs are canada and mexico are just one of the factors that delayed usmca approval last year. Im glad theyre gone, and that were about to start a new era of free trade in north america. However, im concerned that some groups are trying to push to reinstitute tariffs or if they dont reinstitute them to find a workaround by putting section 232 tariffs on closely related goods. My view is that any issue concerning steel and aluminum trrs need to be through the framework of the may 17th, 2019, understanding that you negotiated with canada and mexico. First question but dont answer until i ask the second question. A commitment from you that the United States would continue to abide by that understanding and will you also commit to briefing this committee in the event the administration believes that there is a surge in imports and before any request for consultation is made under the understandin understanding . Im sorry, i wont answer until you asked the second question. Is that all the questions . Yeah. We will certainly consult with the committee. I would say there have been surges on steel and aluminum. Some from canada, substantially from canada, some from mexico, and it is something that were that were looking at and talking to both mexico and canada about. The way the agreement worked is both countries agreed that they would maintain substantially the same trade as they have before. Were seeing surges in some products. The if we, in fact, put the tariffs back on with those, they cant retaliate except in that sector. So they cant retaliate on agriculture and the like. And im happy to talk to the to you, mr. Chairman, and the Ranking Member and other members as they indicate an interest in it. But its something of genuine concern to us now, and that we are looking at. For clarification, ill read my statement again. My view is that any issue concerning steel and aluminum tariffs needs to be done through the framework of the may 17th, 2019, understand negotiated. Are you saying yes to that . Oh yes. The answer is yes. So what that is our understanding with mexico and canada, that we would let them out of the tariffs on the condition they maintain the same tariff, the same trade flows, and if they didnt and we put tariffs on because they surged, they would only retaliate in that sector and not in other sectors. Im glad that u. S. Tr excluded sections from section 301 tariffs from certain products related to combating the pandemic. Im also glad u. S. Tr is accepting Public Comment until june 25 on what additional medical products could benefit from lifting tariffs. However, some of the exconclusions u. S. Tr has granted will expire in the next few months. Can you tell us whether you will consider extending the existing pandemicrelated exconclusions and granting additional exconclusions for relevant exclusions for relevant products . So what we expect to do, mr. Chairman, is make an assessment as to whether or not theres a critical need for those products related to the pandemic. If there is, then we will extend them. Yes, for sure. If there isnt, we wont. Okay. Usmca had a side letter addressing geographic locations. This is a very important issue for our farmers. As your special 301 report this year noted, the driver of the problem is the eu, the eu is hurting our Market Access by granting geographic indicators for common food names or even terms defined in International Standards and also pushing our trade partners to adopt these protectionist measures. I think the uk negotiateuations need to reach a more ambitious outcome with the usmca side letter, then that letter, since the uk now has the opportunity to roll back these protection measures. This outcome needs to include an expanded list of dairy, meat, and wine products, and should be an integral part of the agreement rather than a side letter. That outcome would be consistent with u. S. Law which uses trademarks to protect consumers and the reputation of businesses and not to limit legitimate competition. Would you be able to tell us and i hope commit to seeking that level of ambitious of ambition for an outcome on geographic indicators . And if not, why not . So thats my that will be my last question. Yeah, thank you, mr. Chairman. The answer is yes, i completely agree with your position. Its but its a very difficult issue to the extent that europe and the uk make a deal, and they give away this space. Its not clear they will give it away or whether they will or wont. If they do, this is going to be a bigger and bigger problem. I agree completely on geographic indications. But with your position, i agree that its thinly guised protectionism. And its something that we have fought with europe about and will continue to fight with them about. Not just directly but but through proxies. So im and i agree with your position. Whether we get it or not, well have to make an assessment as we move along. Senator wyden . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, lets start with the new nafta. And weve appreciated your working with senator brown and i on the Rapid Response trade enforcement mechanism, and its going to be key to coming out of the gate immediately in july and showing that were serious about that. Because if we dont do that, it just seems to me that mexico will be back to the same old kind of tactics to delay. So tell me if you would first how you are going to commit to actually putting the brownwyden Rapid Response mechanism in place quickly. Yeah. Yeah, thank you, senator. So first of all, i i completely agree with your statement. Secondly, im im grateful for the work that you and senator brown did, and i would say other members of this committee on enforcement proifg provisions, democrats and kplunkplun republicans. And if we dont use the tools of enforcement that we have in a trade agreement, were banking our commitment with the congress, but more importantly with the American People. So we have, as you know because weve talked about this, we have made the appointments, weve set up the structure in terms of labor and environment, both of the committees have already had their first meetings. We expect to be very diligent on this. Obviously nothing can happen as you say until july 1st. After july 1st, i expect to consult with this committee and with the ways and means committee. Look at complaints and begin first some kind of a consultation process. And then to the extent we have problems, i expect to bring cases. And i think mexico understands that. I hope they understand it. Ive made it as clear as i can. Good. Lets go on then to another key enforcement issue, and thats china phase one. The first stage of dispute resolution there is basically an escalating set of meetings. They get more and more urgent with influential officials h. And the agreement specifies that this whole process is confidential. So my question here is does this confidentiality arrangement in the china deal phase one mean that nobody including members of this committee will know if the United States is taking enforcement action against china . No, it does not mean that. Tell me how there is transparency then because as i read it, it just looks to me like there isnt. I think it would be helpful for you to be very specific there. Okay. Absolutely. Ill be happy to do that, senator. So heres the situation were faced with for the first time we have a written agreement, for the first time we have a really, really good enforcement mechanism. One which escalates and then the United States cant take an action if we dont get a satisfactory resolution. And we wont be retallyated against. There is like a historic thing. And i want to point that out. Then you have the problem what do you do with a company that comes and says, for example, somebody from from oregon will come and say, listen, i have this problem. U. S. Tr want you to raise it. But dont use my name because if you do, i may be retaliated against, right . Im giving you a confident information but, b, i may be retaliating. What do you do . We agreed to confidentiality. If you said is it confident from you in that case, no, of course not. But it but we are going to bring these some of these complaints depending on the circumstances, as generic complaints rather than individual ones to protect specific American Companies. Thats the nature of why we put that in there. And that does not mean other than business confidential information which we wouldnt share that. Does not mean we would keep the the appropriate members of the congress in the dark. We wouldnt do that at all. But i want to get into one other timesensitive matter. Id like to see in writing how were actually going to have transparency in a provision that sounds to me like there isnt transparency. I get your point with respect to sensitive matters, with respect to American Companies and american jobs. I think you get my point with respect to transparency. Well keep the record open on that. One last question, if i might. The chairman and i and this has been a bipartisan area weve worked on have been very concerned about the Digital Service taxes because they really hit Americas Technology companies, senator cantwell and i in our part of the world, i they would hit our Companies Like a wrecking ball. Earlier today, the treasury secretary notified several of the largest european trading partners that he was going to suspend the multilateral negotiations. So when you hear Something Like that, its kind of like, well, hey, were just walking out of here, were not going to do anything about the process. Whats the administrations plan here to protect these Critical Industries from discriminatory taxation, taxation that would really devastate our ability to have good paying jobs at a crucial kind of time . Whats the plan to deal withdrawal this . So thank you, senator. And as you know, i completely share your view. Thats why as the chairman said we started the one we did, weve already completed a 301 investigation on france because they were the leader in this area. Weve started a dozen others where were going to have reports on each one of them and authorize ourselves to be taking retaliatory action if they do it. What europe and by the way its spreading beyond europe. What theyre doing is fundamentally unfair to American Companies. Theyre picking on them because theyre the best and because theyre not their companies. When i would i was going to say when i used to sit in this room as a staff person it was a smaller room senator long used to say famously, dont tax you, dont tax me, tax the man behind the tree. This is what everyone is doing. Unfortunately, were the man behind the tree. So we we put in place 301 because we think its appropriate. And we authorized action. Then the president worked out a deal where they wouldnt collect the taxes and we wouldnt do anything on 301. And that was going to go during the course of the negotiations at the oecd. Unfortunately, these the other countries are completely im not leaving this negotiation to the treasury department, although they were involved. But the other countries are completely dug in on this. We have to show our our strength and what the secretary said is if you all think youre going to get a consensus around taxing our companies unfairly, were not going to be a part of it. So i think thats the nature of it. We still have to i believe find the solution, right. And and to me, that solution involves a lot of congressional action. It involves a tax scheme that treats everyone fairly internationally, and if were treated unfairly, then im i think the president will make a decision, and hell as to whether or not we take action against these people. But but i i dont think that what happened at the oecd was the end of a process of trying to work out a solution. We still have to do that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I think since senator wyden brought that up and im glad he did because i havent read this letter that went from the secretary of treasury, but i think people ought to know where i stand, that the press is reporting on what the oec negotiations on these taxes have hit an impasse with the United States objecting to interim proposals that would continue to disproportionately target u. S. Companies. Im continuing my consistent support of treasury department, continue these efforts to reach a consensus through the oecd. Were in the middle of an Unprecedented Health and economic crisis, and our immediate focus needs to stay on American People and the business communities that employs them as we Work Together to develop solutions to our countrys recovery. Reaching an agreement with the oecd represents the best outcome for resolving the International Tax issues presented by our changing global economy. But those negotiations should not be rushed, especially during the Current Health and Economic Situation. Its better to take time necessary to get fair and equitable solution. So i support treasury continuing to negotiate on these important global tax issues and working toward an agreement that does not disproportionately and adversely affect u. S. Businesses. I remain firmly opposed to the unilateral measures from which oecd partners that discriminate against u. S. Businesses. Im going to name the first four people for questions. Senator cantwell, then senator roberts, then stabenow and senator stoon. We have thr we have three issues to talk about if you could help me. Wanted to talk about personal protective equipment. I know there are more than 40 countries that have taken steps to illuminate tariffs on ppe. The United States has a 7 tariff on face masks including n95 respirators. South korea temporarily eliminated those tariffs. We have tariffs on gloves, 3 , canada suspended those. We have a 5. 3 tariff on face shields and 5 on gowns and 2. 5 on goggles. So while you did waive the 301 tariffs of up to 25 of ppe from china, that only lasts through the end of the summer. So to me, why not join some of our allies, canada and europe, and just abolish tariffs on these ppe products until were through the pandemic. So i would say, first of all, that as you say we got rid of the tariffs because they would have been a problem, the 3501 tariffs. We looked at 23 different tariffs lines. Of the 23 different tariff lines there were no tariffs on over half of them. The highest was, as you say, one of the masks which happens to be the category that has the n95s in it. The surgical masks, however, there were at least there was none. In my judgment, zero tariffs for sure doesnt have any impact. 7 tariffs doesnt have any real impact. And that were better off keeping the tariffs in place. And incentivizing American Companies to make these products. The at this point we dont have the same shortage as i understand it. Youre more of an expert im sure than i am. That we had originally. But the important thing now is that we incentivize u. S. Companies well, we many of which have started undertaking to get into this business. All right yeah. We definitely have a shortage. And n95 respirators are needed now, they will be needed in a few months, and they will be in very high demand next fall. And you know, i just listened to what my governor says, i listen to him practically every week on his call. He wants the defense production act. He doesnt think were getting the masks. So to me, lets at least get them at a cheaper value than having to pay a tariff, and look, i feel the same way about a lot of green products. I think we should have zero come to a world agreement on zero tariffs on products that would help us reduce carbon emissions. Anyway, i just think zero tariffs. But im more of a trade person on these things than maybe the strampthz india and apples administration. India and apples. The 232s remain. We have a 70 you have a 70 tariff on apples. So obviously big product in the state of washington. What can we do to get those tariffs off of apples in india . As you know, we we of course agree with you and agree that that their regular tariffs are bad, theyre retaliatory tariffs that are even worse. Were in negotiations with india. We took away their gsp, and were in the process of restoring it if we can get an ad adequate counterbalancing proemg from them. Until now we havent, we havent done that. This is something that they were actively negotiating right now. Okay. And then where do we stand, the ranking senator wyden, brought up china and where we are in the phaseone agreement in making ag purchase way off where we thought we would be. Where are we to getting the phase one compliments to products . Thats a really good question. Theyve i think purchased Something Like 4. 2 billion ag products out of the 33. 4 billion that was committed to for 2020. So i understand let me spend a second on this if i can. You only have 50 seconds left. But when you decide what the sfwlaingts, i realized we have this Peterson Institute thing which which i would suggest has a very, very failed methodology. What they do is they look and they say, okay, fine, what was what was exported by such and such a date. The ag people know, and i know youre an ag person, that that stuffs bought at least six or eight weeks in advance. So what you try to do is develop a methodology that says what actually is the level of purchas purchases. We didnt even go into effect until february 14th. So anything that came in by march was probably even before the agreement, right. So its a complicated thing. And they have a childish methodology. So what weve tried to develop is one that takes actual sales reports which come out every thursday for the previous week, and put them together with exports, all right. And and the datas not created for this kind of a purpose, to tell on a short term what people are doing. And if you use the methodology that i suggest which is purchases up until now to the extents you can calculate them. Let me give an example. Last week, china bought a half a billion dollars worth of soybeans. Those might not ship until august. But but if you say, well, were going to gig them for not having purchasing, thats not right either. You have to figure out this new methodology. If you if you do this kind of a hybrid methodology and its not foolproof, i dont want to suggest that it is. Its a good faith effort to use the data that we have to try to tell whether theyre doing it. I think a Fair Assessment is that they are clearly trying to meet the deadlines i mean the targets, particularly given the situation that we have going on in the world with this covid19. So youve probably got about ten billion ive got my notes here, about 10 billion worth of purchases toward the target of something 40 or 50. You then would say, okay, maybe ten additional billion are going to be at the end of the year on soybeans, and then you have to look at what you purchased kind of between now and then. I think if you do its reasonable to make the assessment that were going to get to those numbers or awfully close to them. Well, i thats interesting. I definitely want to understand that. We have very highly perishable products from shellfish to clearies and other things. Cherries and other things. We department of the and we want this. I would suggest, i know your products, but i should work with your staff to make sure that were putting were talking to them all the time about this. And and and you make a really good point. You have a very seasonal product. Several two seasonal products at least that i can think of. So we really do have to have to press them adequately on that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Okay. Senator roberts . Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much. I want to thank you for your perseverance. I was talking to senator cornyn here, and i said that Bob Lighthizer probably has more perseverance than any other trade ambassador that i know of. And be sure to ask again, and i said, here, look on google. Look up the word perseverance. By golly, the synonym for perseverance is lighthizer. Right there on google. Just amazed me. So thank you for the job youre doing. I want to know about mexico and what you and ambassador dowd are doing with relation to mexico and the new policies that do not adhere to the strong science and riskbased framework that we long shared with him. Talking about targeting tools of modern agriculture, crop protection, chemistry, and biotech. Im sorry. Just so what we have is an administration i believe in mexico that for whom part of their philosophy is not to thank you not to use cutting edge agricultural policy. So for practices. So for the last year and a half, they havent approved a single biotech application. I know you know this. But im sort of saying it for your colleagues. This is something that we find unacceptable. Weve raised it with them. We have complained about it. When the agreement goes into effect, well then have a mechanism to actually do something about it. My own view is its one of those things just like part of their philosophy and until they lose a case, theyre not going to be very flexible. But what you say is a serious, serious problem. What happens for the other members is that you get an application, its approved over a period of time. Eventually it expires. And if you dont get a new application, then that product doesnt go into mexico anymore. And its a question of of seeds and the like but also a question of pesticides and chemicals and the like. And we agree with you that its a violation of usmca. And we expect to bring an action if the situation continues. I appreciate that. I think theres some concern in farm country when we get on virtual discussions with various ag groups now. And that question has come up a lot with the opportunities, coming up with july 1 with regard to amsca. I may remind you that it stands for the United States marine corps always as well as a good trait agreement. But so they signed that, and then they if they find this is in terms of products, we usually sell them and the products they need, thats the time that theyll probably come to the table. I want to talk about energy and china. By the way, i want to thank you and especially ambassador dowd, he has met with his chinese counterpart time and time again. They are buying more and i made a list here. Pork, beef, not as much beef as we want. Soybeans and sorgum. Not enough, obviously, not enough, but were making some progress. But on the energy side of it, they have been increasing purchases of certain products such as crude oil. Can you share your thoughts on how you see china receiving the purchase targets laid out for the Energy Targets in the phrase 1 agreement . First let me reinforce what you said about these other products. If you look i should have brought the chart. If you put a chart down of 2017 which was our best ag year ever and were going to be 20 above that in this deal. This is the line 2017, if you look at meats, were like up here already. Were like three times what we sold in meats in at this time in the year in 2017. Energy has been a problem. Weve been stressing it with them. Energy is for us natural gas and the normal products. But for us, at least, it also is ethanol. Where we need exclusions and they have granted exclusions on ethanol. Im hoping to see ethanol sales go. But i would say the traditional liquified gas, its something that were stressing. Its as much a reflection of their Economic Situation and the fact is that as you know well, the prices went through the floor. The oil was worth less than the barrel and i think that also has screwed up the mechanism. Its something were stressing with and were going to continue to stress with them. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Now we have senator stabenow by tv and, senator, before you start, do you have it would be applicable to everyone else thats going to be on tv, and thats threefourths of the committee today. Do you have a way of telling when your five minutes are up . I do not. I was hoping at one point i thought the committee had a clock as a picture, but i dont see that today. Mr. Chairman, i will do my best here. Listen for the fall of the gavel at five minutes. I could help you with that. Ill be glad to have you help me. Thank you, mr. Chairman. My five minutes starts now, right . Yes, right now. Thank you, mr. Chairman, very much and thank you ambassador lighthizer for joining us today. I have to join with my partner on the agriculture committee. And theres a lot of things that we need to continue to be talking about together. So i appreciate your reaching out continually on issues. But today i really want to take my time to focus on the pandemic that has highlighted so many risks and vulnerabilities for all of us. And i know that you and i agree we need to make changes so we can manufacture more critical supplies at home and work with our International Partners to address issues in the supply chains. But i have to say watching this particularly on the supply chain front and working with our governor and her great team in michigan, that the pandemic has highlighted just massive failures by the Trump Administration and we cant just blame the supply chain disruptions for the fact that the United States has over 25 of the deaths from the pandemic while were only slightly over 4 of the worlds population. You said in a recent article in Foreign Affairs that the administrations goal is a balanced workerfocused trade policy that achieves broad bipartisan consensus and Better Outcomes for americans. And i certainly agree with that statement but we know that doesnt happen in a vacuum. And my worry right now is about what is happening as we talk about workers abroad, what is happening to American Workers right now and how do they have confidence that theyll going to be able to be safe at work . The administrations covid19 response has been a mess, frankly, on ppe. Theres been no National Strategy as we all know, no transparency related to our countrys ability to keep us safe or have the medical supplies and equipment made in america in the future to be able to do that. And while were in a global economy, we have seen an incredible threat of our citizens of relying on other countries for our basic medical needs. Why havent we had a National Agreement with china to get protective equipment and supplies that we need. In michigan, i have been in multiple situations where reaching out to people i know in the medical field where the conversation was, i know a guy who knows a who knows a guy in china which is how we began to get our masks m99 and surgical masks and gloves and other swabs and other equipment. We dont have enough specific data on the state of ppe as well as the pharmaceutical drug manufacturing globally as well as in the United States and frankly in the usmca, we all remember the Trump Administration tried to slip in a special benefit for pharmaceutical companies manufacturing drugs outside our country which we all objected to. And so from my perspective, the president , rather than pointing fingers after everybody else and all of the governors trying to do the right thing, he could be activating the defense production act to guarantee that critical medical supplies are made in the United States. When we look at youve talked about the dignity of work and i just want to say from the front lines in michigan, theres no dignity in nurses and hospital staff being forced to wear garbage bags to treat patients in covid19 wards because theyve run out of medicalgrade protective equipment, most of which is currently made in china. How do we have a workerfocused trade policy if the administrations domestic policies fail to focus on keeping our own workers safe right now . You wont be surprised, senator, to know that i dont agree with very much of what i said, except for the part that we want to Work Together on a workerfocused trade policy. I think that when this pandemic hit, we were in a situation this is not my area. Im not an expert at it. We were in a situation where we had depleted deserves of ppe as a result of a failure to replace supplies in past in the past administration. I think this administration if i may just interrupt just one quick point on this. The former director of the stockpile said in 2019 before the pandemic that it was well equipped. I know that just so you know, the former director of the stockpile said it was well equipped last year. Well ill let you answer that and then well go to start thune. Ill say briefly that the president used the defense production act. Weve gone all over the world to bring in ppe. I think the job that theyve done is absolutely amazing. They created multiple ventilator producers, they have they had this land bridge of shipments coming in by the billions. I think its a very unfair its a very unfair criticism in my judgment. I appreciate that. Totally different picture on the ground. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator thune. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador, thank you all youre doing to promote u. S. Trade around the world and i know that in testimony earlier today you said that the United States wouldnt agree to a trade deal with the United Kingdom unless the uk lowered barriers and provided access to u. S. Agriculture products. Weve talked time and time again about how much our ag producers are hurting and how we should be doing more to help them. One way we can do more is by making sure that our trade agreements require our allies and trading partners to rely on sound science. Do you agree that many food standards are actually disguised protectionism and a followup question is, what is the best way to stop that practice . So, senator, i completely agree with you. I made this statement this morning that the European Union has raised this practice of using standards really as protectionism to a high art and i believe they have. They now in terms of some residue maximum residue levels, they actually have if theres any detection at all, the product is unacceptable. To me, that is just plain protectionism. And making every regulation sciencebased is the equivalent of getting rid of protectionism. Its the equivalent of getting rid of any other nontariff trade barrier. I would say europe is going in the wrong direction, not in the right direction. Theyre being controlled by protectionist interests and well, let me leave it at that. Protectionist interests. In my judgment, we have to insist on sciencebased standards for our farmers and i would say this standards thing is not just an ag issue. Theyre using standards in industry too. Its not just its a higher art than ag but they use it in industry too. We have to insist on it. And to the extent that we are denied access, we shouldnt take a trade agreement. And im looking right now at whether or not some of these actions i want to consult with you and your staff, whether or not right now we shouldnt be looking at a 301 on some of these things. They say literally if theres any detectable residue, the product is unacceptable. Theres nothing to do with science. Absolutely. Thank you. You have our full support on that. Keep fighting that good fight. You talked about the Digital Services taxes that are being applied in europe and im wondering if you except the trend of unilateral Digital Services taxes to worsen due to additional revenue shortfalls results from the covid19 pandemic . Are we going to see more of this . I think were going to see more of it for sure. Whether its the result of the covid i think they were going to do it anyway. Its a Natural Inclination to tax somebody elses citizens if you can do it because theres no political price for it. And weve seen it we just brought 12 more cases and were going to continue to bring them as people do it and were going to take action if there isnt some agreement internationally that says here is how were going to trade treat companies that make money in your market, but dont have a physical presence there. And i appreciate your all the things your office has done to launch section 301 investigations into those taxes earlier this month. In your testimony you suggest that the way to strengthen our existing trade policies to better protect americans is to tighten thresholds for imports. Last year during a hearing, we heard from a Small Business owner said that the level helped her grow her level rather than hurt Small Businesses like hers. I would suggest another option you have to strengthen it to negotiate agreements that increase our negotiating partners to minimumist thresholds. I will add, congress will be likely to support you in that effort. Do you agree with me that there are multiple ways of addressing your concerns related to that. I agree with that and we tried to do it in usmca. Were at 800. These were approximate mexico is at 20 and canada is at 40. And they doubled theirs. To me there may be Small Businesses i think we need to study the issue, to be honest. If you look at where countries are, its unbelievable the difference. Were like other than australia, were much bigger than, everyone else were 50 times more. I would like to study the issue and have the committee i think its costing far more jobs than it is helping and i think nobody anticipated that as a result of this we would have a million packages a day from china take advantage of this 800, a million a day. The numbers are staggering. Its 600 depending on how you count. 700 million packs a year come into the United States taking advantage of this. We dont know whats in part of it. We dont have any way of checking. They avoid customs. To me, its a real, real problem. And i think if you ask me why does every other country keep it small, its because their small retailers realize that these online people will put them out of business if they raise it. So i have exactly the opposite. I would love to get involved in this with the committee and have the Committee Study what the facts on the ground are. We welcome that opportunity. My time is expired. Thanks. Now we will have three people by tv in this order, portman, menendez and toomey. You folks dont have the timer in front of you so expect at five minutes or until you get done with your question at five minutes and the answer, i will wrap the gravel and go onto the next person. Senator portman. Senator portman. Okay. Then how about senator menendez . Okay. Then what about senator toomey . Well, well have mr. Carper in person. We have senator menendez. Senator menendez, go ahead, please. You had a meeting between President Trump and chinese president xi in june in 2019 in japan you have to start over again, mr. Menendez. We didnt get your voice at the beginning. We couldnt hear you. Okay. Can you hear me now . Start your five minutes over again. Tell them that i was on and they didnt this didnt work last time either. Portman, youre ahead of menendez. Im sorry for something not working right. You go ahead, senator portman, then menendez and then toomey. Can you hear me . Yes. Okay. Im sorry. There was some reason you couldnt hear me. I couldnt hear bob part of the time either. I want to tell you the clock is in front of us and we can see it. Other members were using that as an excuse to go long. Ill try not to do that. Thanks to Bob Lighthizer for being before us again and theres so many issues i want to talk to them about. One, i know how interested you are in bringing ppe back. Personal protective equipment back to the United States and reshoring it and i would just tell you this may not be exactly within your bailiwick, but i hope you will engage on this. Were not going to get things made here, including immediately were trying to get gowns and textiles made here, those cannot be made here without longterm contracts and the dla, the folks at dod, are not providing these longterm contracts. I hope youll weigh in on that. Thats a bigger issue than any other specific traderelated matter as it relates to this reshoring of our capability to make ppe. We have to have the market signals that come from longersignal contracts. Kenya has not been talked about yet. We have begun the process of looking at kenya as a potential trading partner. Give us a brief summary of where we are. The uk sound like we had a good first and second round. I want to be sure thats going to be a comprehensive agreement. I know how you feel about it. And finally, wto, i have questions about wto, but weigh in on kenya and uk first. Thank you, senator. And i will follow up on the other. With respect to kenya, were going to launch that on the i think its the 5th or 6th of july. That will be the beginning of that. Weve had preliminary discussions. We expect that to be as ambitious as you would under the circumstances with a country on their level of institutional development. Were excited about that and i know that kenyans are excited about it and i know the president s hope is we can get this done in enough time so it comes in under his term. Thats where we are on that. Great. On the uk, yes, as far as im concerned, its a comprehensive agreement. I dont know if theres a specific provision that you think we wouldnt cover, but i would expect it to be a comprehensive agreement and its going to cover agriculture. When i say comprehensive, that isnt to say im suggesting going to zero on every tariff. I expect we should cover every sector. Okay. With regard to the wto, as you know, we share an interest in reform with the wto, iltd lo wo love to have a discussion about what that means. I know you share the concerns of how the appellate body has broken down. I like the fact that youre doing work with the eu and with japan on subsidies, stateowned enterprises. Thats an opportunity for us to bring other parties together with the exception, perhaps, of china, to come up with new rules. And finally, what is the future of bound rates. Thats been good for us in many respects but it does make it hard to negotiate agreements sometimes because we dont have as much play in terms of your tariffs as other countries do. Could you address those wto issues briefly and tell us where you are and what congress could do to be helpful in making the wto work more effectively for the United States and for the world. Thank you, senator. To me, i would say, the wto is in desperate need of reform. If you said what are my criticisms, one, number one is what you said, we negotiate tariffs and theyre bound. Let me give you an idea. If you take our average tariff on nonagriculture products is like 3. 2 , indias is 34 , malaysia is 15 , vietnam is 11 , europe is slightly above ours. And i could go through this and this and this. Their applied tariffs are higher but theyre bound tariffs are much, much higher and because we have essentially no tariffs left, theres no way for us to change that. So were kind of locked in per to aty into an unfair situation. I think that something has to be dope to chan done to change that and everybody comes down to the same tariffs. The rue i like the idea of everybody coming down. I dont like the idea of everyone coming up. Maybe well have to meet in the middle. We cant be locked into this position. In the past, the negotiations have basically been the currency has been the u. S. Has paid everyone to lower theres a little bit. Just very briefly, the biggest single problem there is that you have a group of unelected, unaccountable people who make Juris Prudence, which Juris Prudence binds the United States, affects our jobs and our businesses and our farmers and our ranchers and theres nothing that we can do about it. Its a screwball system where you have these people doing what they were never intended to do and that is to say right rules and thats a large part of the reason why weve had no negotiations in the last 25 years. No real negotiations in the last 20, 25 years. I could go on, but i wont. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And lets talk about wto reform going forward, ambassador, lighthizer. Your time is up. Senator menendez. Ambassador, were you in the meeting between President Trump and chinese president xi in june 2019 in japan . I remember what month it was. There was a i cant hear you. Im sorry, senator. Yeah, i didnt have my microphone. There was a meeting on the outskirts of the g20 in osaka between the president and president xi and i was in that meeting. I dont know thats the one youre referring to. But thats the situation. The reason i ask, about an hour ago, the Washington Post published a story that says former National Security adviser bolton said that at one point in that meeting President Trump, quote, turned the conversation into the coming u. S. President ial election alluding to chinas economic capability to affect the ongoings campaign to assure that he would win. Absolutely untrue. Never happened. I was there. I have no recollection of that ever happening. I dont believe its true, i dont believe it ever happened. Now you fully recollect you were there. I told you nothing like that happened. Now that i know youre at the meeting, you dispute mr. Boltons account of what took place. Yes, thats correct. I dont want you to create the impression that im being deceptive, i said what meeting i was at and this never happened in it, for sure. Completely crazy. I assume its the same meeting. If its not, well find out. If its true, i shows how clear it is that the administration doesnt really have any intention of actually solving our trade problems with china, the tariffs remain in place because china still hasnt dismantled the capacity, hasnt stopped stealing American Intellectual property, hasnt stopped subsidizing its industries. This would be an outrageous of president ial power instead of trying to solve our trade problems. Shortly after Congress Approved the usmca, mexicos television regulator limiting the amount of ads. It discriminates of u. S. Tv providers and will undercut u. S. Jobs that support it. I would say im aware of this issue. I want to study it. If you want an answer right now, i would say, no, they would not be in compliance. I agree with you, senator. And i agree with you that because ustr viewed this as a violation of nafta six years ago and successfully resolved it until this latest change. So were going to start off on july 1st with mexico being out of compliance from the very start, that seems like a horrible way to kick off a new agreement. I hope that can you commit to us that you will review this and make sure that mexico is in full compliance with its obligation, assuming its the same view ustr had six years ago. Absolutely. If were not, well bring a case against them, senator. Thank you for that answer, i appreciate that. On sunday we heard troubling reports that two ustr employees who had been involved in negotiating u. S. Smca were looki to help cash in on helping Companies Navigate rules. And they even tried to steer companies to a website that they had set up for their future lobbying firm. Do you know if ustrs Ethics Office told them they could approach these companies while on the government payroll. I read that story also, senator. So i would say the situation is this, one, theyre career employees. Two, they went through the Ethics Office at ustr and im told that career employees can do things like this. Im as troubled by it as you are. Well, okay. I appreciate that. Because i think we should have a very clear understanding of what is not acceptable and i dont care whether youre career or political, it seems to me that you negotiate elements of agreement, in this case in the Automotive Industry and while youre on the government payroll, you set up a website and pursue your own interest. Thats the ultimate essence of the revolving door. I hope youll look at the internal questions of whether that can happen or not and i would like to follow up with you. I want to follow up. I completely agree with you. Completely. Before i go to mr. Senator toomey, senator wyden has a request he wants to make. Its a consent request. When i was done, mr. Ambassador, i saw the same Washington Post story that senator menendez referred to and i heard your response. These are obviously very disturbing allegations. My unanimous consent request is given the fact that the post is suggesting that donald trump offered trade concessions for china for trade benefits for electorally important states. Ill be sending you a list of written questions and i would like a response to the written questions within a week. Thats my unanimous consent request. Any objection . So ordered. Is that acceptable to you . Ill see the questions about the week. Im happy to answer questions. The timing, ill look and see what your questions are. In other words theyre going to refer to this that broke in the paper, there are allegations and i want to emphasize that. I would like a response within a week. Well talk about it further. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Now we go to senator toomey by tv. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador lighthizer, good to see you again. Welcome. Im going to start with something on which i think you and i agree, and that is that prior to the arrival of the covid virus for several years, our economy was remarkably strong. Really, across the board, setting very Strong Performance records for the last several years. Where we may not agree, based on the testimony your testimony i read, i would argue, the strength of your economy was not because of tariffs. In fact, strength of your economy was because for the most part weve had the freest trading environment in 100 years and under that global free trade certainly much more so than in recent decades, thats enabled us to prosper. In fact, it was the steel and aluminum tariffs which began the deacceleration of what had been strong growth. And i have to point out, the unintended consequences of these tariffs. In my state of pennsylvania, we have fewer manufacturing jobs today than we had three years. We lost a number of them in steel and Aluminum Industries because far more people are in the business of using steel and aluminum to produce things than the people who actually make steel and aluminum. And so when tariffs raise the cost of the steel and aluminum, those are higher cost inputs for those manufacturers who are less able to compete with Foreign Companies that are not subject to those taxes. Imposing those taxes on American Consumers and manufacturers generally makes us less competitive, not more competitive. I have a point i would like to make on ppe and that is i read your comment from earlier today in which you seem to suggest that you might support higher tariffs rather than lower tariffs on ppe in this notion that that might encourage domestic manufacturing. I would just urge you to consider, as i think senator cantwell did, right now were in a desperate crisis for ppe. We have shortages in pennsylvania and probably other places and its not helpful to our helps, gnonursing homes. And what we need in the long run is diversified sources. We shouldnt be dependent on any one source for ppe, not any one country, not any one manufacturing facility. If we have lots of sources, including many that can gear up in a hurry, thats probably the optimal arrangement. In direct question i have for you, i would like to get a little bit better understanding of your plans and your goals with the us uk freetrade agreemen agreement. What would be the ideal arrangement . I think i heard you say that were not likely to get to zero tariffs on anything and i wonder is that just a practical reality given the inevitable e lureluct on the part of the uk or do you go in with the goal of not having zero tariffs on certain things. I would like to get a better understanding of how youre approaching this agreement and what you would like to get out of it. Thank you, senator. First of all, on the issue in which we agree, we clearly demonstrably had the best economy in decades before this pandemic. I think revisionist views that wasnt the case are not supported by any fact of which im aware. Secondly, i think a contributor to that was the president s trade policy. I realize you dont agree with that. I would point out that before the pandemic we had brought back more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs, we being the president , bringing back more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs and i think youre going to see more coming back very, very quickly once we get past this pandemic. On the issue of 232, i take your point, i appreciate it, i would say with the situation we have now, it scares me to think what we would be without those 232 tariffs. Its scary to think. When i talked about tariffs on ppe and my testimony this morning to clarify, what i meant was down the road as an incentive to get there. Im not talking about doing it now. I know you understand that. This idea of diverse source for ppe, i would point out that Something Like 50 or 60 countries took action to stop export in spite of their obligations of ppe. When theyre in a situation where their citizens are going to suffer if they ship something out, they dont ship it out. Its a universal trend. So i really think we have to make it in america. But i realize you have a different view on that. In terms of the goal on the u. S. Uk, from our boyfrienpoint want an greet that goes across all sectors. Do i think well go to zero tariffs, no, i dont, and, for example, i think were going to find agricultural areas, and there are sensitive areas in both of our economies, the secret is to have as much be open and free as we can given the political circumstances in each country. And i think that a lot of the fight is going to be sbs issues, the kinds of stuff where you and i completely agree. I see my time is expired. Thanks, mr. Chairman. I apologize to my colleagues. I didnt realize his time expired. Senator carper. Mr. Ambassador, welcome. Always good to see you and to work with you and members of your staff. I want to start off by thanking you and members of your team. We met recently with a nominee by the president to be one of your two deputies and had a good conversation and were encouraged by that. I want to start off by thanking your team on your hard work on the u. K. u. S. Trade negotiations. Opening up the uk market is a priority for us expect we think its important to seize the opportunity to open the uk market to our poultry farmers throughout the country. Thank you for that. Ill probably go to my grave on an issue we dont see eye to eye on, thinking that we made a big mistake in pulling out of the Transpacific Partnership and the idea of having the u. S. , part of 12 nations, encompass about 40 of the worlds trade, and Holding China outside of it because of their bad behavior on any number of fronts regarding trade and encroachments in the South China Sea for us to walk away from that. I will go to my grave wondering why we did that. Thats a story for another day. Having said that, i would like to ask a question relating to costbenefit analysis with respect to china. Studies by multiple economists and notable academics have found that american businesses and consumers bear the brunt of the Trump Administrations trade war with china. Our farmers, our manufacturers in particular have been hit hard throughout the country. These tariffs were supposed to force china to make structural changes as youll recall to its planned economy. The issues outlined in the 301 report include chinas government subsidies, stateowned enterprises. As it turns out, none of these truly tough issues were addressed in the phase one trade deal. I know there is a Technology Transfer section, but the half page of text includes no specific and is according to people who have raid it moread more closely than i have, pretty toothless. Is it worth all of this pain that our farmers and manufacturers have and are still going through today, that would be my first question. And ill have a followup. Thank you, senator. And thank you for meeting with my people and they also enjoyed the meeting. And i i told you the nominee just a wonderful meeting, how much i enjoyed it. I said ill never vote for you i didnt say that. I wont go into the detail, but he enjoyed the meeting. He thought you were very thoughtful and gave him a lot of things to think about and thats true of some of his other meetings too. But he did single that out. And i told him that did you tell him i was having a good day . No, i told him you were a wonderful person. I told him that you flew in vietnam with a College Buddy of mine, bobby francis. We were communicating a week ago. Good man. You were doing the lords work serving the countries during that time. Just on a couple of things, one, one of the things on the uk, you know on poultry, its going to be the rinse on poultry, its going to be a huge problem and i made it clear that this is not going to be an agreement im not bringing back an agreement to the United States congress that excludes our Agricultural Products. Thank you very much. On the ttp, i realize youll go to the grave thinking that. I hope its not soon. And i would just point out that the nub of your argument is, we were going to have 12 countries and keep china out and have this group. China says theyre probably going to join it. Remember, when you and i spoke about this 2 1 2 years ago in your office, i said what happens if china joins it . The whole thing doesnt have any meaning if they do. And theyre talking about doing it im not so sure. I said, you guys are welcome to come in lets just talk lets just move on, please. I would like now were on china. I would say, first of all, this i dont know what studies youre referring to. There are these studies that say anything you do on tariffs is bad and they give no benefit in their costbenefit analysis to changed bad behavior. So if youre an economist and you start with a proposition to chinese theft and keeping our Financial Services out and currency manipulation and the like is not a bad thing, then youre going to conclude that doing anything to stop it is a waste. Thats how i think they approach it. The reality is, if you change bad behavior that has real economic benefit for the United States. Thats the nature behind the agreement. Its the nature behind most of your trade agreements. And this thing that is toothless, i have all of these people and i would not put you in this category, but i have all of these people that i talk to about it and i say, have you read it . Have you looked at it . Have you paged through it . On the issue of technology, senator, if flat says that youre not allowed to usage Technology Transfer to require any person to get a license, to have a joint venture, to have an acquisition and it goes right through in the clearest possible language. This is i would take a step back and say what i said before, all of these critics, nobody did anything in the face of this horrible situation for 25 years. Democrat, republican, democrat. And the President Trump comes along and people say thats not perfect and my reaction is, lord, nobody did anything in the face of this. But i really, really do, senator, commend you to read this document. This document is real. I would like to walk you through some of the things theyve done in the structural thing, forgetting this issue of purchases, just in the structural thing, i think you would be impressed, particularly about things you care about like Financial Services. Theyve done a lot of stuff. Theyve gotten rid of equity caps and done a lot of licensing on american express. I would like to kind of walk you through, not here, but take you through so you can see that this the critics who say this is not a real agreement are just not being fair. Senator scott by tv. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to continue the discussion weve been having with the ambassador. Ambassador, thank you for joining us this afternoon. I know that there are a lot of Critical Issues that you face and lots of problems that youre trying to solve. Im going to add a couple more to your plate. South carolina is home to many farmers that make the southeast an agricultural hub. Unfortunately the increasing imports from mexico are imposing serious economic harm on producers in my state and frankly around the country. Im hearing from constituents that lost millions of dollars last year alone. In january, you sent congress a letter on steps you would take to confront trade distorting practices that are unfairly distorting agricultural crisis in the u. S. Do you have an update on those commitments you were talking about the, number one. Number two, are you still on track to release a remedy plan by august which is within the 60day window of the usmca entry into force . Thank you, senator, for the question and for all that you do for all of us. I appreciate that. And ive enjoyed working with you and i watch what youre doing recently and i want to just show gratitude for that. The issue of seasonal fruits and vegetables is something thats a very serious issue. We committed to having live field hearings in two states, its going to be in georgia and florida, and were going back and forth on whether theyre live or visual. Were going to have them live if members decide its safe and were in the process of doing that. It would have happened by now. I think were better off having real, life, safely done hearings. So we are doing that. And do i expect to have our plan out in 60 days . Yes, i expect to have our plan out in 60 days. And i really would like to work with you and your staff on putting that together because its a very, very serious problem and its its at least four or five states where its having a huge impact and its billions of dollars of sales. Thank you. I will say, ambassador, sometimes you and i have not agreed on all the issues, youve been a person of your word and i truly appreciate you meeting that deadline and continuing the dialogue and helping me better represent the state of South Carolina. The farmers in South Carolina are having a harder time because of the pandemic and so this situation is always encouraging when we hear steps in the right direction. Second issue really has to do with Automotive Industry. Do you support my legislation to provide an mpf fix to the usmca . I dont know what it is. Its aligning the merchandise processing fee refund with all of our ftas. Some of these issues i hook in a different way. The answer is, yes, we support your legislation. Okay, great. Finally, transparency is important, especially with how dramatically weve changed the rules. Will ustr create mechanism for the receipts. Interesting, i havent thought of that idea. If you think its a good idea, we will do it. We would love that, thank god for smart Staff Members who have been working on your team and my time. It helps to have a great team. I agree with that. I would be nowhere without mine. Me and you both. Thank you, sir. Thank you, senator. Yes, sir. Its been cardin cardin, can heard . Hi, i hope i can be heard. I cannot hear back. Yes. Thank you very much for your service. I appreciate all the help that youve given my staff. I just want to first underscore senator carpers point with regard to poultry. Theres a great deal of interest to make sure we make advancements in that regard. Youll be hearing from a group of senators in regards to that issue. I want to get a little bit more on kenya. Kenya presents unique challenges for a trade agreement with the United States. Youre committed to deal with Good Governance. You did that in the usmca. If you use the model, its going to be a challenge to see how kenya complies with those types of commitments on governance. Can you share with me how youre going to go about the discussion on Good Governance and how we can help you in order to make sure we have the strongest possible provisions as it relates to those issues . So, thank you, senator. And i appreciate your comments on poultry and im i know how strong you feel on that issue and i assure you that it will be a cuttingedge issue and i agree with you completely. The issue of governance, one of your objectives with kenya is to start a process with countries in africa begin to put in place something closer to what we consider to be the infrastructure, the legal and Regulatory Infrastructure to facilitate International Trade and what we consider to be kind of best practices in the governance and the corruption area. I think as youre suggesting this is going to be a very difficult issue with respect to kenya. The first thing you need, though, which we have, though, is commitment at the highest level. And we do have that and thats one of the reasons why we selected kenya from among the countries that were interested in doing this. You have to have commitment at the highest level. We believe that we do have that. I think its going to require some modification, some realism and some phase in. All of those things, i would like to work with you, i know this is one of the areas. And the issues are important and one of the reasons that we want to enter into this agreement and then have it be a model for other agreements in africa is so we can put in place the structure that we need for best practices governance. I want to work with you on that. I understand its i agree with you about the importance and its something youve focused on literally your entire career in government. It is very much at the focus of what were trying to do there. I can assure you that i would enjoy working with your staff on this issue. The more transparency you do with congress as it relates to these provisions, the stronger support you can get on the understanding of where youre trying to drive this agreement as a model for other agreements of similarly situated countries. We look forward to that discussion. I want to raise a second issue with the usmca. Theres a chapter dealing with Small Business. Im the ranking democrat on the Small Business committee. Covid19 has havocked with all businesses. The Small Businesses have been harshly hit. I know youve had a working group, and dialogue. Are we on schedule to have a meaningful implementation of the Small Business provisions of the usmca . The answer is, yes, we expect that we will. Weve had good cooperation with both mexico and canada on that and i think were going to have issues, but i dont think were going to have issues in that way in that area. I may be proven wrong. If i am proven wrong, were going to take the necessary steps to make sure that the agreement is lived up to. Right now we feel very good about that and this area is something that both Prime Minister trudeau and president lopez also feel very strongly. You have the president of the United States, the president of mexico, and the Prime Minister of canada all very much on the agreement of the importance of Small Business. I expect this to go smoothly. If it doesnt, then we will take steps to enforce and i certainly work forward to working with you on that in that in that unlikely event that that happens. I just ask to keep our commit informed as to how that chapter is unfolding. Theres great interest with the members of your commit. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. Thank you, senator cardin. Senator young was going to be here in person. Is he on tv or should i pass over him . Okay. Then the next one is by tv, senator bennett. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Can you hear me . Yes, i can hear you. Thank you so much for conducting this hearing and for having all of us under these circumstances. Mr. Ambassador, its good to see you again, even if its virtual and i hope you and your family are doing well. I want to ask you about agriculture which i almost always do. The crosshairs farmers and ranchers were put in because of retaliatory tariffs. And to me it feels like theyre trapped between a rock and a hard place with china. According to at least the farm bureau and i think usda, chinese agricultural purchases are off phase as much as 61 . I know you dispute those numbers. But thats what were hearing from our farmers and ranchers, thats what were hearing from the farm bureau and usda. Im interested to hear your thoughts about why you dispute that because of their sense that china is not living up to the deal, farm groups asked the administration to stick with the china deal and make sure china holds up its end of the bargain. Im really interested in how you expect to hold china accountable without sacrificing our agricultural market if they fail to fulfill their obligations and if they do, how will we know and will you be transparent about it with the American People, and how are you going to force the terms of this agreement in a way that doesnt boomerang on our farmers and how quickly do you think our farmers and ranchers could expect a remedy if you decide that china is not complying with the terms of the deal . Thank you. Thank you, senator. I appreciate the question. I would say, first of all, that the numbers in this, i went through this before and i went through it quickly, ill go through it quickly, the numbers are difficult to calculate. The reason is, you have export shipments but export shipments wont pick up things that have been purchased by now for at least it depends on the product. But you could assume a minimum of six weeks and sometimes much longer than that. So what weve tried to do is put together the numbers that are the following, one, export numbers which we have pretty good numbers on, and then we take the sales reports and we add to that, making sure we dont double count, we add to that sales up until now and youre only like a week or so behind as opposed to if you take and it numbers, youre six, eight, ten weeks behind and you dont have any idea what goes on. Thats the first point i would make. The second point is, lets remember the agreement was signed on the 15th of january, went into affect on the 14th of february. So i would say those things. The next thing is, the 200 farm groups and farm organizations really were all saying this is really a great agreement. Lets stick with it. So i took that as a very positive letter. I think it was meant to be a positive letter. And i thought it was ar complimentary of the president and the deal. I get criticism of the deal i think they said that they wanted you to stick to the deal. Let me ask it this way, when will you adding up the weeks that youre adding up, when will you know whether or not chinas upholding their end of this bargain . How will you make that transparent to the American People . And what remedies are available to you if they do not, if, for example, the trends that the farm bureau is reporting continue to be the trends rather than your more optimistic view. Its enforceable. At some pioint in a few months well know. At some point its reasonable to say, it doesnt look like youre going to meet your deadlines. Right now my feeling is given the limited of amount of time thats passed, the circumstances they have, i would say if you use our methodology, and i im not sure exactly which products youre most concerned about, presumably you care about well, i shouldnt speculate on it. If you look at oil seeds, there have been soybeans. Substantial purchases including 500 million last week. So those purchases are probably are well north of 3 billion already and you know that soybean season is really later on. So if you look at 2017, when we had the last which was the biggest year we ever had with china, you had 10 billion at the end of the year. So if you another way to look at it is this way, in the last couple of months, increases of agricultural sales to china have gone up 34 , and the rest of the world has gone down 13 . So i think we are seeing a real effort. How much has been shipped by now depends on what youre looking at. If you look at corn, accumulated and i dont know if you can see this, senator. You compare it to 2017, heres where we are now. Heres 2017. The best year we ever had. If you look at heres another example. Pork were ahead of where we were, theres a lot of reason for that. Beef which i know you do care about, theres its just literally there was no beef in the best year ever and now were up up, its like our second best beef market right now. The other thing i would ask you really to think about is there also have been 25 or 30 sps changes. To the extent you want to go through these, i wont do it now but im happy to do it, changes where they have actually given licenses for products and allowed certain Agricultural Products from the United States in that they have never allowed in before which were part of the agreement and they have now formally done. Im not saying were out of the water or anything like that. Im saying we have to keep on it. We have to keep looking at it. But its certainly if you had to bet right now, you would say theyre going to do it. Senator casey by tv. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the hearing. Mr. Ambassador, its good to be with you from a distance. We hope next time its in a hearing room. Thank you for your work. And especially thank you for the work youve done especially on the usmca and working as hard as you did to bring together the parties on that agreement. If you would indulge me, i should say, a couple minutes, i wanted to raise two issues with you that will take the form of bills, two of my bills, and then ask for your assessment of each or at least your sense of where each policy is. One is on rules of origin. The other is on womens rights of trade. Ill start with rules of origin. As we know, china often rides free on trade agreements. And as much as 70 of content can originate from china in goods that enter the u. S. Under negotiated trade rates or tariff rates for trade agreements. This issue was not resolved in usmca, my bill, the market economy sourcing act will establish a secondary rule of origin to prevent free riding by china for other nonmarket economies. So i hope you would take a look at this in the context of considering it as an objective in the negotiations with the United Kingdom and we should try our best, i think, to ensure that benefits are conferred on countries that respect, respect market principles. So thats one issue. Ill ask you in a moment to comment on that. Then the second one is on womens rights. Senator cortez masto and i have legislation to update gsp to incorporate measures on womens rights, nondiscrimination in the workplace as well. And both of us believe, as i think virtually everyone i know believes, that these are common sense measures in trade. They should be part of gsp. Any economy in the world in my judgment cannot develop fully or grow in the manner that it should if it doesnt recognize these rights, if it denies equal rights and protections to literally half of that countrys population. Nor should we agree discrimination against workers or fail to act to prevent violence and harassment in the workplace. I hope to be able to discuss both of these bills with you. But whats your sense of what progress we could make both on rules of origin and womens rights . Thank you, senator. The rules of origin, you know, with respect to both of them i want to study the details of the rule i mean of your bill. Certainly i agree with the intent on both of them. The rules of origin on usmca, we increase regional con tents as you know. We increased core parts and automobiles. We took a lot of steps in that direction and a good part of the reason was the whole reason was to stop free riders. But a good part of the reason was the specific free riders. And to go to senator carpers point, one of the reasons that i for one thought tpp was such a bad deal was because under those rules of origin a car could be manufactured 60 in china and 40 in vietnam and still qualify. Thats how bad the rules of origin were in that. So i agree completely with you about using rules of origin to make sure you get the appropriate outcomes and the specifics of it i would like to, of course, discuss. In terms of including those concepts in the uk agreement as something we are interested in. Certainly at least in the Auto Industry the situation is very different than it was in north america where it was an integrated industry. But thats something i would be im not technically familiar with your womens rights issue and nondiscrimination as a matter of principle i agree, the president agrees. Thats why he put ivanka trump in charge of really pursuing this issue. This is something she feels that she feels very strongly about. I want to look at it. Its timely. Obviously the gsp expires at the end of the year, and we have to decide now or very soon what we want to do on it. And i have a variety of i have some problems, though, i have with it right now to be honest with you. And this could very well be part of a solution. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Yes. Now we go to senator warner by tv. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador lighthizer, its great to see you again. I want to im looking as foggy there to you guys as i look on my screen, but i see maggie saying, yes. My apologies for looking im not quite this hazy, although when i raise my question, ambassador lighthizer, it may be intervention of the social Media Companies because i actually want to talk about a subject we talked about before. That is section 230 reform. As we think about advancing the u. S. uk Free Trade Agreement, ive had a number of conversations with members of parliament in both the labor and conservative parties in the uk who expressed serious concern about the potential inclusion of the 230 safe harbor, any type of u. S. uk provision. I think as you may be well aware, there is a great deal of bipartisan interest in trying to change around a bit of section 230 from both democrats and republicans in the house and the senate. And let me be clear, i dont favor repeal section of 230 which my understanding President Trump i know recently advocated. And this is both for you and obviously for senator widen who has been a great advocate for section 230. I think section 230 at least in theory is great for startups. Its great in early stages of the development of these platforms, but ive been very concerned particularly for some of the larger platforms that this provision and this safe harbor has been abused on a fairly regular basis. And ive been joining these efforts by a series of Consumer Protection groups, by a series of civil Rights Groups that point out that section 230 has undermined a series of efforts to try to hold these Platform Companies accountable because too often groups come on, whether facilitating race or discrimination or whether its facilitating, you know, Consumer Product abuse, whether it is whether it is taking on the challenge of actually targeted harassment, online fraud, a host of issues where i think there is meaningful 230 reform that could be done. So, given this bipartisan, bicameral, even our colleagues in the uk from both Political Parties and obviously the president s stated objection to section 230, can you describe ustrs status of negotiations on this issue with our uk friends . Yes, thank you, senator. First of all, i want to say how disheartening it is to see the Actual Technology guy in the senate have a foggy picture. So thats a little disheartening on a personal basis. It may be one of the Platform Companies knowing i was going to raise 230. Either that or ron widen is actually zapping my feed. He is pointing something at the no, im kidding about that. So in any event, once ive gotten over that disappointment, i would say first of all, we ought to take a step back and say what do we do in trade agreements . I know you know this, but ill say it for the other members. Im not going to write 230 or a change in 230 into a trade agreement and then into u. S. Law. What we do is we take what we think of our u. S. Standards that have been arrived at by the United States congress signed into the law by the president at some point and we try to get which we believe to be best practices and we try to get other countries to put those into place. And then you say, well, then what do you do lighthizer in a situation where theres an unsettled area, had been settled. I dont know whether its settled or not, but your point is a really good one that there are certainly people who have a different view. What we try to do is write a trade agreement so that theres policy space in the trade agreement for the United States congress to take action that they think is appropriate. And thats my job. My job is not to resolve this issue. Thats between all of you who have been elected to office. Im trying to have our standards adopted and leave you space to do what you think needs to be done. And i think theres a sweet spot there. I think we can work that out. Im not that im not that worried about it. In terms of where we are right now on the agreement we havent tabled language on that area yet. Ambassador, and ive only got a minute or so left, but i would simply say i think theres a way that we as congress, leaves President Trump flexibility to put his position, doesnt totally embed a safe harbor that i think would embed the status quo, not give us the freedom and flexibility we need and i would just appreciate i know my staff has been working with yours on these consumer and civil rights protections, some of these prevention on online fraud and some of the harassment issues that i think we all acknowledge are real and present. I would just appreciate your continued staffs working with us. I think language go back and forth, even after memorial day. I appreciate that and look forward to working with you and hope the next time i see you it will be a little bit clearer or potentially even in person. Great. Thank you, senator. I look forward to that. Okay. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you for a strong bipartisan work for all of us. Senator, can i interrupt you . Theres something with your i dont know what it is with your coming through not clear. And its not because you arent loud enough. Theres Something Else wrong. Can it be fixed . Well, i hope so. It is the same thing all week. Were trying to fix my speaker. Chairman, this is probably the same group that went after me that are now going after senator hassen. Its working go ahead. This is working . Yes. Good. I want to thank you you and the Ranking Member for holding this hearing and thank the ambassador for trying to improve our trade picture in the United States. But i do want to follow up, mr. Ambassador, on an issue that a number of my colleagues have raised regarding the current supply of lifesaving personal protective equipment as we continue to address the pandemic. And i want to emphasize that this isnt just a matter of public and individual health, its a matter of economic recovery. Businesses need this equipment to reopen, schools and Day Care Centers which will need to reopen if workers are going to be able to return to their jobs need this equipment. And the cost of this equipment will be born by americas taxpayers and consumers. So both supply and pricing is important. And let me be clear about what is happening on the ground. People do not have enough ppe. I just spoke with my nursing home administrators in New Hampshire the end of last week, they are scrambling in a constant way to find enough ppe. The same can be true for Day Care Centers. And the administration finally produced data last week that shows that they dont have a plan for sustained supply of all the personal protective equipment we will need for the longterm, and that they are counting on users to reuse some of the ppe in order to meet even minimal goals of supply. You mentioned that tariffs would help encourage Domestic Production, but i have to tell you, and i will echo senator toomey on this, all that tariffs do right now is make personal protective equipment more expensive for the many Small Businesses and hospitals and other users who will need on going supplies of it for months if not years to come. And states getting ppes have had to rely on informal business connections, paying exorbitant prices. What would be better to directive incentivize and support Domestic Production as senator portman suggests. And do the longterm contracting as he suggested that will increase the supply here at home. So, to follow up on what senator portman asked you to do, he asked you to work with other agencies about the longterm contract issue. But i would like to take a step back. How does ustr coordinate with other agencies, such as fema, on efforts to increase the supply of ppe here at home and preserve the International Supply chain . Have you been involved with femas interagency supply Chain Task Force . So our involvement let me say first of all that of course i disagree with your proposition. I think the administration has done an amazing job starting with what was basically an empty closet. Then filling it up and getting an enormous supply in a totally unprecedented circumstances. So its not surprising to you that i dont agree at all with your characterization. Secondly, when we talked about tariffs, the quote was from my hearing this morning in which i said in the long run i think part of the solution, part of the solution, ought to be rewarding people who manufacture the product in the United States. Two ways to do that, maybe you do both, one is subsidies, you can decide you want to do that, the other is to have tariffs. Personally i think you probably need both. In terms of our involvement, weve worked closely with hhs. We dont really work with fema. We work with hhs on what are the tariff consequences . What are the products that people think should get excluded . Then we excluded the products that from the tariffs that we put into place and we did this by the way in february or early march. I cant remember because there were some stages in it for exclusion from our tariffs on all products that touched the ppe space. Weve worked closely with hhs. We do agree mr. Ambassador, are you have you been involved in the task force . No. Okay. Let me move on to one other quick question, and i will just say that hard work that doesnt get people the ppe they need isnt where we need to be. We need to be getting the ppe to people on the front lines in our country. And why dont i do this, ill submit because im seeing we only have 20 seconds left on the clock, i will submit my next question about the way the lack of exclusions in the china tariffs is hurting Small Businesses the middle of the pandemic. Ill submit that in writing and look forward to your response. Thank you very much, mr. Chair. I appreciate that, senator hassan. Now we go to senator cortez masto but tv, i believe. Thank you. Thank you, chairman grassley. And ambassador, thank you so much. Good to see you again. Let me just reenforce what senator casesy talked a little bit about. Were both introducing the womens Economic Empowerment and trade act. It is an important piece of legislation to update the generalized system of preferences criteria. I know it expires at the end of the year. But the focus is on workers rights and the right of women to have equal protection under the law. Around the world, women disproportionately face challenges in the workplace including legal barriers to work, restrictions on engaging and collective action, restrictions on property ownership, Educational Opportunities and heart breaking reports of violence, harassment, and wage discrimination. We have to tear down these barriers. We have to support our safe workplaces globally. And this legislation includes common sense measures to strengthen existing standards for gsp and makes clear that countries need to guarantee the protection of their workers, workers rights and womens rights. So we look forward to working with you on this legislation. So i just wanted to make that clear. I do want to talk to you about an industry that important anywhere state of nevada, which is to tourism and Hospitality Industry that is so hard hit during this covid19 pandemic. We are literally ground zero for the impact that this pandemic is having on travel, tourism, Hospitality Industry, Entertainment Industry in nevada and across the country. The largest number of visitors to las vegas in recent years came overwhelmingly from canada and mexico. And the revised thresholds in the usmca will surely encourage those visitors each year to spend a little more in our local community, but my question to you is looking forward to the 2020 trade agenda, what other policies can we consider to help stimulate and revitalize these sectors of the economy in the wake of covid19 . Im curious if that is something that you have been looking at in that particular industry to address and what you can do to help us revitalize that . So, thank you, senator. First of all, were happy to work with you on the bill that you and senator casey are introducing. As you know, im sure you heard my comment to senator casey, that this is an important part of the president s agenda. And its very close to the heart of ivanka trump, who i think i think we all would agree has done a remarkable job of emphasizing this area. We agree with you certainly on the basic equitieequities. I look forward to that. Secondly, that tourism and Hospitality Industry, when people ask me what is the economic affect of covid. You look at the data and you see approximately a 30 or so reduction in exports and something less than that in imports. If you look at just about the single biggest area thats hit is in services and its in hospitality. Its in travel what they call the travel. So it i mean, we are very sympathetic to what is going on. We realize that i dont know if its the hardesthit sector, but if its not, its close to the hardesthit sector. And the United States has a very aggressive policy of trying to encourage services, trade agreements, trying to come to fundamental agreements on services, getting the usmca agreement up and active and effective so we dont have any hindrances there i think will be important. I would be interested to hear what you think we ought to be doing, things i should be doing specifically to help Hospitality Industry. Its huge for nevada but its really huge for the whole country. Anything that you think i should be doing, i hope youll bring it to my attention either now or in the future because im completely committed with you on this. I think these people have been hurt more than anyone. They have to come back really, really fast if were going to get back to where we were. Well, thank you. Im happy to talk to you about it. Because its not just about the free flow of goods across our borders. It is the travelers, the free flow of travelers. International travelers have a major impact on our economy here in the United States, not just in nevada but in other states as well. So i am happy and thank you for the offer because we definitely take you up on that and appreciate it. My time is up. The rest of my questions ill submit for the record. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Senator brown by tv. Then you. Senator brown, are you im trying to okay. We can hear you. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman. Ambassador, i want to start by saying, welcome. Good to see my friend. I read your recent piece on Foreign Affairs. I notice you repeatedly referred to the rust belt. Someone born and raised in ash ta beulah, you should know better than that that outdated defensive term demeans people in ohio and midwest. Were the industrial heartland and were proud. You turned off. We cant hear you, senator brown. Okay. Working now . Yes. We had you all the way through industrial heartland. Okay. The worker 60 miles away from where you grew up in Lawrence Town were proud of their work until gm closed their factory and took away their jobs. The last crews rolled off the line in Lawrence Town on march 6, 2019. Gm knew well before that they were going to close the plant. They announced they were building in mexico the last day, the second shift reported to work june 21st, 2018. You know all these dates. This timeline is important ustr was writing around the rules of origin for the new nafta and the first half of 2018. You were closely consulting the Car Companies throughout the process. The rules of origin determine how much of a car has to be made in the u. S. To qualify for nafta benefits. You claim the updated rules will create tens of thousands of new auto jobs in our country. Yet gm knew what the rules were. In fact, they helped write them. They still decided to close lords town and offshore blazer production to mexico. This week theres a news report that ustr staff in charge of writing the rules of origin were planning to start their own business to help Auto Companies comply with them. Even worse, they were letting the Car Companies know of their plans while they were still on your payroll. Many of us have long said that our trade deals are written in secret for corporations by corporations and the administrations of both parties which you have criticized equally, vastly oversell the benefits of trade agreements. If the auto rules of origin werent Strong Enough to stop the offshoring of lords town jobs to mexico, and if your staff and ustr were more focussed on helping companies for their own personal gain than on helping American Workers, why should American Workers who lost their jobs at lords town belief President Trumps promises that the new nafta will actually create the auto sector jobs that you and he claim . So, im going to take that a slightly tilted question. First of all, the lords town thing took us by surprise, too. You know how annoyed the president was. The president made a big thing out of it. He called the ceo of General Motors, has on several occasions and hes trying to fill that spot. Secondly, with respect to ustr staff, i had the same reaction when i read the article. These were two career staff people, not political people, career staff people who consulted apparently with our ethics who are career ethics vigils. They at least said it was all right i dont know about the website or the conversations between these career ethics people and these two career bureaucrats at ustr, but i had the same sort of reaction that you did in terms of the propriety of it. I dont know whether the law needs to be changed. I know political people could not do what they did. And if a Civil Service laws need to be need to be changed to prevent that, then i certainly am sure that you and other senators would be i appreciate that. We feel a sense of betrayal by this administration. The president said dont sell your homes. Were bringing all these jobs back. We differ on how hard the president tried. You know, its clear that democrats on this committee demanded stronger labor standards in the new nafta. Thats why we got brown widen as you know. Its clear that china deal phase 1 didnt address provisions of china didnt address didnt try to address chinas low wages or antiunion laws. Its clear this administration negotiated trade agreement with the next biggest economy in the world. Not protecting workers or raising standard labor standards, that didnt come up. Outside of trade, outside the president s talk on trade and i admire you as a public official i think youve done your job well. Outside of the president s talk on trade, this is a procorporate president who has passed the trillion dollar tax give away, earn couraging more companies to move overseas and suggested pay in the backs of workers who paid into Social Security their whole lives. Taken every opportunity to attack workers right to organize in Workplace Safety standards four straight years of trumps betrayal of workers, culminating in his efforts to force workers, mostly women, disproportionately black and Brown Workers back to work the middle of a pandemic. Dr. King said all labor has dignity, that means all workers whether you swipe a badge or punch a clock or work for tips or get a salary. Its pretty clear, you use the term dignity in work a number of times with your use of the term rust belt, work means something very different to me than it does to President Trump who has just consistently, as we know, betrayed workers in this country. Senator hold it, senator. Chairman, ive got to respond to that. That was i disagree when youre well go to the senator. Go ahead, ambassador. All right. First of all, i disagree with every single thing you said, senator. I think is so unfair. Were being lectured literally by democrats who did nothing for eight years on the china issue. Literally nothing. This president takes them to charge. He puts tariffs, challenges them, he has an agreement, he gets fabulous results. I made this comment before and i want to make it again. I feel like i am being like im churchill being lectured by chamberlain. Now, i realize you didnt you werent in the position of defending the Obama Administration, senator brown, but the reality is, they did nothing. The Bush Administration did nothing. This president has gone after china like no one else before. And hes changed rules of origin. Hes changed these rules of origin thats going to bring back these jobs. Under the previous administration, eight of the previous 11 auto manufacturing plants manufactured built in north america were built in mexico. That has all stopped. The reality is he is bringing it back. And the lords town plant theres a lot going on there. Theres no way in the world we defend that. We dont defend what General Motors did at all on that. But that wasnt the result of what happened on our watch. Thats what happened on the previous watch. So, i could go on mr. Chairman, i criticized president when they bestray i had to make that point. I fundamentally dont agree. Senator. Thank you, ambassador lighthizer for responding. I felt like we were hearing more of a political rally than anything else. And i certainly not in an effort to get information. But we should be. And i would like to ask you a question and get some information. So, a number of senators have brought up the fact that the covid19 virus has demonstrated the vulnerability of our supply chains in a way that nothing else has. And i was read last week in an essay you wrote, you talked about the importance of resuring our Manufacturing Base and you made an interesting statement. You said trade policy alone cannot do that. But as part of a broader suite of tax and regulatory policies designed to encourage investment in the United States. Weve talked a little bit about semiconductors, and i believe you and i talked about that on our Conference Call in the last couple of weeks. I just want to applaud the work that the administration has done to reduce in the future the need to import even solesourced semiconductors from overseas. So far the president has reduced, and you, reduced imports by half from china. And so i do think we need to take the next step. As you know, many of the most critical, highend, semiconductors are manufactured in taiwan. The administration has negotiated the building of a foundry in arizona. But its going to require that suite of tax and regulatory policies. So what specific measures would you recommend we use to incentivize production in the United States, including the tax code . First of all, i applause your bill. I think it is if we allow ourselves to be in ten years where we cant make the highest level of semiconductors in the United States, then shame on us. Everybody who is in political life right now should bear some of that shame. Thats something that this is one of those things that is predictable. We do know this is going to happen. And we know that no matter what happens, semiconductors are going to be a key part of the economy of the future. And if youre for those of you and i know there are many members who care about Artificial Intelligence and how important that is for the future of americans future without semiconductors youre not going to be the leader in semiconductors. I applaud that. I personally have the view that we have to have manufacturing here but i think we also have to have American Companies have manufacturing here. So i have a view. In that world i dont want to be mentioning specific companies but we all know theres the leading company traditionally is intel. I think they have to be part of the solution. The Taiwan Company i agree with you on. I agree with you. Senator warner and i have tried to craft the bill in such a way that would benefit all semiconductor manufacturers, including those already here in the United States and hopefully create an environment where there is some real competition and multiple sources here in the United States. But to my question, do you agree we could should use the tax code as part of that suite of policies designed to encourage that investment . Well, you clearly need subsidies, right . We all know that. You need subsidies given the structure and the fact that other people are subsidizing. Whether in the form of tax credits there is a long history of using tax credits very effectively in this area but i dont want to be the spokesman for the administration on all the details of your bill. I know as a general matter the thrust of your bill is strongly supported in the administration. Well, thank you. I didnt want to put you in that position, but i was intrigued by your essay. And im obviously since the finance committee is the principle tax writing committee, were going to play an Important Role in that. And i know the chairman and Ranking Member know that as well. In that same vain, of the 26 multibillion micro chip fabs under construction in 2019, only one was located in the United States and 17 located in china. In the meantime, were in a race for the next generation of Telecommunications Networks that would support 5g with statebacked firms like huawei. Our ability to produce 5g equipment domestically is extremely limited. So what can we do from a trade policy perspective to constructively bridge the gap with our allies to counter huawei and china as it relates to 5g . So, at this point i think the administration through the export control which is are part security and of course part trade policy is taking a number of steps to make sure that we protect our own technology and that we use the fact that people need licenses to export and to use u. S. Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology to sell to huawei and other companies. So i think thats an important thing. I think when you end up putting together your package, once again, youre going to say this sounds like lighthizer, but i think you have to have tariffs as part of the solution. I think you want to incentivize one of the ways you incentivize people to manufacture in the United States and have done it is through some kind of effective use of tariffs. Tax credits also are another way, straight up grants as you propose in your bill are another way. And my guess is the solution is going to end up being a fine combination of all three. Thank you very much. Senator whitehouse, youve got to get the record for being the most patient person. Youve been here all afternoon. Go ahead, please. Well, im glad to be here. I thank you, chairman, for holding this hearing. And i thank ambassador lighthizer who may hold the record, at least with me, as the most responsive person in the Trump Administration. We dont always agree, but you always get back to me. My question is about the Marine Plastic progress that was made in the usmca, the article stipulates that the parties recognize the importance of taking action to prevent and reduce Marine Litter including plastic litter and micro plastics. And then it goes on to say that each party shall take measures to prevent and reduce Marine Litter. Im wondering what measures have been taken pursuant to that paragraph. It goes on to say that parties shall cooperate with respect to Marine Litter including addressing lead and sea base pollution, promoting infrastructure and advancing ghost gear. So im interested in how youve been cooperating on that. And finally, specifically, what have you demanded of mexico . Because i see the language, but i dont im not aware of any activities that ensued. Well, thank you, senator. Start with what measures has each party taken to prevent and reduce Marine Litter pursuant to the agreement. So, first of all, thank you for that for the question and also for your contribution to usmca. It broke my heart, of course you know, when you didnt vote for it. But nonetheless, you made a contribution to an important piece of Bipartisan Legislation that you didnt support. But. I think your heart is very robust, ambassador. Im not worried. Ive been in town a long time. Not the first time ive had my heartbroken. I would say we are serious about this. I want to use it going forward. The agreement is not yet in effect, as you know. It goes in effect july 1st. We have an interagency Environmental Committee which has already met once and have another meeting, i think, scheduled for the beginning of july and at that point well start putting in effect these provisions. This is something that we that i think is innovative and were going to require action. The reason i ask here is because of the july 1st date because that is kind of our last leverage on that agreement. And once that passes and weve moved on and its gone into effect, its a different landscape in terms of trying to push for action and enforcement. So if between now and then, i dont know if youre going to be able to tee anything up before july 1st, if part of that task force negotiation is to lay out some of the understandings as to how this will be implemented. I would love to hear about that. If youve got if thats not between now and july 1st problem and you intend to pursue this issue after july 1st, i would like to hear about how and with 1 45 left, ill obviously not get a very robust answer here, but perhaps we can follow up to try to make sure that this language just doesnt go into immediate do nothing but be a dustgathering paragraph. I certainly dont want that to happen. I agree with the spirit as well as the letter of it. I look on it the opposite way. To me we really dont have any rights under the agreement until the agreement comes into effect. So, we cant really enforce it until were we come into effect. What we have done and what we have spent tens of thousands of hours doing over the last several weeks has been getting in place all the rules including the brown widen, senator brown is still watching which was a very important enforcement part. It wasnt a standards part but very important enforcement part of this. Getting those rules in place. Setting up the structure so that we can then insist that mexico do what they have to do. What we had to do the way this works is we had to certify that they have the legal ability to do it in mexico and in canada. And then once we get to july 1st then we can say, okay, fine, were compliant. That Interagency Committee that we all put together and thats well funded and is already staffed that committee is responsibility is to make sure a variety of other things but to make sure this happens. We chair that committee. Talked to my person who chairs it. Im going to ask him precisely what you just asked me about what our timing is. Okay, thank you. At some point postjuly 1st, when youre settling into how youre going to impose these measures or demand something of mexico or effect cooperation, perhaps we can have a conversation with whoever in your office has the wheel on that to see how that plan is going to be rolled out. We will do that. I appreciate your staying on it because, you know, down the road members of congress dont insist on enforcement there wont be enforcement, i feel. And even sometimes when we do. And even sometimes when you. Thanks. Thank you, senator. Senator cassidy by tv. Hey, mr. Ambassador. If this is your second hearing today and its now 5 30, youre doing a great job and thank you very much for your patience and for just hanging in there. You still look fresh. The thing about going near the end is that most folks have asked questions. I have one question that has not been asked and another that is more based upon your article. Investors talking about mexico. Energy sector. Investors have been seeing that mexican the Mexican Government appears to be tilting the table towards pmx and cfe, the mexican utility company, changing the rules for u. S. Investors and this is related to energy explore ration and production the fuel permits downstream to power renewables. Again, it seems like theyre trying to privilege their stateowned enterprises. Usmc has specific mechanisms that have a level Playing Field. Can we expect this to be redressed once the usmca put into effect . Are you aware of this . So, i am aware of it. I dont know about every detail, senator that youre aware of it. Im sure i dont know that much. But i am aware of it. I know its a problem. It is something we expect to enforce. I would say the administration in mexico, as you know well, is very much wants to go in the direction of nationalizing energy production. Thats one of the things that they feel very strongly about and pushing back against that is something that we have done in this agreement and expect to do. And i think personally in the although its not my business perhaps, in the long run this is not in mexicos interest to take competition out of the equation in something as valuable as energy production. But my impression is thats clearly the direction that that administration down there wants to go and to the extent we have tools, we expect to use them to require equal treatment. Thank you. Going to your Foreign Affairs article, which is an interesting article. You have a lot there which is a latent, if you will. But you acknowledge that some supply chains will have at least a portion outside of the United States and sometimes thats to environmental standards. Youre not endorsing, i think youre acknowledging. I think it probably benefits the United States more if those supply chains are in latin america than they are if they are in se, china. I say that because it looks like nafta is it stopped net migration from mexico to the United States. There are now jobs there. And that in turn has led to Higher Expectations of mexico. I dont know if you have thoughts on that. As we talk about bringing supply chain back from china, at least in part, what are your thoughts about to that degree it may not be in the United States, at least trying to keep it in latin america . Senator, i certainly agree with the thrust of your analysis. I think and its not just china. Its in asia generally. Are we better off having first place, i think all the supply chains that are run through the United States. I kind of take your point and have acknowledged that there are situations where thats probably not going to happen. In those cases, are there places that are better economically and geopolitically for the United States to have those supply chains . Absolutely. And i think that is a positive outcome if it works that way. And i think a healthy, peaceful mexico, for example, and you could by extension say other countries in latin america, is clearly in the interest of the United States, both in terms of creating customers but also creating Good Neighbors for all of our states along the southern border. So i completely agree with the thrust of what youre saying. When you get to the specifics, of course everybody can have their own views. I think what youre saying is correct. Im flattered that you read the article. And i hope it made some contribution to the way people think about trade policy generally. Very good. And intuitively and i dont know this to be the case but do you have any data as the u. S. Has what spuled out of latin america and moved to asia, clearly china has filled the void within latin america and may be beyond the scope of your office to have done an assessment of that, but i think theres been to the detriment of our geopolitical position. Do you have an assessment of that . So, we havent done an actual study of that. My own sense its more this. Its more that when that rather than pull out of latin america and china, rather than do that at the time that these companies were going, china and then later vietnam and a whole variety of others were more hospitality, were more aggressive in terms of getting the supply chain. So i dont know if there are a lot of examples. None pop into my head of somebody leaving someplace in south america. There may be such cases, but i think the tendency tends to be at the time when this happened that was the place to go. And to be honest, one of the things i sort of allude to is that you end up with a bunch of Business Consultants who say, here, go there and then all of a sudden everybody goes there. So there was kind of a lemming effect, also. Senator, thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you. Senator langeford by tv. Ambassador, thanks again for the work that you continue to do and for the marathon day today to be able to talk through all the issues today. Let me walk through just a couple issues and one will not be a surprise to you. Its the pacific, the uk that were now working on a trade relationship with is also actively working with new zealand and australia in trying to focus in on the pacific rim on trade agreements. What i want to know progress the United States is making on a new trade agreements in the pacific. So, we have discussions on going as you and i have said on the issue of ecommerce with new zealand. We have, of course, you know well, we have a long standing fta, which i personally believe has been one of our more successful ftas with australia. In terms of trade agreements, im trying to think thats probably about it. We have trade discussions across the board. And those have led to a variety of successes in terms of clearing up a whole variety of impediments to u. S. Exports and in some cases opening up markets in the United States. I could kind of go through those. Its an interesting thing. People think of the ustr as being involved in these big negotiations. And of course we are involved in big negotiations, but most but an awful lot of what we do are regular negotiations which we have. But we have a big negotiation with india which im sure youre aware of and potentially even moving to an fta at some point if we can ever make any headway with asia. But we have a lot of on going discussions. We call them tiffas, trade and investment discussion forms or negotiated forms with most of the countries throughout that area. Indonesia we have very active, malaysia, across theres an awful lot of engagement, but not necessarily leading to an fta. Part of the reason for that is were trying to clear up specific irritants that we have or that they have or impediments to free trade. And also part of it is that its such a big issue to enter into an fta and go through the whole process. Its something we tend to go kind of less often. Right. Well, there are targeted countries there that we need to work on a Bilateral Agreement with longterm and we can continue to be able to follow up on that. Let me shift into a single issue on this. And that is our still our focus dependence on critical minerals, Rare Earth Minerals, coming out of china. Depending on what the mineral is, were still dealing with 60 to 90 of our Rare Earth Minerals coming out of one source out of china and we have seen them before in 2010 cut off japan due to a political issue for a season there. So theyve clearly used Rare Earth Minerals as a leverage point in their negotiations in the past. How its going and working with countries like australia, other entities, malaysia, that have a lot of these Rare Earth Minerals as well to be able to expand availability and openness and then want to be able to do more production here in the United States as well. What is that conversation like to try to get us away from a Single Source and single point of vulnerability with china . Well, first of all, i completely agree with your assessment on where we are with rare earths. And ive had a number of conversations. Its not an area its not the solution is not entirely within ustrs realm, but we have a part of it. There also a part of it is the department of commerce, the department of defense and others. Theres a lot of focus on this area right now. Ive talked to a variety of businessmen, too. Many of these rare earths we have in the United States but we cant economically get it out and compete with china. So, its a policy thats being developed. Im not primarily responsible for it. Im very supportive and grateful for your specific emphasis on it because this is something that theres reasonable likelihood will be a train wreck at some point down the road. And people like you and others who are seeing it and working on it will hopefully be a part of avoiding that train wreck. Yeah. Its one of the things that i raised over and over again. If we think its a problem with china cutting off ppe from us during a pandemic, wait until they cut off rare earth and critical minerals. When that happens, it really is an Economic Disaster at that point and we do have a single point of failure and a lot of vulnerability there. That is five stateowned entities out of china that is managing that that were trying to compete with the prices and with the nonenvironmental rules and Everything Else they do there. So it definitely not a clear Trading Platform for us in trying to be able to negotiate and for our domestic manufacturing rising up. Its one of the issues we have to resolve longterm. Anything i can continue to raise on that i want to continue to push on it, so i appreciate your focus and where we can expand and definitely discourage australia from allowing Chinese Companies to purchase their mines and capabilities then we would lose one more of our sources through chinese ownership in australia. Thanks for all the work that you continue to do. Thank you, senator. I appreciate that. Senator danes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador lighthizer. Thank you for coming up here again. I very much appreciate the work youve done with advancing our Nuclear Agreements with our four largest trading partners. We lost perspective on that. We had these great deals and went to impeachment and covid and i think weve lost sight about the importance of these four agreements with canada, mexico, china and japan. So congratulations on those wins. Very important. Theyre important for a senator from montana because as we think about the access markets our formers and our ranchers and our other businesses depend heavily on those markets and when you step back and think about that 95 of the worlds consumers live outside the United States, if were going to grow our businesses, our ag, economy, its going to be highly dependent on growing greater market share with 95 of the rest of the worlds consumers who live outside the u. S. As you know, montana is the number one pulse crop producing state in the country. India is the Largest Consumer of pulses and important market for montana farmers. Unfortunately, u. S. Pulses face high tariffs and unfair Playing Field in india. Thats why earlier this year senator cramer and i gave the president a letter urging him to prioritize the issue and raise it directly with Prime Minister modi. In fact, i was pleased to see the president , President Trump, hand deliver that letter to president modi. He sent a picture handing that specific letter to the Prime Minister and want to make sure we saw it. So i applaud that the president s personal leadership there during that state visit. My question is this, whats the status of negotiations with india . And will you commit to working to remove these tariffs in any on going negotiations . So, the answer is yes. And then ill elaborate. First of all, i appreciate very much working with you and your sort of dogged insistence on us paying attention to agriculture and not just pulses, beef and other products of montana and that theres three or four ambassador lighthizer, theres another guy thats dogged here, named chairman grassley head of agriculture. We consider it a tag team here if we need to. There are a few of you that every time i go into these negotiations i know im going to hear from you before and after and i think about you during. So you really have made an impact in terms of the agreements we have. A lot are molded by your effort and senator grassleys effort and several on the democratic side also who are just insistent we do this and i think all the agreements are better because of your involvement in it. The wt the mfn tariffs that india has are extremely high on pulses and on just about Everything Else. One of the indictments i have of the wto is the fact that we find ourselves in this position when india joined the gad in late 1948, they had a gdp of maybe 250 billion. Now theyre almost 3 trillion and they still have a third of their lines of tariffs not bound at all and a whole bunch of them bound at 100 . Theres nothing we can do about that. How do we change that . And the notion that were locked into a wto that says just forever youre stuck with that imbalance is to me crazy. And we have to do something about it. In terms of the status, were on going with the negotiations. I think its clearly taking longer than i would have had. They are dogged and insistent on keeping their tariffs and were dogged in insisting that were going to get a fair deal. Were still working on it very much. You know, hopefully well get to a good outcome. Thank you. Again, number one pulse producer in the country, appreciate your determination to move that negotiation to the right place. I want to shift gears to china phase 1. Ambassador lighthizer, phase 1 agreement is implemented as quickly as possible and china is held is china acting in good faith as it relates to the ag purchase agreements . In my judgment they are. Remember, the timing. This wasnt in effect until february 14th, not that long ago, given particularly the length of time in terms of ag sales. They started giving the exclusions from their tariffs at the beginning of march. They granted a great deal of them including of interest to the chairman on ethanal which i think were seeing ethanol purchases hopefully of significance. Are they behind . Yes. But you cant look at it its not like they agreed to a certain month every month. So if you think of the deal generally, about a third of the deal say is soy beans. And theyve already purchased maybe 3 billion worth of soy beans. As you know, soy beans are tend to be a fall market. So, if you look at i made this point before. You look at 2017, we sold 10 billion of soy beans at the end of the year. I would expect well see that again. So, are they behind . Yes. Are they making substantial purchases in the way we calculate it which is not just what is exported because thats weeks and weeks before it was bought. But actual purchases . The number is pretty high, the trajectory is good. Last week alone they bought half a billion dollars worth of soybeans. They bought a lot of beef and beef coming in for the first time ever. If you look at where they are versus where we were in our best year ever, we are ahead of it and almost every single major crop, but we got a long way to go. Since february 14th to, so we just got started. Mister chairman, can i ask another question . Thatll be your last question and i have one question and then we will adjourn. Okay, thank you. I also appreciate your efforts to include poly silicone in the first phase one agreement. It has been targeted by china and retaliatory tariffs are threatening some high wage manufacturing jobs that relate directly to rec silicone in montana. Could you provide an update on developments regarding poly silicon and how china is moving forward with any purchases . I will talk to you about that off line. Its something that i know is important to you, i know its something, therefore, is important to me and we are working on and we could talk about it off line. Okay, i look forward to the conversation. Just to conclude, ive seen a pretty impressive result here and i just wanted to commend you for that. You know, usmca in the china phase one deal has garnered much of the attention in the past several months. I reviewed the agreement with japan is one of the truly unsung hero stories and one that just as important, if not more for u. S. Ike and particularly for a beef. Japan is our largest beef export market. This agreement helps level the Playing Field for montana rogers. In the months following the agreement, beat exports have gotten the chart here. Be beef exports of japan have increased by nearly 20 year over year, thats to january to april timeframe, so we are up almost 25 with our largest beef export market in the world, which we are grateful for. Thats a significant win. I want to thank you and your team for your efforts, my cattle producer is having a hard time with the covid related and issues with packers. Its nice to see that japan increased by nearly 25 . Thank you for the work, the i think there is a Bright Future ahead of us in japan. I just want to thank you again thank them and we wouldnt have any of these beef if it wasnt for them. So thank you. Its the best beef in the world, so thank you to u. S. Beef. Before i ask my last question, it does sound like im probably the only one that has been told you ive read your missile. Im about a third away through it. Im honored that you even got that far, so thank you for that. I recognize this is my question, i recognize that maybe many of the usmcas commitments might be models or other Free Trade Agreements but not all. For example, usmca requires mexico and canada be a party to the interim ericsson, which concerns management of fisheries in the eastern pacific ocean. I also it also has majors that are specific to mexico. Recent labor reforms, i dont see those same issues with the uk which doesnt border the eastern pacific or has, and already has pretty high labor standards. On the other hand, there are some unique issues that we have with uk as a result of their time with the eu including restrictions on our Agricultural Products. I hope you can assure me and the committee that our proposals for the uk agreement recognize these important distinctions. Absolutely. We absolutely do. Yes, mister chairman. For you, i thank you for your appearance today and particularly keeping your obligation to consult whether our committee on a regular basis, you truly done that today and you spend a lot of time doing it. I know you have a lot on your plate. We appreciate your willingness to spend time with us, discussing these issues, hearing us out. For my fellow senators, if you have questions for the record id like to have the please submit them on july 2nd and with that, i think you once again and monster ambassador, the meeting is a adjourned. Thank you very much mister chairman. Its a pleasure to be here. First ladies, influenced an image on American History tv examines the private lives and the public rows of the nations first ladies through interviews with top historians. Tonight, we look at rachel jackson, anna harrison, laetitia tyler and julia tyler. Watch first ladies, influence an image tonight at 8 pm eastern on American History tv on cspan 3. Theres november, we are going to take back the house, we are going to hold the senate and we are going to keep the white house President Trump returned to the campaign trail saturday for a rally in tulsa. Watch our live coverage starting at 8 pm eastern on cspan, on demand at cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. What do you think we can do about that . With Police Reform with Police Reform, protests and the coronavirus continuing to affect the country, watch our live unfiltered coverage of the governments response with briefings from the white house, congress, governors and mayors from across the country updating the situations. And from the campaign 2020 trail. Join the conversation every day on our alive calling program, washington journal and if you missed any of our live coverage, watch anytime on the mad at cspan. Org. Or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Now the Millennial Debt Foundation hosts the virtual discussion, which republican senators on the consequences of the national debt. Later, republican congressman brian style and William Timmins and former republican senators jim and bob corker joins the discussion from yesterday, this is just over an hour and 15 minutes. This is the only introduction ill give to both of you. First of all, certainly grateful for your time but this effort was launched a year ago with the support of my personal political mentor, doctor tom colburn and im one of my earliest conversations doctor