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 MustWork 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 c