Me and cassidy that the house passed in december by about 385 41. I would like to call the committee to order. We are meeting today to consider hr 5430 the United States mexico Canada Agreement implementation act. Senator sass is not here so welcome him to the committee with one of the piece of legislation we can do this year and im glad to have senator sass as a new member to the committee. December 13, 2019. The house of representatives received the bill to implement usmc agreement. Under fasttrack rules, the committee cannot amend the bill. We will vote today on whether to report the bill because senators who wish to make statements do so in the interest of time. I asked that statements are limited to three minutes of my staff so we do have a vote scheduled at 1215. Its important we get this done this morning. And the Administration Officials are here to provide an overview of the bill in to answer any questions and then we will vote. Prompt President Trump promised to deliver a trade agreement with canada and mexico to reflect the realities of the 21st amendment. I suppose this has been an issue that has been around for more than three years. He promised it would command broad support and i think President Trump has delivered. The house of representatives voted overwhelmingly support of the usmca bill. Now the Senate Must Act i am confident this bill will make it to the president s desk and i would like to express a few reasons why. Usmca will bring much needed certainty and real benefits to workers and businesses. Farmers are Getting Better and more reliable Market Access which they need and workers will see thousands of new jobs particularly in high wage Manufacturing Industries and have an agreement to reflect the realities of modern commerce including for the one and 3 trilliondollar Digital Economy with that enforcement flaws that plagued nafta to ensure the parties will be held accountable. The usmca has support of hundreds of organizations with a wide range of economy agriculture groups labor groups i would love to enter into the record a list of representatives and i will do that without objection for go the road that we traveled to arrive at this meeting today tested my patience at times as an example to take three or four months to get the president to remove steel and aluminum tariffs i dont know how many white house meetings i attended were that was an issue i got tired of hearing the words i like tariffs. And there are some aspects of this bill that i dont particularly like, but as i reflect on how we got here im proud of the hard work of many individuals that made it possible to achieve a strong agreement and bill with broad support and i would put at the top the ambassador put into it the bill before us today has something in it for everyone and its not often we can say that about and implementing bill. I asked my colleagues to vote with me to favorably report the bill as i would like to get this to the president s desk. Thank you mister chairman and happy new year to all we look forward to working with all of our colleagues trying to touch base with senator sass and we look forward to having him here the finance Committee Kicks off 2020 with the new nafta. The last two years have delivered one gut punch after another to america as exporters particularly our farmers and manufacturers. It began when then president ial candidate trump talked about pulling the United States out of nafta and that set the tone followed by the administration with our traditional economic allies three years of chaos have hurt investment in america causing farm bankruptcies to search many foreign markets are closed off to american exports today than they were on the day the president took office. The finance committee now has an opportunity to provide a real measure of certainty and predictability to americans who want to grow things here and make things here and add value and ship the products around the world. Making a few key changes to our approach to trade so first on the enforcement issue year after year and decade after decade president and lawmakers of both Political Parties have paid lipservice to the importance to enforce trade law. And what this country did on enforcement was too weak had no teeth it was too slow to protect americans in my view workers went through all of this lipservice a long time ago. When the Trump Administration had their version of the new nafta agreement it looked like more of the status quo. It didnt cut it the language they offered on enforcement basically did not enforce anything. It is business as usual. We have asked our colleagues from ohio, senator brown who has been a crusader for top labor Law Enforcement as long as anybody in public life. We said we were going to fix it and senator brown reached out to many of you many of us on this side we talked to many on the other side and senator brown and i developed a proposal all about putting power in the hands of american businesses to fight back and response to what we actually heard in our communities its a whole lot faster than what we had before it stronger than what we had before what senator brown and i came up with is to put boots on the ground to identify factories in mexico then our countries can penalize the violators the enforcement process will take a fraction of the time it has in the past no more american businesses and workers will wait around for what seems like eons while they are ripped off. We took our proposal to our colleagues in the house and made it clear we wanted to work with them and after we did that we went to the Trump Administration and said if you want our support on the new nafta you have to build on the tough trade proposal we have been suggesting. We said this is a prerequisite to getting nafta done ]rightsquarebracket when you combine that with labor right rights, you also shut down the corporate race to the bottom on cheap wages and standards its about raising everybody else to our standards and take action when they fall short thank you to senator brown we will hear from him and his leadership and while he and i have our names on this package i can look right down the row literally to senator carper and all of these colleagues who contributed to this package and i know a number of republicans with these issues as well i want to wrap up with comments something nobody talked about with the first nafta when that came up that is technology and digital trade. That was not part of the original nafta because basically it did not exist when nafta was first negotiated. Everybody in this room carried a smart phone that would met the definition of a supercomputer in the early 19 nineties. But with rules with digital trade it remains stuck in the mindset of decades ago and that is a problem today because the internet now shifts the 21st century. Technology and digital trade are right at the center of a modern economy with millions of good paying jobs in our country and most Important Technology is woven into every major american industry, autos,g one after another talking about digital trade you talk about creating red white and blue jobs and a whole host of good paying industries the new nafta will fight back of this technological treasure trove of this innovation we have seen to protect intellectual property to protect American Companies from shaken down for their data by including established law it will help guarantee that Small Technology entrepreneurs can build Successful Companies in the field dominated by small number of goliath more wine will make it to shelves and ends harmful discrimination these are all significant areas of improvement they paid better and almost all of them are small or mediumsize so just some very quick points first we all ought to think the ambassador who i call the hardest working man in the trade agreement. He has talked with us on multiple occasions. He is a straight shooter. Welcome senator sass we are glad you are here and i will close with one last point. The legislation may be the most significant economic issue the senate addresses in 2020 obviously the senate will be holding an impeachment trial over the days ahead they are extraordinarily important matters that deserve to be addressed by the utmost seriousness the new nafta agreement cannot be used as a convenient excuse to shut down any other business before the senate. It has been a pleasure to work with you. We have a lot to do in 2020 and looking forward ahead for bipartisan healthcare and thank you for arranging this meeting. Thank you for your cooperation. Misses the order of the first 45 on the list and then and senator menendez and senator carper. I also welcome senator sass to the committee thank you mister chairman and senator wyden for your hard work i also agree with your comments thank you to ambassador like kaiser and the president to helping us get to this place voting today on the usmexico Canada Agreement, i have long maintained the original nafta agreement needed to be renegotiated i had concerns because many goods and Services Received unfair treatment with our trading partners. It also did not provide sufficient market at access or address pricing structures or trade practices in the dairy industry. President trump and us trade representatives robert light kaiser forceful negotiations on behalf of farmers and workers fulfills one of the Campaign Promises of the president. Many americans will see the updated trade deal with two of the three largest trading partners. The agreement is protect on projected to raise real gdp by 66 million and create another 176,000 jobs. And expand Market Access for dairy and poultry and egg producers to address longstanding nontariff barriers to export wheat and wine to canada by requiring the use of scientific standards it will show safety and are plant measures for trade restrictions it eliminates canadas plastics and the price programs that hindered us exports to third Country Markets these are predicted to increase exports by 227 million. Total annual Us Agriculture food exports are expected to increase by two. 2 billion dollars. These are just a few of the benefits that we stand to gain beyond the improvements of the Agricultural Sector usmc will be the first Free Trade Agreement with a digital trade sector to create a foundation to spur development of trade and investment of Digital Products and conservatives and establish information to help more than 120,000 americans to export goods and services to canada and mexico to take advantage of the usmca i applied President Trumps decision to combat command the ambassador like kaiser to get the bill done. When i served in the house of representatives i took us so strong stand against nafta because it lacked strong enforceable rules that American Families actually benefit from trade i feared nafta would only intensify the stagnant wages for the middle class and unfortunately i was right concerned usmca would repeat these mistakes but now thanks to the work of Congressional Democrats it has updated rules for workers across the continent and because of these improvements i will support this agreement. However this negotiation was not only a chance to write nafta wrong but for future growth in americas most Competitive Industry unfortunately we did not fully seize that opportunity im disappointed usmca lacked strong intellectual Property Protection across the country they must do more to protect and reward American Innovation and lets be clear eyed to make the american policy to work this would enforce violations and give power to grant or deny Automotive Companies additional time to comply with rules of origin and these are serious concerns even beyond usmca we see the trade policy with that confusion and other areas with mexico immigration criteria for thes constituent seeking those with the intellectual property theft cyberespionage espionage we can debate if these were the right policy choices but we should all be able to agree we must be transparent with the American People about the choices they make frequent order to do that i will introduce a bill to establish an Inspector General. Nearly every other cap and federal agency has the staff to increase transparency, make government more accountable and fdr had one as well i worked look forward to working with the committee to bring a new era of accountability to our trade policy to the benefit of American Workers and their families. Thank you mister chairman for your leadership and strong advocacy of the usmca. Which also stands for the United States marine corps always so with them working overtime to get this done crafting a final product to gain support is no easy task especially in todays climate politically. I would just like to say on behalf of the farmers and ranchers and growers all over the country, they made one thing Crystal Clear times are challenging right now and they have been since 2014 in farm country now they passed a farm bill a little more than a year ago to protect farmers and ranchers with that predictability needed to be successful as important as the farm bill is it is clear they need reliable markets domestically and abroad and for this reason i will be supporting the bill. I want to Say Something about the original nafta agreement. Back in 2018 the countries were 30 percent of the value of total Us Agriculture exports the value to canada was over 20. 8 billion increase since nafta was signed into law the value has grown 316 percent in 1994 it seems thats pretty good for the rate on the worst trade bill i help write the bill along with the chairman of the house at committee and according to the Us International trade commission it will provide even more growth. What i have been hearing is we need to get this trade bill done. Get it done asap if we are not leading the charge, other countries will and they are. Lbj said sometimes you have to come down like a jackass in a hailstorm. Thats our farmers have been doing the last 40 years its also good advice there are trade tariff tactics i dont think its a good idea to try and settle every damn one we look forward to final passage. I am reminded today it is the birthday of annotation of the National Governors association gather with president clinton and Vice President gore and what we talked about was nafta and why we were pursuing it. And we allowed other nations and largely without impediment if not to allow other countries to make sure our businesses have the opportunities. It wasnt perfect but we have to make it better. When our friend was nominated going to the nominating process i suggested he reach out to the Clinton Administration and michael was involved in the tpp to negotiate pieces of that trade agreement with canada and mexico 40 percent of the world trade so find out what was negotiated before you reinvent the wheel. So i had him on speed dial and to his credit in the last couple years i think it has been good for those negotiations. I wish this administration had not pulled us out of tpp. We are leading a group for trading we have 40 percent of the worlds trade china is on the outside looking in. Now we have usmca before us. Is it better than nafta . You bet. We want to commend those who worked hard to make it better especially the trade rep who does work hard and a number of our colleagues and the Ranking Member and others who worked hard. Also thank you especially to those who worked on the environmental provision to make sure they were enforceable not just on a piece of paper. Working with the house on these provisions the house passed the bill 385 41 bipartisan support in this measure deserves that kind of bipartisan support here. Thank you. Thank you mister chairman this is been a long time in the making im glad we are finally getting around to the usmca. I went to commend the president in us trade representative for their hard work and determination despite consistent political headwinds. And his staff it is important to my stay in the Committee Report i believe the provisions in the agreement absent of some report would contravene congressional intent to prohibit deception with respect to distilled spirits products when working with the chairman and the house on that language as a texan i have long understood and appreciated economic relationship with our neighbors to the north and to the south the us chamber of commerce estimates nafta has 13 million jobs in the United States. In 2018 texas exported more than 137 billion of goods and services to canada and mexico the trade supports an estimated 950,000 jobs in texas and is helped to make our states economy in the the tenth largest in the world not just the country. This is made possible because nafta that took effect and a lot has happened since that time. The position has been to create positive changes we can all agree is time for an update and that