Mr. Speaker, tonight Republicans from the Ways and Means Committee, from the Agriculture Committee, and from the Rules Committee intend to speak with the American people and to you, Mr. Speaker, about the importance of trade and trade…
Mr. Speaker, tonight Republicans from the Ways and Means Committee, from the Agriculture Committee, and from the Rules Committee intend to speak with the American people and to you, Mr. Speaker, about the importance of trade and trade policies, the implications of growing jobs in not just America, but also our world role where we work with other Nations to ensure that the benefits and the great things that we not only create here in the United States but also use as trading elements around the world, that each of these issues will be thoughtfully discussed and appropriately given an item of what I believe is encouragement as this United States Congress moves forward into its last few months of this second session.
We believe that trade is important. We believe that as the United States continues to grow in its respect for others, that we share intellectual property, but expect the same back from others. We trade with our partners around the globe with an expectation of not only a good product but also an even playing field as we deal with others around the world.
General Leave
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this important topic of this Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we want and need to understand more about the implications of trade, a pro-trade growth agenda, and the opportunities that lie before not just the American people but the United States House of Representatives to further understand this key and critical issue that is a part of job creation for the American people.
Expanding trade throughout the globe creates economic growth and good-paying jobs here at home. Trade works because it allows America to be globally efficient and to compete all around the globe trading our products for others. And when America competes, I believe America wins, and the world is a better place. History shows that allowing greater access to a global marketplace for American exports has always been a powerful engine for economic growth and job creation.
Trade provides new opportunities for businesses and spurs innovation and entrepreneurs.
Opening our market to world imports also helps increase the purchasing power of American consumers. I believe there is a balance here, and it is part of this balance and the miracle of having a pro- growth trade agreement which we Republicans wish to speak about tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I would first like to welcome a young man who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, a relatively new Member, a second term Member, from Indiana.
Todd Young represents not only an opportunity for him to bring forth ideas from the heartland of America, but also his expertise as a member of the United States military, ideas about world affairs, and most of all about jobs in America. I would defer to the gentleman at this time, Mr. Young.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for discussing not only the impact in Indiana, but with the knowledge that Indiana, in fact, is really a microcosm of what this country really looks like, where you come from a strong manufacturing base, you come from a strong base of agriculture, you come from a strong base of the heartland of this country that wants and needs to be economically viable; and by growing jobs, which means that you can continue to pay for your schools, you can continue to pay for your roads and bridges, but more importantly, I believe, an innovative opportunity where you are allowed to compete around the globe with your ideas, your products, and your services.
I applaud the gentleman not only for his service to the United States military, but I applaud you for your service to the people of Indiana, as you have served us so ably during your tenure here in Congress, and a hearty congratulations. I thank the gentleman very much.
Mr. Speaker, we continue to have Republicans who have not only a background in agriculture, in understanding the United States military, which is the world, the world we live in, how America has neighbors and partners all around the world; but also, we continue to have people who come, once again, from the heartland of this country who see firsthand how important trade is.
They come from agricultural areas, they come from areas that have strong natural resources and reserves that are, I am sure, God-given, but an opportunity for us as Americans to benefit by virtue of living in the greatest Nation in the world.
One of those people that sits on our trade team and is perhaps one of the most active and thoughtful members is a young woman from South Dakota.
Congresswoman Kristi Noem has just returned from a trip that she took representing the United States Congress. I would defer to the gentlewoman now for her discussion on not only TPP Japan, but also agriculture and the things which she represents so well.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Noem very much for not only taking time to come here and speak with us, but in particular the references that you make to your home State, a State which you represent so proudly and which you not only carry the flag of South Dakota with you, but really on behalf of all Americans that live not just in rural areas, but who, every single day, get up and go to work to make this country stronger, to take our products and services and goods overseas to make sure that the agriculture products are clean and the very best products available.
I think one of the most interesting things that you said was really the point which we do understand, and that is the world thirsts for American-made products.
The world understands firsthand how important your industry--your agricultural industry is in South Dakota and throughout the Midwest, the very best of not only beef--I did include Texas in there, I hope-- but the very best of agricultural products that go around the world and then, as you travel to see people, thirst for those products.
I thank the gentlewoman.
Perhaps more important than that is that you build a friendship between groups of people who really not only share cities, where we have sister cities that grow up and are born of each other, but it is a merging together of America to make us closer with the rest of the world and then our values of not only the rule of law, of intellectual property, but also, I think, of the thing of which we know most--trade policies. A tariff is a tax, and we are reducing taxes, or tariffs, and taxes--costs--on people for products, goods and services and food. That is where I believe agricultural products from America will be king around the world.
I want to thank the gentlewoman for taking the time to join us tonight.
We are also joined by a young man who, from the very beginning of his time here, was described by his Governor as one of the brightest young men in Minnesota. Erik Paulsen is a young man who came to the United States Congress as a seasoned and experienced thoughtmaker but also as a person who understood the global implications of Minnesota, whether it be with medical products and devices that are made or whether it be with other agricultural products.
I yield at this time to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), the gentleman from the Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. Paulsen, I want you to stick around for just another minute because I really want to engage you in speaking about exactly what you just said.
We know TPA is that process--Trade Promotion Authority--whereby Congress gives authority to the President of the United States. Then, once that is done, the President and the trade ambassador go to the world, and there are two different processes which have been started now: one in Asia and one, essentially, that is in Europe. These really offer America a chance to become a better and a bigger player in the world and to even get a better deal in working so that the consumers of the world get a better opportunity.
Is that really the way you see this working?
In continuing our dialogue here--and I appreciate the gentleman's taking time to do this--American-made products, whether they be manufacturing, whether they be medical instruments, whether they be pharmaceuticals, all have to go through a really pretty stringent viewpoint from a perspective of regulators, who look at things that we have in our marketplace and, certainly, that travel across State lines; but once these products and services are made available and become generally available in the United States and once people learn how to use them, we create a thirst for the rest of the world to be able to buy our products.
There is a figure that we deal with--and I know the gentleman is a strong, strong supporter of our trade working group. Essentially, 38 percent of what we manufacture and build--our output here in the United States--is something that gets into a trading partnership one way or another. Almost 40 percent of the output of the United States is based one way or another off trade, of our making sure the rest of the world gets a chance to get those products also, which lowers prices in our country on a per-unit basis. Perhaps more importantly, it keeps our jobs here in the United States. That has got to be good for somebody from Minnesota.
In continuing our dialogue, the gentleman sits on this awesome and the most powerful committee here, the Ways and Means Committee. The committee on a regular basis hears from people in the United States who do a lot of business overseas, and one of the things which they talk about is intellectual property--the rule of law and following contracts to make sure that what you agreed to is equally agreed to by the others.
Would you mind taking just a minute to talk with us tonight about the importance of intellectual property, how the world can capture this idea and how it can, in fact, increase not only the value of products but make sure that the product which is actually bought and sold is the real product as is the company that stands behind it.
I guess, lastly, what I would like to do is engage the gentleman on really a broader perspective, and that really is the idea of American exceptionalism; how we have the greatest military in the world, our United States military; men and women, working together all around the globe to make sure that really there is fairness; and that our friends and neighbors and allies have an opportunity to live in a free world, as part of this process, American exceptionalism, where we are able to go and compete anywhere with our goods and products and services and to let the world have that advantage.
Would you mind taking just a second and speaking specifically about American exceptionalism?
Well, I am just most impressed with not only your thoughtful consideration and your hard work, but really the things which I see that you bring to the table are words and ideas on a regular basis; that is you talk about we need to make sure that we have a stable environment where good decisions can be made, instead of in a vacuum, they can be made on the fly and, secondly, growth.
One of the things which I read on a regular basis, a young man named Peter Roff, who is with U.S. News and World Report, and he talks about how growth is important. You have to grow your economy. You have to go and continue in the hunt, so to speak, to make sure that more and more people not only buy your products, but the next generation of those products come out also.
I want to thank the gentleman for his thoughtful leadership, where you come to the meetings and you have a real thoughtful handle on stability, making sure business knows what the rules are, making sure we build great neighbors and have good contracts and have great relationships, and then the generation and the next generation of goods and services where we can make things even better for the next generation.
I want to thank you very much for being here tonight. I know that you want to get back to the office and call your family and tell them the exciting Special Order that you were a part of tonight. I am sure your wife will be very, very excited about that, Congressman Paulsen.
Mr. Speaker, we have had an opportunity tonight to speak, Members of Congress who come really from the heartland, we have had people come from Indiana, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Well, I am a Texan, so I guess I would call myself from the heartland of this great Nation also, at least from the center of the country.
As we talk about what we are attempting to do, I think that it is important for you to know, Mr. Speaker, that the things which you have led our Congress in trying to perform, the strong leadership of John Boehner from the very top, in trying to say that we need to grow our economy, that part of that job creation comes as a result of trade agreement.
So that is why we are here tonight, to talk openly with Members of Congress and you, Mr. Speaker, about the need for America to understand why we must pass Trade Promotion Authority, TPA. TPA is a mechanism. That is all it is. It is a mechanism to begin the starting point whereby we give the administration, whether they be Republican or Democrat, but we give the President its marching orders in developing trade agreements.
We say to the President of the United States that we believe that growing our economy, we believe that having trade agreements, we believe that having agreements that make things so much easier and better for us not only to make sure that agricultural products, that other markets become available to us, but that we also understand that, as we engage in this, not only do we want to grow our own marketplace, but the world has an opportunity to reduce the taxes, the trade barriers that are on, many times, their products and services because American products weren't available.
Perhaps we could talk about receiving products that they have back into our country and the consumer being a winner. We have to worry about environmental protection. Here in the United States, we believe that we are trying to be responsible in what we do, not only in production manufacturing,
our day-to-day energy needs, but I think we also see where we could share many products that we have in the United States, notwithstanding we have seen many industries--energy industries selling our products and services overseas.
We talk about intellectual property. Intellectual property is not hard to understand. It is the opportunity to make sure that, if you have an agreement--and it might be because you have something that you have gotten as a patent, it could be a scientific citation that the world, when they are going to use that product, service, or that idea, that they give respect to not only making a payment, if that is required, or supporting the standard as required by rule of law.
Market access, market access is so important. It is important that we have an opportunity to make sure that the goods and services, which we present to another country as we enter their ports of entry or to their customs, that our products and services are to the highest standard that they would be, based upon a contract or an agreement as we enter those countries.
We would want to make sure that our products and services were not held at bay by that foreign nation because of some perception about our product or because they were trying to protect their home product, their home base. It opens up markets and gives us market access.
Physical goods, to make sure that we would be able to reduce tariffs on all sorts of products, whether it be clothing, whether it be manufacturing, whether it be pharmaceuticals, we need to make sure that the products which are passed are timely and fairly handled, not only in these two different types of trade agreements, but that it is a good deal for the American person who wishes to go sell, whether it be an agricultural good or a physical good that may be manufactured in this country.
Lastly, services, services which I think America has not only excelled at, but been able to make sure that we are able to promulgate effective ways of doing business, to where people can continue to have a great product and make that product even better--the second, third, and fourth generation of products that would be sold and available with the protections under intellectual property and rule of law.
Mr. Speaker, that is what we are talking about, the marketplace of the world becoming open to American goods and services and America and its consumers gaining that benefit also.
So TPA ensures that Congress promulgates itself more fully by incorporating ahead of time discussions with the administration. You heard the gentlewoman from South Dakota say that she had a discussion with the trade negotiators, and she negotiated with them and said: Here is my understanding about what I think is in America's best interest.
She didn't say what was in South Dakota's best interest. She didn't say what was in her own personal interest. She looked at a more global perspective and said: I think, in looking at this agreement, this is a piece, a part of what should be included.
And that, Mr. Speaker, is also why this administration, when they do consult with us--and Ambassador Froman does come up on the Hill on a regular basis, and we should remember that he is an active, intelligent, thoughtful man who is not just learning his job, but learning the nuances about how he protects America and goes across the world and negotiates what is in our best interest; what was a good deal for others, our trading partners, to make sure that they will want to take up the goods and services, the exchange, the ideas, the tough things that come from these trade negotiations.
So this topic is timely because these two major trade agreements are on the horizon. The world is speaking about TTIP, and it is speaking about TPP. The United States is currently negotiating TPP, the Trans- Pacific Partnership.
The discussions that take place in Asia are all about how we can form better, longer-lasting partnerships, whereby the people of their countries and the people of the United States of America better themselves, lowering taxes, getting new products and services, and having a chance to make sure that we become friends in the process.
TPP is comprehensive, and it is ambitious, and it covers really an active and growing Asia-Pacific region. As you think about it, Mr. Speaker, you will recall from your days in the United States Army and your service as a member of the military, where you went and were a part of other countries that desperately wanted and needed not only goods and services, but really the tranquility of America and what we would bring to them, the exceptionalism that we can pass on to these other people to make their life better.
It will bring together 12 countries on both sides of the Pacific Ocean in hopes of tracking and putting traditional trade barriers away and overcoming those and giving a chance to where we can make sure that the consumer becomes king.
The TPP would cover 40 percent of all global output. It would ensure that participating countries conduct business, really just as we do, in an open, thoughtful, transparent way; and we would make sure that we reduce tariffs, regulations, while respecting intellectual property.
Meanwhile--and we have heard more about this, the European Union, through TTIP, it would create a trade agreement that literally encompasses about half of the global wealth in the world.
In other words, we would be doing business with a region that is larger than the United States of America. We would be trying to ship our goods and services and do business with half of the world's wealth, open markets that would allow them an opportunity to have American-made products.
Currently, $2.7 billion is traded daily between the United States and the EU, which is about 30 percent of world trade. We think creating this historic opportunity would mean that we can grow that amount of trade, grow our ability here in the United States to not only have more output and employ more people, but to pay for the next generation of products and services to where they continue to meet the needs of others, not just here in the United States.
So combined, these two agreements would give American businesses and consumers, we believe, unprecedented access to global markets. That is why the Republican Party and its members are on the floor tonight, members of the Ways and Means Committee, members of the Agriculture Committee, and at least one member of the great Rules Committee.
I, as chairman, have an opportunity, as a result of the chance to have jurisdictional elements in this, to be firsthand at these discussions where we can push and talk about how important trade is and these basic agreements to empower and work with all parts of the United States government.
Obviously, our great young chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is very much up to this task, and Dave Camp has been leading not only America with an understanding about what is in our best interest, but how we have growth, how we move forward, and that is exactly what TPA is all about.
So, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that we have a plan. We have ideas which we not only well understand, but what we are trying to make sure is that we understand that 38 million jobs are supported by trade--38 million American workers--and that in 2012 our goods and services supported an extra 9.8 million jobs as a result of the growth.
These are all important ideas, Mr. Speaker. They are ideas that move our country, they move countries forward, but at the same time giving us new goods and services that on a per unit basis can drop because we are sharing them with the rest of the world.
Mr. Speaker, I would like for you to know that Members of this United States Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, support members of the United States military, as you served your country so ably. We give thanks and pause every single day to not only the freedoms that we have, but to know that young men like you who have served our military and come back home and married and have beautiful young babies and represent a future in this country to where we believe that there is no problem bigger than a solution, but that by working together, having stability under rule of
law, intellectual property, and growth, that we can continue to lead the world through American exceptionalism and the world can have an opportunity to have that little part of America, whether it be a great steak from Texas or South Dakota or perhaps jeans manufactured somewhere here in the United States or, if lucky enough, something from the great State of Ohio that said, ``Made in America.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.