[Pages S572-S574]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               U.S. Trade

  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about 
export strategies, collaboration, and American principles.
  Madam President, no one likes to be left behind. I know somewhere 
people think there is this, ``I win, you lose,'' mentality. But what 
happened to ``let's grow the pie'' instead of just hoarding a few 
pieces that are left. Growth, not contraction, is the right solution.
  The world is more connected, not necessarily just because of 
globalization. We are now more connected because of technology, and 
nothing we are doing is going to stop that. The speed of information is 
empowering anyone with an internet connection aided by the brain of an 
AI app to get answers and ideas hundreds of times faster than ever 
before.
  Do we need new principles for the information age? Rules the world 
and we should strive to adhere to? I definitely agree that the answer 
is yes.
  But, Madam President, I thought we were for capitalism.
  Yes, capitalism in the information age needs better rules so markets 
aren't distorted because markets need to be properly policed and they 
aren't right now. And I believe that the U.S. should aggressively 
define the rules in the information age.
  I believe in a technology NATO--a model of key democracies and key 
sophisticated technology countries, defining the rules of the 
information age and telling anybody who wants to follow that, we will 
give you a discount on our technology, instead of those who are 
advocating to buy from people who have a government backdoor. Or even 
in today's analogy, where you allow somebody to have a government 
backdoor to your technology.
  Madam President, capitalism is still the largest, smartest export 
America wants to export. We want open markets, and we want more people 
to sell to 95 percent of consumers who live outside the United States.
  Now, it is clear not all the world community is down with capitalism, 
especially places like China or North Korea. But that doesn't mean that 
we shouldn't continue to advocate for it.
  What has U.S. advocacy for capitalism done to grow and stabilize the 
world? I would say immeasurable, immeasurable, immeasurable, 
immeasurable progress. In fact, the period from the end of World War II 
to the early 1970s is considered one of the greatest eras of economic 
expansion in world history. In the U.S., gross domestic product 
increased from $228 billion to just under $1.7 trillion in 1975. So 
whether it was Germany, Japan, South Korea--we have brought about a 
world economy because the shiny American dream was worth chasing. So 
whether

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it was setting market rules, growing exports, investing in innovation--
this is the poster child of what the United States of America has been 
about. It has not been a story about contraction; it has been a story 
about growth.
  The impacts of the U.S. economy can't be ignored, but to out compete 
our adversaries, we need coalitions, not go-it-alone strategies.
  Why do we fear this if we think our principles are correct? But 
somehow, the current administration thinks that we have been hurt more 
than we have been helped in this global equation, and they want us to 
believe that somehow there is a win-win situation on tariffs that they 
can deliver on.
  The American people are demanding leadership here in Washington. They 
want us to work together. They want us to have the best interest of the 
country at hand. My guess is they think that on a global basis, too. I 
know my farmers do. Farmers, always the big potential loser in a trade 
war, want us to work out better economic opportunities for their 
future. But there are those in this administration who think we can 
close our borders, chill trade with tariffs, and somehow make time 
stand still.
  Well, I got news for people, the information age has blown a hole in 
that theory, even if there was justification for the time stand still 
theory before the information age. You just cannot drop anchor in the 
middle of this storm. You need to get to a stable harbor and create an 
opportunity for the future. And trade, Madam President, not only grows 
economic opportunity, it helps change culture, and there are some 
cultures that are worth affecting.
  It is better to have a job than be attracted to join a terrorist 
organization. It is better to create economic stability than fueling 
poverty and migration. And tariffs are a distortion of markets. Tariffs 
mean we disagree. It very rarely means the disagreement will be 
resolved quickly. It usually means people will retaliate, and the 
escalation of that retaliation will hurt consumers so much so that 
eventually someone will blink.
  The payers in this dispute, though, are never the government leaders. 
No, it is the workers who lose their job. It is the family that pay 
higher costs. It is the community that loses their economic activity 
and tax revenue. And that is why it is so important in this day and age 
that we talk more about the three Cs: collaboration, coalitions, and 
capacity building.
  Capacity building gives us the ability to accelerate innovation. 
Trust me, one thing I know about traveling in my State--I am sure it is 
true in other places, too--innovation is not only in the DNA of 
Americans, it is the history of our country. Whether electricity, 
aviation, or the internet, credit goes to the United States of America 
for innovation and inventing future economic opportunities, not just 
for us, but for the entire world.
  But now, we are in an innovation race defined by AI and quantum. And 
according to the World Economic Forum, the U.S. generative AI may 
increase gross domestic product between $2 and $4 trillion per decade. 
Boston Consulting estimates that quantum computing could generate $850 
billion in annual revenue by 2040.
  So are we going to focus on those things? Winning the races? Or are 
we going to allow a contraction that hurts everyone?
  Obviously, going all in on AI and quantum can help ensure that our 
country maintains both economic and military advantages, but we 
definitely have to collaborate with like-minded nations who also want 
to grow AI and set the rules, if you want to beat China's ultimate Belt 
and Road Initiative--DeepSeek.
  So what do we do about the domestic impacts of trade? Well, I can 
tell you some sure dont's right away. You don't abolish the Trade 
Adjustment Assistance Program, designed to protect impacted workers 
from trade, which is what has happened with the other side of the 
aisle. We need to be intentionally upskilling workers to help them in 
impacted sectors. I have met and talked to so many Americans. They are 
smart, talented, hard-working, striving, and they only ask for one 
thing: opportunity.
  If you bet on them, they will do the rest. I often think of two major 
shifts in workforce policy in the United States. World War II, where we 
didn't have a workforce, and the women showed up in the factories and 
delivered production. And when the men returned from World War II, and 
everybody wondered what the economy of the future would be, and we gave 
them the GI Bill, and they created it.
  So we don't cut workforce training. We invest in 2-year skill 
training programs at our high schools. We make sure that we turn to 
apprenticeships. We return to the skilling of the jobs that are needed 
today. You also don't cut export programs like the State Trade 
Expansion Program (STEP) or the Export-Import Bank.
  But what do you do? Well, let's go back to those three Cs: 
collaboration, coalition building, and capacity building.
  We will bring more high-wage manufacturing jobs back to the United 
States, fostering the investment landscape by continuing on the path of 
the CHIPS and Science Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, those 
have put real investments in the United States of America and have 
started us on the path towards growing the middle class again. But we 
need to continue to invest in science.
  We need a robust R&D tax policy for inventors and manufacturers, and 
we need to help our manufacturers with capital investment, equipment 
modernizations, to help them with their factories. I have seen this in 
places like Madison, ME, or Longview, WA, where we helped revitalize a 
longstanding paper industry into new opportunities for the future.
  So how do we deal with China? Well, they aren't playing by the rules. 
They are manipulating and flooding markets, but I guarantee you that 
just a fear of China is not the answer, and solutions like 
collaboration and coalition building are critical, particularly in the 
information age. China does have the largest gross domestic product, 
about 19 percent of global GDP.
  In the global economy, the U.S. represents about 15 percent. But if 
the United States works to create markets with like-minded partners 
like Japan, Europe, and the UK and builds a coalition of like-minded 
democracies grounded in the rule of law, we can flip the script and 
have a market representing 34 percent of global GDP.
  And if we take the next step and expand coalitions to include 
partners like Canada, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India, 
then we are looking at a market that, instead of China's 19 percent 
accounts for almost half, 47 percent of global GDP.
  So why aren't we focusing on that economic opportunity? A lot of 
people say, Well, that is not the America of today, but I am pretty 
sure Ben Franklin, about the time he was focusing on electricity, also 
went to France and helped to build a coalition essential for the 
founding and continuation of our country. So don't tell me it is not in 
our DNA to do this. There is so much more we could and should do 
working with our allies.
  Obviously, I mentioned a few--research and development in artificial 
intelligence, commercializing quantum, scaling, safe, affordable fusion 
technology. And there are many Members of Congress who were working on 
these bipartisan ideas. But we have to remain competitive, and we 
cannot allow this debate about tariffs to take us off our historical 
course as a nation.
  As I mentioned, we mapped out how to get investment in the United 
States of America, and now, we need to follow that with the training 
and skilling of American workers. As the AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler 
and Microsoft President Brad Smith at a recent meeting in Seattle 
agreed, we need to train and skill 500,000 electricians for the United 
States. Why can't we here agree and accelerate that? I am not even sure 
we can agree on the acceleration of air traffic controllers, and we 
have every reason to get that done.
  Last week, I spoke about additional investments the United States 
needs to make in Panama, Latin America, and others to link and 
modernize bilateral agreements that help us counter China. And as I 
mentioned, I believe in an aggressive EXIM Bank investment to counter 
China's Belt and Road Initiative.
  Free trade agreements are a way for us, not tariffs, to gain the 
leverage we want. South Asia could play an important role in this 
coalition building,

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particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. But I want us to go further. I 
want us to understand that U.S.-led negotiations in a Middle East free 
trade agreement to build on the momentum of a cease-fire in Gaza could 
further stabilize that region, along with making investments in other 
programs. It is tragic that the administration fails to understand the 
important role USAID plays in global capacity building.
  How will we know that strategy works? Well, I suggest we will know 
when we are growing the middle class in the United States of America 
again. The bills we have passed in investing and allowing us to 
innovate faster are on their way to doing that. Let us not have a trade 
war disrupt that and dismantle what has been history after history 
lesson of economic success of this Nation, fighting for open markets, 
capital opportunities, and investing in the ingenuity of America.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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