China Trade Deal Congressional Record Vol. 166 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020 No. 8
Congressional Record Vol. 166 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020 No. 8
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2020-01-14/pdf/CREC-2020-01-14.pdf
CHINA
Madam President, finally, on China,
tomorrow the United States will complete a signing ceremony for the socalled phase one trade agreement with
China. After 18 months of negotiations,
the phase one deal is remarkable for
how little it achieves at an enormous
price.
President Trump has agreed to scale
back some tariffs on Chinese goods in
exchange for temporary assurances
that China will increase its purchase of
U.S. exports over the next few years,
particularly in agriculture.
For all the effort and turmoil over
the past few years, the deal President
Trump will sign tomorrow hardly
seems to advance the United States
past square one. It fails to address the
deep structural inequalities in the
trade relationship between China and
the United States.
For the past decade, China has stolen
American intellectual property
through forced technology transfers of
our companies and through outright
cyber theft. The President’s phase one
deal doesn’t even address this issue.
China has routinely subsidized its most
important domestic industries. Not
just labor-intensive industries but even
industries like Huawei are subsidized
to gain unfair advantage over American companies. China has dumped
goods illegally into our markets. It has
manipulated its currency to keep
prices low. The President’s phase one
deal doesn’t address any of these
issues.
Not only does this deal fail to make
any meaningful progress toward ending
China’s most flagrant abuses, what it
does achieve on the agricultural side
may well be a day late and a dollar
short. China has already made longterm contracts with other producers of
soybeans and other goods in places like
Argentina and Brazil. American farmers have already lost billions over the
last 2 years, watched their markets disappear, and too many American farms
have gone bankrupt in the time that it
took President Trump to reach this
deal.
I have publicly praised the President
when he is tough on China, at some political cost. I have said he has had better instincts on China than previous
administrations. Few politicians have
been talking about securing real reforms to China’s economic policies
longer than I have. But I fear that with
an election around the corner, the
President is taking the easy way out—
settling for a weak deal that will cost
American businesses, American farmers, and American workers for years
and years to come.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.