Peter Welch

Mr. President, the President of the United States--acting, in my view, without any legal authority--is imposing unilateral tariffs on Canada. Those tariffs are now being reciprocated by Canada on us.

They are doing enormous damage today to Vermonters and to Americans. They are doing enormous damage to our Canadian neighbors and their businesses. They are doing nothing beneficial for our long-term relationship with our major trading partner.

Canada is Vermont's major trading partner, but we are not unique. Thirty-four States, and, I think, including Idaho--I may be wrong-- count Canada as their major trading partner.

Canada and the United States have been operating very well under a trade agreement, the USMCA. That was a trade agreement that President Trump bragged about--and, by the way, rightly bragged about--as the best trade deal ever. And that is being ripped up by the President, without any committee hearings in the Finance Committee, without any discussion with Republicans or Democrats, but with undeniable harm to everyday people in this country.

Senator Gillibrand and I have introduced the BAD DEAL Act, and it is to repeal these extraordinarily damaging, unjustified tariffs, give relief to commerce on both sides of the United States-Canadian border, and begin the process of healing our relationship with our closest ally.

I am going to just give a couple of examples of what has happened in Vermont. We have an extraordinary cheese-making company called Jasper Hill in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. It was started by two college graduates a number of years ago. They are now worldwide renowned and win cheese-making awards internationally.

They have been a source of sustaining agriculture in Vermont, which is very tough. They have created hundreds of jobs. They have a piece of equipment that costs a million dollars. It is on the Canadian side of the border.

They will have to pay an extra $500,000 if they need this piece of equipment. They can't do that.

We have a manufacturing company with a facility in Wisconsin and also, again, in the Northeast Kingdom. They make snow-moving equipment on tracks. They have a number of pending sales to Canada. This is a $500,000 piece of equipment. They are losing the sales because the buyer will have to pay an extra $250,000. For what?

This is just bone crushing, business crushing, job crushing, and there is no rationale for it. And then, when you add onto that the rhetoric--the 51st State, the Governor of Canada--our tourism industry, very close with Canada, is down with Canadian visitors by about 47 percent.

We have Jay Peak, which is an extraordinarily wonderful ski area for families. Canadians generally come down and have close relationships with the Vermonters up there in Burke, VT. They are not coming. And, by the way, it is an emotional blow, as well, because our business is like the Presiding Officer's. The folks really care about who their customers are. And some of these are bed and breakfasts with families that come back every single year.

And for what? Nothing--nothing good is coming of this.

The other point that I think is absolutely essential for every single one of us in the U.S. Senate to acknowledge is that the taxing power of this country is vested in the U.S. Congress, not in the President of the United States. And when the President is claiming emergency authority to justify these tariffs, when there is no emergency, and where even the grant of emergency authority, in a bipartisan way in years past, was based on the premise that there would be restraint on the part of the Executive and would only use it in the moment of a real emergency, that authority is just rampantly being abused by the Executive. And we, with our responsibility, under the Constitution, Republican or Democrat, must insist that it is this body that decides yes or no on taxes that are imposed on the American people. And make no mistake, a tariff is a tax.

Our bill--Senator Gillibrand and I--on these tariffs that are invoked under section 338, a never-before applied section of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, that notorious act that was an accelerant of driving this country into the Great Depression, would repeal that authority. It is called the Banning Antiquated Duties and Delivering Equitable American Levies, or BAD DEAL, Act. It would also repeal President Trump's import ban on various Canadian products.

In Vermont, the average household is going to be paying $4,500 more for goods and services due to rising costs, due in large part to the President's trade war. In Vermont, these section 338 tariffs, according to our agency of commerce, will cost Vermont businesses an additional $193 million.

For what? We are not going to build a road. We are not going to repair a bridge. We are not going to help farmers through a tough season. We are not going to be able to put that money into our schools.

It really hurts. One in four businesses in Vermont relies on trade with Canada, and Vermont buys more goods from Canada than the next nine largest foreign markets combined.

So it is time for us to accept our responsibility for taxing authority and not capitulate to an Executive who is reaching into the powers of this Congress. And we have the opportunity now, by acting, to end these punitive tariffs, these punitive taxes, that are leading to higher costs everywhere, including fertilizer costs in my State and in Idaho.

I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 5397 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I rise in support of this resolution. I want to thank my colleagues Senator Sanders and Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Senator Van Hollen, for your leadership on this particular resolution.

The situation in the Middle East, in Gaza and the West Bank, is deplorable. And before I start about what is occurring here in the West Bank, I just want to remind the American people that the dire situation in Gaza is getting worse. Mr. President, 92 percent of the people in Gaza, their shelter is a tent or a plastic cover. They still lack water. They still lack access to regular food, and the kids are not going to school.

And this is a Palestinian community that was very proud of one of the highest literacy rates and education rates in the world, despite the very difficult circumstances they face. That is really unacceptable.

But today we are here on this resolution that is about protecting Americans, 17 Americans who have been the victims of violence in the West Bank. And, today, this resolution is about the obligation that our State Department has--our government has--to protect American citizens abroad by demanding a report, by getting information, and by insisting on accountability.

So whatever one's position may be with respect to the hostilities in the Middle East, what this resolution is requiring is that the State Department do the job with respect to American deaths in the West Bank--the same request that we would make if this were

another government, not Israel, and American citizens were the victims of violence in other countries. It is the basic responsibility of this U.S. Government to protect U.S. citizens.

That is what this is profoundly about. The failure for the State Department and our government to do the basic responsibility of citizen protection and accountability has to be wired up into the policy of this administration to look the other way when these things are happening.

It has been the policy of the United States to support a two-state solution. It is the policy of the Netanyahu government to occupy and ultimately annex the West Bank. And the result of that, there is, in many cases, settler violence towards citizens in the West Bank, in some cases Americans who are there. It also is the reason why, in many cases where this violence is occurring is very much in front of the eyes of the Israeli military, they are looking the other way and doing nothing to protect the victims.

This is not an argument that is made by folks like Senator Van Hollen and Senator Sanders and me, who are concerned about that violence. It is something that was recognized by our own Ambassador Mike Huckabee.

In July of 2025, Mr. Saifullah Kamel Musallet, a 20-year-old American from Florida--an American from Florida--who was visiting his family in the West Bank was beaten to death by violent Israeli settlers during a settler attack on the town of Sinjil. Eyewitness accounts report that settlers and Israeli forces impeded ambulance access for more than 2 hours.

And to his credit, Ambassador Huckabee called the killing of Mr. Musallet a ``criminal and terrorist act,'' and stated ``there must be accountability.''

We agree.

I want to mention a couple of other cases. Shireen Abu Akleh, she was a journalist, a prominent reporter, a well-known reporter. She was shot. It was not a combat situation, but was shot by a sniper from nearly 200 meters away. She was standing calmly with other reporters wearing a press helmet and a press vest. She was shot in the head.

Another reporter Dylan Collins, a constituent from Vermont, a very accomplished photojournalist. He was not in the West Bank, but he was reporting from the Israeli-Lebanese border. He was also in a group of journalists, prominently stationed on an open hillside. They had the usual identification of ``press'' vest, blue helmets, in a vehicle clearly marked ``press,'' where they were clearly visible. They were fired on by an Israeli tank and heavy machinegun fire.

There has been no significant investigation on the part of the Israeli Government to get to the bottom of how that happened.

Also, as we know, the Israeli Government now is detaining without charges dozens of Americans, as well as thousands of Palestinians--some of these include minors.

One of those was a 17-year-old young man, American, Abdalkareem, who is pictured here. He has been held under ``administrative detention,'' and that means that under Israeli law authorities can hold him indefinitely without charge or without trial--without any intention of bringing him to trial.

We have been in touch with his father, who tells us that Abdalkareem was 17 when he was detained around 3 a.m. on June 29. He was in the process of completing high school exams.

He has since turned 18. This is a young man who had never been detained or arrested before. He is now being held in the Ofer prison, which has a terrible reputation for attending to the well-being of those who are imprisoned there. His detention is also based on undisclosed ``secret'' information that has not been shared with his lawyers or his family.

Embassy officials, who were finally allowed on July 23 to visit, and Abdalkareem reported being beaten during interrogation, and prison authorities would not even let the U.S. Embassy give this young man vitamins, scabies medication, or his schoolbooks. And he has not been allowed family contact.

The real question here is not what Israel is doing, but what the United States Government is not doing on behalf of its own citizens, some of whom have been killed, others of whom have been detained. So this resolution is asserting the will of Congress that our government do its job to protect American citizens. When they have been injured or they have been killed, to demand accountability and an investigation.

And it is certainly within the power of this government to use its influence so that Israel does comply with our law.

I urge all of our colleagues to stand up for the rights of all of our citizens to have the full protection of the U.S. Government.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this war in Iran absolutely, immediately must end, and it will only end if the person who started it with the unilateral decision to go to war decides to end the war.

We in the Senate have voted numerous times to end this war. We can't do it unless we get votes from the other side of the aisle, but it is absolutely disgraceful that the United States is in this war.

It was a decision of two men, not of two legislative bodies and not of two votes of the American people, but of two men--Donald Trump and Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was in the Situation Room, making his case that we should go to war with Iran. Any of the advisers to the President said it was a bogus claim that it would be done overnight, which is essentially what the assertion was.

So our President made a decision--and it was a unilateral decision by him, a unilateral decision--that we go to war. He told the American people it would be over in a couple of days, just like in Venezuela, and that the people of Iran would rise up and take out the Ayatollah. Many Iranians did rise up, and they got slaughtered.

The President bragged about the military might--and we do have a strong military--but his strategic thinking was totally flawed and foolish. He thought bombing could resolve something that it couldn't. So, yes, we bombed. Yes, the leadership in Iran was wiped out.

But then Iran did what military advisers knew it would do, but the President could not listen. They used an asymmetric response--drones-- to close the Strait of Hormuz. The impact here has been going on for over 6 months, and the only way we can assess what has happened is to come to the conclusion that the President's policy was a complete failure. It is not working.

The President continues to promote a nonpolicy and to assert we are putting the squeeze on Iran.

Mr. President, you are putting the squeeze on farmers in Iowa. You are putting the squeeze on the tourist industry in Vermont. You are putting the squeeze on manufacturers in Wisconsin. You are putting the squeeze on the American people.

You know, for a farmer in the Midwest who wants to fill up his combine with diesel, it is 1,500 extra dollars a day. And for what? For what? For the ego of a man who capitulated to the pressures of Binyamin Netanyahu--and that is what he did--and who does not have the leadership ability or the character to assess what has happened in these past 6 months and acknowledge that it is time for a change?

This is a day-to-day catastrophe, and the man who started this must end it. But we, as U.S. Senators, with the responsibility and the trust given to us by the people who elected us, have a say, and it is time for us to say: End this war. End this war now. Arrogance is not a substitute for good judgment. Arrogance is not an expression of toughness and resolve.

It is time to end this war.

I yield the floor.