[Pages H440-H441]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1230
                           TARIFFS AND TRADE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the people of northwest Ohio and the Great 
Lakes region, which is heavily industrial and agricultural, 
overwhelmingly oppose the Trump administration's ill-conceived trade 
war with Canada, Ohio's top fair trade partner and our largest fair 
trade partner.
  Apparently there is a plan for a 1-month pause with this tariff 
relationship with Canada, but remember, Canada has been critical to the 
automotive industry, the lumber industry, the oil industry, the truck 
industry, every single industry you can think of, and now we are not 
sure what is going to happen in 1 month.
  There is an old expression that says don't break what doesn't need 
fixing. There is another stronger adage that says don't shoot yourself 
in the foot.
  The administration's imposition of tariffs across our Great Lakes 
region adds up to a big lollapalooza-sized mistake. It will cause 
prices to rise, unemployment to increase, and act as a throttle to 
economic progress across our Great Lakes region. Rising tariffs will 
put a brake on our region's economy and strong, two-way trade 
partnership. They put a 25 percent tariff at the northern border, 
right, but with China it is 10 percent. That is 25 percent among free 
traders and 10 percent on those that don't exercise in a manner that 
creates free trade.
  Indeed, the U.S.-Canadian trade partnership is the strongest economic 
growth engine in our part of the American continent. With meager help 
from Washington, except for President Eisenhower's investment in our 
region after World War II, our region's economic growth has been hard-
fought, especially recently.
  Far too often, firms here have been disinvested and traded away by 
Wall Street, Big Tech, and Washington bigwigs who don't understand our 
region's free market struggle. All those billionaires simply love 
shipping our jobs to penny-wage nations, and I am truly surprised 
President Trump has joined them.
  Great Lakes region economic growth across the U.S.-Canadian border 
has been hard-fought, not exploitative. Middle-class jobs have grown 
here, albeit far too slowly, and tariffs will cause a downdraft on 
economic growth, rising prices, and lost jobs.
  The investor class has been shipping out our jobs everywhere in the 
world. Growing jobs in our mid-continent freshwater economy requires 
cooperation, not upending U.S.-Canadian relationships that have taken 
decades to build in both our nations. Frankly, both coasts have made it 
harder for us to ship through the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway. This 
is wrong. We should be allowed to compete fairly. Let the President go 
to that thought.
  Our Nation should stand for free trade among free people. Imposing 
tariffs on North American companies that are struggling to meet penny-
wage global competition is driving our economy backwards.
  President Trump should study the trade numbers. Data from the U.S. 
Census Bureau shows that of the United States' top 15 trading partners, 
Canada is the fourth smallest contributor to the U.S. trade deficit 
compared to countries like China, Mexico, and Vietnam, each of whom 
engage in unfair and exploitative labor practices.
  Focus on the nations with whom we have mammoth trade deficits, like 
China. Don't hurt North America. Rethink the administration's costly, 
unnecessary burden on our Great Lakes region which the President 
carried. The President should be helping us, not hurting us.
  As a result of Trump's tariffs, the prices and costs of doing 
business already are rising. Layoffs will occur. You will see more 
foreign cars flood into our country as China will increase shipments of 
its low-wage produced goods.
  Across our Great Lakes States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, 
Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, and Minnesota, let our people 
remember President Trump's ill-conceived tariff edict. President Trump 
is driving up costs in our trusted two-way U.S.-Canada trade 
relationship. Our Great

[[Page H441]]

Lakes coastal economy, the heart of industrial and agricultural America 
from Duluth to Toledo to Buffalo, doesn't need this stress and lurch 
into reverse.
  Canada is our Nation's largest fair trading partner and Ohio's 
biggest trading partner. Our region will work with any President and 
Prime Minister to reinvest in our Nation's industrial and agricultural 
base. Why not focus tariffs on China where the trade gap is enormous 
and there is no fair trade, or Mexico where the wages and the gap of 
wages is horrendous compared to our country? Why pick on the middle-
class and hard-laboring people of the Great Lakes?
  We live in a fair market economy. We should. Rising tariffs will only 
cripple economic growth here, and the Trump administration has just 
shot itself in the foot again. Our Nation's trade gaps need to be fixed 
with far too many unfair penny-wage nations and exploitative trade 
relationships.
  Don't pick on our part of the country. Don't break what doesn't need 
fixing.

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