Mr. President, today I, along with 13 of my Senate colleagues, am introducing the Presidential Trade Transparency Act of 2017. This bill establishes new reporting requirements directing the President…
Mr. President, today I, along with 13 of my Senate colleagues, am introducing the Presidential Trade Transparency Act of 2017. This bill establishes new reporting requirements directing the President to disclose foreign income, assets, and liabilities when initiating or continuing trade or investment negotiations with a foreign country, taking or refraining to take certain trade enforcement actions, or granting or modifying preferential tariff treatment under statutory trade preference programs. Each of these decisions may have significant commercial implications, both as to a foreign country's economy as a whole and with respect to particular investments within a foreign country. Given the complexity and lack of transparency with respect to the President's finances, additional country-specific reporting is necessary for Congress to properly exercise its oversight responsibilities and assess whether the authority it has granted to the President is the subject of undue influence due to a business relationship between the President and one or more foreign entities. Reporting of this information will also help address questions regarding improper influence by foreign entities when the President exercises trade authorities granted by Congress.
Americans have a right to know if the President is looking out for the good of the country or just his own bottom line when he negotiates a trade deal, decides whether or not to enforce our trade laws, or decides whether to cut tariffs on imports from a developing country. The President has business interests around the world, but he continues to keep the full nature of those ties secret.
Under the Constitution, Congress is responsible for regulating foreign commerce, including setting U.S. tariff rates applicable to imports from foreign countries. However, Congress has granted the President limited authority to modify U.S. tariffs in certain circumstances, including to enforce U.S. laws protecting U.S. industry from harmful trade or to address foreign trade barriers, to negotiate trade agreements that eliminate foreign barriers to U.S. exports, and to grant developing countries preferential access to the U.S. market.
In many instances, the President himself is granted this authority and does not exercise it through a Cabinet official. While Congress has granted such authority to the President, it retains the responsibility to ensure that the President uses the authority in a manner consistent with congressional objectives.
The bill directs the President to report to Congress information regarding foreign income, assets, and liabilities, consistent with the information required to be disclosed under the Ethics in Government Act, specifically as to any country that is the subject of a trade negotiation, trade enforcement action or inaction, or decision to grant or deny tariff preferences, and to describe in detail the nature of the connection between the income, asset, or liability and the foreign country. The bill specifies deadlines for disclosure of the information with respect to each action that generally track existing deadlines for Presidential reporting under U.S. law.
Failure to timely submit a report would render without legal effect a Presidential proclamation modifying U.S. tariffs with respect to the country and, with respect to a trade agreement, would disqualify the agreement from eligibility for expedited consideration under trade promotion authority.
Passage of this bill would close a key loophole in congressional oversight authorities over trade and shine much needed daylight on the financial relationship between the President and America's trading partners.
I thank my colleagues for their efforts on this bill, and I hope the Finance Committee will consider our proposal quickly.
