January 15, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 9 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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LEGISLATIVE SESSION; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 9
(Senate - January 15, 2020)
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[Pages S220-S234] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] LEGISLATIVE SESSION ______ UNITED STATES-MEXICO-CANADA AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 406, H.R. 5430. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 406, H.R. 5430, a bill to implement the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada attached as an Annex to the Protocol Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is not debatable. The question is on agreeing to the motion. The motion was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the title of the bill. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: A bill (H.R. 5430) to implement the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada attached as an Annex to the Protocol Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. In accordance with section 151 of the Trade Act, there will now be 20 hours of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. Mr. McCONNELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Puerto Rico Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, a lot is happening right now across our country and in Washington, DC, and in the House and the Senate--and across the globe, for that matter. There are a lot of issues. There is one that has not received the attention it should, which is about a group of Americans who have suffered enormous calamity in the last few days who deserve our attention and our focus. I am speaking, of course, about the devastation in Puerto Rico. Seismologists report that over 1,200 tremors, earthquakes, and aftershocks have struck the island since January 1. More [[Page S221]] than 70 of these were of a magnitude 3.5 or greater. Residents on the island have felt at least 100 of these earthquakes. The largest of the quakes, a magnitude 6.4, struck last Tuesday, taking one life and injuring many others. More than 2 weeks after the Earth started shaking, these quakes and aftershocks are still going on. In fact, this last weekend, the island was struck by an earthquake with a 5.9 magnitude. Yesterday morning, a 4.6-magnitude tremor could be felt. This morning, there was a 5.1- magnitude quake. The damage from these quakes is so severe, it can be seen from space. According to NASA, the satellite shows the land in parts of Southern Puerto Rico, near the epicenter of the quake, has moved 5\1/2\ inches. That is a very dramatic change in the landscape. You don't have to be in space; you don't have to have those images or be orbiting the planet and looking down to see the damage because the damage is everywhere. There is $110 million in damages estimated by the Governor's office. Other estimates from the Geological Survey now have the damage approaching $1 billion. Power has been restored to most of the island, but periodic outages are still happening in different parts of the island, and severe energy conservation is in place. The Costa Sur plant in the town of Guayanilla was so severely damaged, they are telling us that it will take over a year to get it up and running. That island needs 500 megawatts of emergency generation until that plant is fixed. As of last Thursday, hundreds of thousands were without water. The world-renowned chef Jose Andres' relief organization World Central Kitchen has served tens of thousands of meals in just the last few days. Buildings and homes have collapsed and been destroyed. Thousands are living outside of their homes, both with the damage done and the damage feared. It is reported that a total of 559 structures are affected. Look at this picture. Look at this pile of rubble lined up and crossing the street of collapsed buildings, hundreds of piles like that where building, or parts of buildings, once stood. There are 4,000 to 6,000 residents in shelters, thousands sleeping in hammocks or inflatable mattresses and in tents because they are afraid to sleep in their homes. My heart goes out to the people of Puerto Rico who are enduring yet another natural disaster, while they still have been fighting to rebuild their homes and their lives after the destruction of Hurricane Maria 3 years ago. The truth is, we haven't done nearly enough to help them. Not nearly enough from the last disaster has made it to the island to help them repair all of that damage done. The aid that has come has not come quickly enough. Indeed, just today, we are hearing that the aid that was supposed to be released no later than last September--$8 billion related to Hurricane Maria--is being released, or at least put in the Federal Register so it can be prepared to be released years after the disaster, when that aid was needed immediately after the disaster to rebuild. The citizens of Puerto Rico are American citizens. They don't have a vote in this Chamber, and that is a problem we should remedy. What we see is, when citizens don't have a Senator who represents them, there is no one to stand up and advocate with the same ferocity and determination and passion as somebody who is elected by those individuals, so the rest of us need to stand in--Democrats and Republicans, Senators from the South and the North and the East and West--we need to stand in together on behalf of our fellow Americans in this devastated landscape of Puerto Rico. This neglect of the citizens of Puerto Rico, of this island that is part of America, is staggering. That is why I have joined with Senator Schumer and 31 of my Democratic colleagues in a letter to President Trump supporting the Governor of Puerto Rico's request for a major disaster declaration, but this shouldn't be a partisan letter. Let's all join together--Democrats and Republicans together--to fight for the aid that is needed by our fellow citizens. President Trump signed a declaration that provides only $5 million for immediate emergency services. Five million dollars isn't close to addressing what the Geological Survey says is close to $1 billion in damage. That $5 million is useful, but far more is going to be needed-- far more--for removing debris, building temporary shelters, providing electric generators, distributing food and water, providing immediate emergency lifesaving medical care. They are going to need a lot of help, in addition, for long-term rebuilding. A major disaster declaration can help in that. That has not happened. It has been sitting on the desk in the Oval Office since last Saturday. Let's join together--Democrats and Republicans together--and say: Mr. President, sign that declaration that brings along with it crisis counseling, help rebuilding homes, help repairing roads, help restoring bridges, water control, water supply. Clean water supply is so important to health. Water treatment, which is so important in preventing cholera, job training, aid for businesses--that is the type of thorough, significant assistance the people of Puerto Rico need, and they need it right now, not tomorrow and not a month from now, not years from now. They need it now. I say, let's join together and call on President Trump to sign that major disaster declaration that unleashes this help. There is a lot going on in the world, a lot here in Washington. We prepare for one of the rare moments in American history where we will be conducting a trial related to Articles of Impeachment. Just a week ago Tuesday, 8 days ago, I was sitting in front of a television very worried about escalation to major war with Iran. There are big issues going on, absolutely, but don't let these big issues prevent us from addressing the plight of our fellow Americans. Let's pay attention. Let's make sure the people of Puerto Rico are neither ignored nor neglected. Swift action is needed. Let's join together and make it happen. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa. Remembering Chris Allen Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, last week, the Senate Finance Committee and the entire Senate lost a dedicated public servant--and, by the way, an all-around wonderful man--with the unexpected passing of Chris Allen. Chris had been a member of the Finance Committee tax team since 2018. I was fortunate that he was willing to continue in that role when I reclaimed the gavel last year after the retirement of my friend, and former chairman, Orrin Hatch. As Members, we are blessed with dedicated people like Chris, who come to Capitol Hill to perform public service. They come here to make a difference, no matter what their party or ideology. They come from all walks of life, religious backgrounds, and from all over the country. They work long hours, and sometimes their work is stymied by the political headwinds we know about in the Congress of the United States. But when an idea is a good one and the people pursuing it do so with a full heart and focused mind, it will eventually become law. Last year proved to be a year when a number of good ideas finally became law in the area of retirement security, in no small part because of Chris' hard work and dedication. After more than 3 years, we were finally able to pass the Finance Committee's Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act. We use acronyms around here, and that is RESA. RESA became law after it was incorporated into the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act, and that acronym is the SECURE Act. Chris was very instrumental in helping navigate the long and, at times, very contentious process that culminated in this important package of retirement provisions being enacted just before last Christmas. Possibly even more important, Chris brought a very deep knowledge of multiemployer pensions to bear over the past several years to help us move forward on important reforms. In the last Congress, Chris served as the staff director of the Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans. Congress formed this committee for the very important job of addressing the impending insolvency of a number of multiemployer plans and the projected insolvency of the multiemployer fund of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. [[Page S222]] With Chris' steady hand and his tireless efforts, the Joint Select Committee laid a critical foundation in 2018 for addressing the multiemployer pension crisis. Throughout 2019, Chris carried that work forward as a member of my Finance Committee staff. Through months of work with Finance Committee member offices, and also working with the HELP Committee, working with the PBGC, and, most importantly, stakeholder groups that are affected by any reform we do, Chris was the one leading the effort to build on the Joint Select Committee's work of the previous year. That effort led to the development of the Multiemployer Pension Recapitalization and Reform Plan that Chairman Alexander and I released in November. Resolving the multiemployer pension crisis remains a top priority, and now there is another important reason to see it done in Chris' memory because he put so much effort into where we are at this point. While Chris has been a key asset to the Finance Committee on retirement and pension policy, his depth of knowledge was much deeper than just that issue. Prior to joining the committee, Chris served as Senator Roberts' senior tax policy adviser for 7 years. Chris played a key role in helping us develop and pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. In that effort, he focused heavily on the tax rules affecting farmers and ranchers across the Nation. Farmers and ranchers are a key interest of Senator Roberts and the State of Kansas. A close look at Chris' resume shows that he was very successful in working for the National Association of State Treasurers and then with another organization, the Financial Accounting Foundation. He also worked at other firms linked to his expertise in financial services, regulation, and legislation. What stands out about Chris is his ability to bring folks with very different views together in the classic legislative process. And boy, I watched him in meetings on the multiemployer pension issues and how he navigated all that, and I thought to myself: Without Chris, this couldn't be done. He had great ability with numbers and great dedication to public policy. That is what made Chris stand out. I am confident that had the Good Lord not taken Chris last week, he would have remained a fixture on the Finance Committee staff for many years to come. Public service was very simply at the core of Chris' identity as a professional. A key to Chris' success was his genial nature. You might not know it by looking at him, but he had a very quick wit. It seems like everybody felt comfortable with Chris, and Chris was comfortable with them. He had a lot of contentious meetings. I had a chance to observe some of them and his working with the stakeholders on multiemployer pensions. I saw the comfort they had with him, even when he was trying to go in just a little different direction than certain interest groups might have wanted to go because Chris knew that to get anything done in this body, you have to compromise. As you can tell, policy work was fun for Chris. Policy work was important, and he saw policy work as sustaining over a long period of time. I hope I am pointing out that this type of goodwill and dedication was infectious. Every day was meaningful. Every day was a source of joy. As I said in my statement on Friday night after I learned of Chris' passing, Chris was a public servant who brought a deep well of knowledge to his work. We all know he is going to leave behind a legacy of impact on so many lives that he was able to improve with his expertise, with his confidence, and the example he set with his hard work. But he never let that keep him from living life to the fullest, especially where his family was concerned. You learn these things about a staff member's family with the crisis of a passing, but Chris was a devoted father to two wonderful daughters, Lucie and Sophie. Chris was a loving husband for nearly 30 years to his wife, Lynda-Marie. Chris was a thoughtful and compassionate son and brother. Chris was a fierce friend to so many who came to know him during his 58 years. Chris knew how to live life. Losing Chris is extremely difficult for all of us. At times, the finger of God reaches down and takes a person who we know and love. It is not for us to know why that happened. What we know is we all got to know Chris and got to know him well. He was part of our lives, and we all benefited from the time that we had with him. We are all blessed to have that. For his family and the countless others who had the good fortune to know and work with Chris Allen, a piece of him will live on with each of us in every memory of him. Whether it was of Chris' positivity and sincerity, or the endless way he could inject humor into a very difficult situation, Chris was a blessing to those who were fortunate enough to know him. Rest in peace, my friend, Chris Allen. God bless Chris' family and may He show them His grace as they take these next steps in their own life's path. Chris will be greatly missed. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so ordered. Impeachment Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor after Speaker Pelosi has ended her delay of the Senate impeachment trial today. For the past month, the American people have watched the Speaker, I believe, make a spectacle of herself. They talked about the need to pass this in a way that was rushed, that was partisan, that was sloppy, but they had to get it done. Their key word from the Speaker and from so many in the House was ``urgency.'' We have to get this done, they said--urgency, urgency, urgency. So they took the vote in the House before Christmas. Then the Speaker decided to sit on this for 4 long weeks. She blocked the moving of the articles from the House to the Senate by refusing to send over the necessary papers. In the end, the American people, including key Members of the Democrats in the Senate, realized that this was just a political stunt. Even the Senate Democrats lost patience with her cynical scheming. The American people saw what this was. A Harvard-Harris poll cites that 56 percent of Americans say that what she was doing was just a political stunt. We are talking about the impeachment of the President of the United States, but it was just a political stunt. She should have done her job. She should have delivered the articles in a timely manner. Nevertheless, the Senate Republicans are ready to move forward today. We have the majority's support to adopt the rules that were used in the impeachment trial of President Clinton. President Trump deserves the same treatment. In 1999, all 100 Senators--all 100--including the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, voted for these rules, and 77 percent of the American public says: Hey, if it is good enough for Clinton, we ought to do the same thing today. So, after making his own, unreasonable demands for weeks, Senator Schumer now says he is ready to begin the trial. The truth is that the Democrats have already made a mockery of impeachment. What they really want is a show trial, not a fair trial, and that is what happened in the House of Representatives. It was all for show. What do I mean by that? Let's take a look at what happened in the House. First of all, their hearings were in secret, behind closed doors, in the basement of the Capitol. Then they selectively released misleading information. They denied the President due process, and they denied the President the opportunity to face his accusers and to face the whistleblower. Even though there was immediate interest and, at first, they said ``Oh, the whistleblower will testify,'' they then said ``No, no, no. We don't want you to even know who the whistleblower is or what reason or personal issues related to the whistleblower may have brought forth the reason for that person to come forward. We don't want you to know where the whistleblower's alliances may lie.'' The Democrats have always known they cannot remove this President. [[Page S223]] Their real agenda is the 2020 Presidential election and the Senate elections. Thankfully, the Democrats' 3-year-long partisan impeachment effort--their goal being to impeach from day No. 1--is finally nearing an end. It was from day No. 1. We saw Elizabeth Warren, candidate for President, on the debate stage last night. Yet, in December of 2016, after Donald Trump had been elected but before he had even been sworn in, she had held a press conference and had talked about impeaching him. On the day the President took the oath of office, there was a headline in the Washington Post that read: ``The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.'' Here we are now, over 3 years since election day of 2016, and we are getting ready to have votes in Iowa in less than 3 weeks. So this isn't really about trying to remove President Trump from office; it is about trying to influence the vote of 2020. With voting in Iowa being 3 weeks away and the general election's not being far away--November 3--voters, not Congress, are going to decide whether to keep President Trump in office. The President has a terrific record to stand on. There have been 7 million new jobs created since he has been elected. The President has cut taxes and gutted regulations that have been punishing to the economy. There have been trade deals. He is signing one with China today, and there are additional trade deals. We are going to pass the USMCA tomorrow. There is a new trade deal with Japan. Unemployment is at an all-time low. There is a 50-year low in unemployment in this country, and wages are going up. It is time for the Democrats to stop wasting the time of the American people. There are jobs that need to be done. Congress needs to get its job done, which is to focus on the issues that the American public care about--roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, infrastructure. There is key legislation we need to be advancing, like lowering the costs of prescription drugs--helping people get insulin that is cheaper for them. We need to help those families. We need to secure the border. That is what is going on. To think that we are going to spend the amount of time that we are going to spend on impeachment as a result of what the House has been doing and the Democrats have been doing since day No. 1 is a misuse of taxpayer money and is a misuse of Congress's time to do the job that we were elected to do--to help the American people. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. War Powers Resolution Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise in support of S.J. Res. 68, to prevent an unnecessary and unauthorized war against Iran. I thank my friend from Virginia, Senator Kaine, as well as Senators Dick Durbin, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul, for standing up for our laws and for the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress, not the President, the power to make war and to authorize the use of military force. The assassination of Iranian General Soleimani was a massive, deliberate, and dangerous escalation of conflict with Iran by Donald Trump. Rather than deterring new attacks on American interests, as the administration insists, Soleimani's assassination invited them, and they came in the form of airstrikes on U.S. air bases in Iraq. But instead of sharing with Congress and the American people information and intelligence that justify the Soleimani attack, President Trump and his counselors have deflected, fabricated, and just plain refused to tell the truth about the so-called imminent threat that was prevented. We now have press reports confirming that President Trump authorized the killing of General Soleimani 7 months ago. The administration doesn't just look to be misrepresenting the imminent threat of Soleimani, it appears to be fabricating information intended to bypass Congress's constitutional role to authorize war. Last week, President Trump revealed more information on the killing to a FOX News personality, and he gave more information to that personality on FOX than he did in a 75-minute briefing to the entire U.S. Senate. That is completely and totally unacceptable. FOX News should not know more about our national security interests than the 100 Senators who sit here and have the responsibility to ensure that we are a check and balance on the executive branch. No evidence has yet been presented to support President Trump's outlandish claim that Iran would ``probably'' target four U.S. Embassies--an assertion that was contradicted days later by his own Secretary of Defense. Perhaps that is why President Trump's latest defense is just to simply throw up his hands and say: I am sorry; I am not giving you the information that you need. He tweets that the imminence test ``doesn't really matter because of [Soleimani's] horrible past.'' So it is no longer imminent threat, from his perspective, because he says it really doesn't matter. He decides, and he decides without consultation with the Congress. Here is the lesson Donald Trump seems unwilling or unable to learn: The truth does matter. In matters of war and peace, the truth is nonnegotiable. Trump's reckless actions have put tens of thousands of American Armed Forces, diplomats, and civilians at greater risk, and his continued fabrications about intelligence threaten to draw the United States into an illegal war with the country of Iran. Look at what has happened as a result of Trump's escalation: Our Iraqi strategic partners are demanding that U.S. troops leave bases in Iraq prematurely, increasing the chance that ISIS will reconstitute itself in the region. The truth matters. Iran has announced that it is no longer bound by enrichment restrictions under the deal. This only makes it more likely that Iran will hasten its quest for a nuclear bomb. The truth matters. Despite Donald Trump's best efforts, the United States is a country that abides by the rule of law. Our laws say Congress has the sole authority to make and to authorize war. Neither the 2001 nor the 2002 authorizations for the use of military force can be used to provide legal cover for a war with Iran, and we owe it to the American people to repeal these obsolete authorizations, which Presidents of both political parties have abused to justify military campaigns in far- flung parts of the planet. To guard against another quagmire as we experienced in Vietnam, Congress acted, through the War Powers Resolution of 1973, to rein in Presidential overreach when it came to war. That resolution, which informs our debate on the Senate floor today, makes it clear that the President cannot put our brave men and women in harm's way without a vote by Congress or if there is an armed attack on the United States. Neither the 2001 nor the 2002 authorization for the use of military force provides legal cover for the killing of Soleimani or any other future attacks against the country of Iran. It bears repeating that a possible war with Iran did not begin with Iran's attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, nor did it begin with the President's decision to select the extreme option of assassinating Soleimani. The uptick in Iran's attacks in the region and that of its proxies can be traced to President Trump's unilateral and irresponsible exit from the Iran nuclear deal--the deal to put inspectors in every one of the Iranian nuclear facilities. The Iran deal was working. It was the best tool we have to ensure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon--that was until Trump's capricious decision to pull out of the deal and crush Iran by ratcheting up American sanctions. Trump is now doubling down on his failed approach by ratcheting up sanctions on new sectors of the Iranian economy. This escalation will make the Trump deal that he says he wants all the more elusive. Before the United States backed out of the Iran deal, the President's own CIA Director, Director of National Intelligence, and the United Nation's international watchdog agency all said Iran was upholding its end of the deal. Iran was upholding its end of the nuclear deal. Since then, however, Iran [[Page S224]] has moved away from its nuclear-related commitments in phases. Most worrisome was Iran's announcement last week that it was no longer bound by enrichment restrictions under the deal. But we can still salvage a diplomatic outcome. All of Iran's steps are reversible. For one, Iran remains party to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, requiring it to foreswear acquisition of a nuclear bomb. Additionally, international inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency maintain access to Iranian nuclear sites to detect and deter any ramp-up in enrichment or reprocessing. But pulling the United States back into a position where we are not going to war will require a change in strategy by the President of the United States. It means a commitment from the President to, one, cease any further military action, as today's resolution calls for; two, engage in talks with Iranian President Hasan Ruhani or other senior leaders to defuse the crisis and to support our allies as they work in good faith to preserve the Iran nuclear deal; three, make clear that the United States does not seek to impose regime change in Iran--the future of Iran must be decided by the Iranian people alone; and four, cease any and all threats against Iranian cultural sites and civilians. These would be war crimes. Destroying cultural sites is what ISIS does. It is what the Taliban does. It is what the Chinese Government does. That is not who we are in the United States of America. Finally, we must repeal the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force immediately. Americans strongly reject President Trump's deliberate and escalatory action against Iran. They do so not just because it is wrong, but they do not want to get embroiled into another costly war in the Middle East without end. A poll last week shows that Americans by more than 2 to 1 say that the killing of General Soleimani has made the United States less safe. Sadly, they are right. In passing Senator Kaine's resolution, this body has a chance to reclaim our Founders' vision for the proper role of Congress. We are the direct representatives of the people. Congress must express the will of the people to determine when, where, and against whom our country decides to go to war. We cannot and must not get pulled into war with Iran, and we cannot allow Trump to start a war all on his own. I thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on this resolution that I call upon all of my colleagues here on the Senate floor to support. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon. Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, what is the business now before the Senate? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is H.R. 5430, the USMCA bill. H.R. 5430 Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this afternoon, the Finance Committee is kicking off this debate. I will have some remarks, and then the distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Grassley, will have some remarks, and Senator Brown, who has played such a key role in the enforcement issues, will follow. I am glad we are getting on this debate. There is a lot to say about this topic, and I want to talk first about how the new NAFTA got to this point. In the 2016 Presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump said he was going to pull the United States out of NAFTA. He said it was ``the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.'' As President, Donald Trump went in a different direction. After negotiating with Canada and Mexico, the Trump administration announced a deal in 2018 that actually doubled down on several key mistakes of the original NAFTA. The new NAFTA the Trump administration came up with was way, way too weak on enforcement of the trade laws. Here in the Senate, we Democrats said it wasn't good enough--not even close--to get through the Congress. So we got down to work and we fixed it. The bill we will be considering is the end product of all that work. This legislation is now the first real measure of certainty and predictability on the crucial issue of trade which American workers, our businesses, and families have. It is the first real measure of certainty and predictability since the beginning of the Trump administration. It now has the strongest trade enforcement system ever written into a trade agreement. There are significant new resources put into protecting American workers. Unfortunately, there has been an effort by a few on the other side to strip the crucial enforcement resources for enforcing the rights of workers and protecting the environment. It is masquerading under a whole lot of procedural lingo, but it is really a trojan horse to go back to business as usual with weak enforcement of trade laws that doesn't get the job done. Over the last week--and I see the distinguished chairman of the committee here--these procedural gimmicks have been opposed by the chairman and myself. I want to thank the chairman this afternoon for doing so. For decades, there has been a lot of happy talk in Washington about enforcing trade laws, but the government just moved too slowly and did too little to protect American workers when trade cheats came after their jobs. Workers and businesses were forced to wait for years for the government to crack down on the rip-off artists, and so often it was too late. Workers were laid off, factories were shuttered, and communities were left without a beating economic heart. The original NAFTA was a part of the problem. It made strong enforcement almost impossible and was particularly a problem with labor rights in Mexico. The same government that allowed corporations to undercut American jobs by paying rock bottom wages and abusing rights in Mexico had the power to actually block our country from fighting back for the workers. So it was a head-scratcher when the Trump administration proposed essentially a new NAFTA that kept the old NAFTA enforcement system. It ought to have been the first part of the original NAFTA that they threw in the trash can, but, sure enough, in 2018, the Trump administration agreed to language on trade enforcement that really did not enforce anything. So Senator Brown, who has fought for years for tough trade law enforcement, said: We are going to get together, and we are going to change this. We put together a proposal that makes the U.S. enforcement system faster, tougher, and directly responsive to American workers and businesses that are targeted by the trade cheats. Our approach puts trade enforcement boots on the ground to identify when factories in Mexico break the labor standards we should insist on. It will be a lot easier to penalize the violators and protect the jobs they threaten to undercut. Senator Brown and I worked with our colleagues, Democratic colleagues on the Finance Committee, but we talked to plenty of Republicans as well. We took our ideas to the House leadership. We got their input and support. We told the Trump administration that tough enforcement with what has come to be known as the Brown-Wyden proposal was going to be a prerequisite to getting the new NAFTA through Congress. As I said, I think this is the toughest labor enforcement measure that our country has seen, and that is a big reason why the AFL-CIO has endorsed the bill. When you combine this all-in approach to enforcement with significant new standards on labor and environmental protection, you also get the benefit of beginning to stop the race to the bottom. You raise other countries to the standards set by our country instead of forcing American workers to compete in a game that is rigged against them. These have been core Democratic trade policies for a long time. Commitments on labor and the environment weren't a part of the original NAFTA. Those issues were just pushed aside into what was essentially called a side letter. They were the trade policy equivalent of a pinky swear and about as easy to enforce. Now they are going to be at the heart of the agreement. The United States will have more power than ever to hold Mexico and Canada to the commitments made in this legislation. On technology and digital trade, something that I put an enormous amount of my time into, the new NAFTA redefines what trade policy will be about. Digital trade wasn't even [[Page S225]] a part of the original NAFTA because, by and large, it didn't exist. Smartphones were science fiction. The internet was still years away. Senator Grassley has heard me say this many times. The internet was years away from becoming the shipping lane of the 21st century. The problem has been that our trade laws were still stuck in the Betamax mindset. Technology and digital trade are obviously at the core of a modern economy. They account for millions of good-paying jobs. They are woven into every major American industry you can think of--healthcare, education, manufacturing, agriculture, and the list goes on. So when the United States fights for strong rules on digital trade, it is fighting to protect ``red, white, and blue'' jobs. That is why the new NAFTA helps to protect our intellectual property and prevent shakedowns of American businesses for their valuable ideas. It also includes something that I felt very strongly about, and that is it established U.S. law that protects small technology entrepreneurs that want to build successful lasting businesses in a field that is now dominated by just a few Goliaths. It is long past time for the United States to bring its trade policy into the modern digital world. Getting smart digital trade laws on the books is not just about boosting exports. What the internet looks like in 10, 20, or 50 years is going to be an open question. Will it be an open venue for communication among people around the world or will more governments follow the lead of China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, because what they are talking about could fracture the internet around national borders. Will the internet be a platform for free speech or will Chinese officials and corporations find new ways to reach across the ocean and trample on the rights of the American people? These are just a few of the important questions the United States will have to confront when it comes to technology. In my view, locking in digital trade rules that protect our jobs and promote free speech and commerce online is a good place to start. Labor rights, environmental protection, rules on technology and digital trade, and aggressive enforcement to protect American workers are all areas where there has been significant improvement in the new NAFTA. I call this ``trade done right.'' My State, along with Senator Grassley's State, is so dependent on trade. One out of four jobs in Oregon revolves around international trade. They often pay better than do the non-trade jobs because they have a higher value-added component. Most of them are small businesses, and they export. Agriculture is a big part of our economy. The new NAFTA will put more of our wine on shelves outside the United States. It will increase dairy exports. It will end unfair practices that discriminate against American-grown wheat. Oregon companies that sell services like apps and engineering plans to customers overseas will have new protections under the digital trade rules. It will help our manufacturers because the new NAFTA raises the bar and includes those protections on labor rights I have described. There are a lot of Members to thank who pitched in. We are going to hear from a number of them on the floor, and I am going to thank them before we wrap up. I will close with this. The last few years have delivered one trade gut punch after another to our farmers, our shippers, our manufacturers, and our exporters. The administration has driven away traditional economic allies. A lot of manufacturers are hurting. Farm bankruptcies have surged. Foreign markets are more closed off--many of them to American exports--than they were before the Trump administration began. With this legislation we have an opportunity to begin--and I want to underline that, to begin--to change that. I particularly want to thank Senator Brown for his laser focus and leadership on the issue of enforcement. I think Senator Cantwell, who will speak on this issue soon, has done a particularly good job about trying to build an infrastructure for enforcing our trade laws. I think it is only appropriate to have a special Senate shout-out for Ambassador Lighthizer, who has been straight with members of our committee. I know the chairman will speak on that next. I call him the hardest working man in the trade agreement debate. I support this bill. I hope my colleagues will do it. I know the chairman will have remarks, and Senator Brown will be here. Other colleagues will be here. I know Chairman Grassley is glad we are getting at this. I share his views. We have plenty to do on healthcare and other issues, and we look forward to working with him. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The President pro tempore is recognized. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, before I start my remarks, I think it is important for all Senators to know that when there were negotiations going on between the White House and the Democrats in the House of Representatives, one of the real sticking points was enforcement. I think everybody expects a trade agreement to be enforced, but a lot more had to be done than what was originally agreed to when the agreement was signed. I want to recognize Senator Wyden and Senator Brown because months before, maybe even years before--I don't want to take away from how hard they were working on some ways of improving enforcement--but at least they had an idea out there that was salable to both sides. I don't know whether it was 100 percent or 90 percent or 80 percent that was incorporated in this bill, but their laying the groundwork was the basis for getting an agreement between the White House and the House of Representatives so we could move this to the point where the Senate is going to pass it tomorrow, I hope. So I thank Senator Wyden and Senator Brown, who is not here, but maybe you can tell him I said thank you. Mr. WYDEN. I will. Mr. GRASSLEY. It is said that good things come to those who wait. Others say it is better late than never. Either way, we can agree that this day has been a long time coming. With the passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement by what will be an overwhelming margin here in the U.S. Senate, America's economy will continue to thrive and drive prosperity for hard-working American farmers, workers, and taxpayers all across our economy. You have heard the old saying: ``A rising tide lifts all boats.'' The new NAFTA, the bill that we are working on, puts a bigger oar in the water for our trilateral trade relationship with our northern and southern neighbors. It is important to point out that we wouldn't be here without the bold leadership and the determination of President Trump. The President is doing exactly what he said he would do. So many people running for President run on a platform, but they don't stand on that platform. He ran on a platform of doing something about what he considered were bad trade agreements, and, of course, he is standing on that platform. Undaunted by those who set to throw him out of office since day one, President Trump forged ahead for the good of the American people. He forged ahead to update and improve NAFTA for Americans. We heard, during the campaign, that it was the President's opinion that it is the worst agreement that has ever been made. I might not agree with the extreme of that, but I do know, as Senator Wyden has pointed out, that there were a lot of things that weren't even negotiable 30 years ago when we first sought NAFTA, and at least an updating needed to be done. The President has done more than update. As the President promised during his campaign, at the end of the day, President Trump successfully steered that final trade pact into the 21st century. He did so with a tireless and tenacious team of advisers, especially the leadership of the U.S. Trade Representative, Bob Lighthizer. Senator Wyden just gave more adjectives to Bob Lighthizer's work, and I associate myself with the remarks and the description that Senator Wyden gave to Bob Lighthizer's heavy lift to get this job done because Bob Lighthizer worked in good faith to broker and fine-tune the USMCA. Mr. Lighthizer built a strong and sweeping coalition to strengthen and [[Page S226]] expand markets for U.S. agriculture, manufacturing, and service exports. Mr. Lighthizer built a broad and sweeping coalition to improve labor and environmental protections in a balanced fashion, and Mr. Lighthizer built a broad and sweeping coalition that will end up growing wages for our workers. He ensured that all of this would be subject to strong enforcement, which is the bedrock of any good trade agreement, and it is in that enforcement that he took good ideas from Wyden and Brown. Unfortunately, these efforts that I just described to you became entangled in a time-wasting partisan roadblock from the House of Representatives. It is unfortunate for the American people, especially our farmers, ranchers, and workers, that public policymaking took a back seat to a partisan obsession of impeaching the 45th President. That is a shame. The President is upholding his promise to put America and Americans first. His message resonates with tens of millions of Americans who want to restore the American dream for their children and grandchildren. These Americans want the next generation to have the same opportunity to lay claim to the American dream that nine generations before, going back to the Colonies, have built upon so that each generation can live better than the preceding generation. That American dream is that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can earn a good living, get ahead, and stay ahead. A big plank in President Trump's platform is fixing broken trade agreements. USMCA is not the first of it because he has worked with Japan, and he has worked with Korea, and today we saw the signing of phase one of the Chinese agreement, so he is making great progress. The President is determined to stop America's farmers and manufacturers and workers and consumers from being taken for a ride. When it comes to unfair trade agreements, we are finding out now that the buck stops with President Trump. I am not sure, 3 years ago, I would have said that, but I think after 3 years and USMCA, the Chinese agreement, the Korean agreement, the Japanese agreement, and some other things he has done in trade, he ought to wake everybody up that what he ran on in his platform he has carried out. With NAFTA, when it took effect 26 years ago this month, the digital economy and the commercialization of the internet didn't even exist. The USMCA creates the first U.S. free trade agreement with a digital trade chapter. These important measures will help the $1.3 trillion U.S. digital economy to flourish and grow faster. It improves efforts to stop importers of counterfeit goods from ripping off consumers, producers, and content creators. It provides for copyright and patent protections to uphold trade secrets and to secure data rights so that American ingenuity and innovation will drive economic growth, create jobs, drive up consumer choices, and drive down prices for goods and services our consumers need. The USMCA levels the playing field for the U.S. auto industry by encouraging companies to use more North American content and higher wage labor. USMCA also fixes enforcement flaws that hog-tied NAFTA from keeping everyone accountable to their commitments. Speaking of hogs, the new NAFTA is good news for American farmers and ranchers. My State of Iowa happens to benefit from this to a great extent because my State is the Nation's No. 1 pork producer. In 2018, Canada and Mexico bought more than 40 percent of U.S. pork exports. These exports support 16,000 U.S. jobs. USMCA preserves critical, duty-free access to Mexico and Canada. It removes unfair restrictions on U.S. farm and food products. For the first time ever, U.S. eggs and dairy exports will be sold in Canada. This is very good news. It means an additional $227 million for dairy exports to Canada and $50.6 million of exports into Mexico. My home State of Iowa also is the No. 1 egg producer in the country. USMCA will increase U.S. exports of poultry and eggs to Canada by $207 million. It also addresses restrictions that kept U.S. wheat and wine out of Canada. I thank the former Iowa Governor and previous Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, because, as the leading Democrat in the State of Iowa, he set aside partisan motives embraced by other Members of his party to work together with Senator Ernst, Governor Kim Reynolds, and me to champion USMCA. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the USMCA will raise real GDP by more than $68 billion, and USMCA will create nearly 176,000 jobs. So, all told, the trade pact is forecast to boost farm and food exports by at least $2.2 billion. Considering the slump in the farm economy, it is really shameful that passage of the USMCA was stalled for over a year and nearly derailed by a partisan agenda, including the impeachment. Under the Trump economy, the United States is enjoying the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. Ratification of the USMCA will help America's economic engine fire on all cylinders and refuel prosperity in rural America. If you remember, I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks that passage of the USMCA is better late than never, and while I am looking forward, I also take this opportunity to call on Canada to quickly ratify the agreement. Now that Mexico has ratified and the United States will soon be done with our ratification, all eyes will be on Canada to get the job done quickly so that we can all work together to implement this agreement. I don't have any doubt that Canada is going to do that because I had opportunities earlier last year, several times, to visit with the Canadian Foreign Minister, and she was very certain that they would be passing this. Let's not delay the people's business on other important matters before us, such as drug pricing and retirement and pension legislation that would provide peace of mind for Americans for their healthcare and financial security. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. BROWN. Madam President, tomorrow I will do something I have never done in my time in the House and Senate. I will vote for a trade agreement for the first time in my career. I am voting for that trade agreement because of the work my colleague from Oregon Senator Wyden and I did to fix President Trump's deal and secure new protections for American workers for the first time ever, in spite of the President's intransigence, in spite of the President's lining up, as he always does, with corporate interests. Our trade agreement, for the first time ever--ever--put workers at the center of this agreement. Every trade agreement I have seen in my time in Congress--the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama, the permanent normal trade relation with China--one after another, every one of these trade agreements, every one of these trade actions were written fundamentally in secret by corporate interests to serve corporate interests. Workers were never at the center of these trade agreements. One of my proudest votes in the House was against the North American Free Trade Agreement. I have voted no ever since. Again, it is because all of these trade agreements were written by corporations to maximize profits and compensation for executives and to enrich stockholders, always at the expense of workers and at the expense of communities like Mansfield, Portsmouth, Toledo, and Youngstown, OH. I was talking to a friend of mine in Trumbull County, former Senator Cafaro. She knows what has happened with these trade agreements. We all know how they undermine communities and hurt workers, always, again, because these trade agreements were written by corporations in secret. We have watched the spread of the corporate business model because of NAFTA and these trade agreements and because of the Trump tax policies, where you pay a lower tax rate if you [[Page S227]] move overseas than you pay in the United States, and in spite of, in those days, Ranking Member Wyden's efforts to stop those kinds of tax breaks that go to the richest people in the country. With those business models, you shut down production in Lima or in Zanesville or in Cleveland, OH. You get a tax break, you move overseas, and then you sell your products back in the United States. That has been the business model based on our trade policy for years. Candidate Trump promised something different. He promised to renegotiate NAFTA. The problem is, when he put his agreement in front of us, it was the same old, same old. They were the same old economic policies that, again, put corporate interests in the center of this trade agreement. It was a trade policy that was like all of our trade policies in the past. Over and over again, this President has betrayed workers, from tax giveaways to corporations, to his judges who put their thumbs on the scale, always supporting corporate interests and putting corporations over workers and always supporting Wall Street over consumers. As we know, down the hall, where Senator McConnell's office is-- almost every day he walks down here to try to confirm far-right extremist judges, always young judges who do that same thing: put their thumb on the scales of justice, always supporting corporations over workers. As I said, last year, we got an initial draft of President Trump's agreement. It was another betrayal. His first NAFTA draft was nowhere near the good deal that the President promised. He had negotiated, pure and simple, another corporate trade deal. It meant nothing for workers, and it was a sellout to drug companies. In fact, the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, except on Tuesdays and Fridays, when the White House looks like a retreat for drug company executives. It took us--Senator Wyden and Speaker Pelosi and unions--months and months and months working together to improve this deal. The President resisted and resisted and resisted, but we finally approved a deal to put workers at the center of our trade policy. We have a provision that Senator Wyden and I will talk about that says violence against workers is a violation of the agreement. It might sound obvious, but it has never been in a trade deal before. For the first time ever, we spell out workers' right to strike. Again, it should be obvious, but it was never included before. If the workers don't have that right to strike--not something workers want to do very often, if ever. My wife, whose dad was a utility worker in the union for 35 years, talks about growing up. They went on strike twice when she was a kid. Workers never really recover from a strike, but sometimes they have to. It needs to be in trade agreements to make sure workers' rights are protected. We have improved some of the legalese that, since the beginning, has been included in our trade agreements to make it nearly impossible to win a case when a country violates its labor commitments. Most importantly, we secured our Brown-Wyden provision that amounts to the strongest ever labor enforcement--ever--in a U.S. trade deal. The provision Senator Wyden and I wrote and fought for is the first improvement to enforcing the labor standards in our trade agreements since we have been negotiating them. We know why companies close factories in Ohio, in Oregon, and open them in Mexico. They pay lower wages, and they take advantage of workers who don't have rights. They have weaker and nonexistent environmental laws. American workers can't compete when companies move overseas and exploit low-wage workers. We essentially get a race to the bottom on wages. The only way to stop this is by raising labor standards in every country we buy and sell to and in every country with which we trade and export and import, raising labor standards, making sure those standards are actually enforced. If corporations are forced to pay workers a living wage and treat them with dignity and really honor the dignity of work no matter where those workers are located, then we take away the incentives to move jobs overseas. Think about this. The missions of companies in the United States state--it is sort of the business practice of shutting down production in Niles, OH, and moving it overseas. They will be less likely to do that if the workers overseas are paid decent wages. Then those workers will be able to buy our products because they are more likely to be in the middle class. That is what Brown-Wyden is all about. It is a completely new way of holding corporations accountable. A worker in Mexico will be able to report if a company violated their rights. Within months, we can determine whether workers' rights have been violated, and we take action against that company. We apply punitive damages when companies cheat, break the law, stop workers from organizing, and if they keep doing it, the final strong enforcement is we stop their goods from coming into the United States. In essence, we say: OK. You are cheating. You are breaking the law. You are violating your workers' rights. You are not going to have access to the U.S. market. That is enforcement. When Mexican workers have the power to form real unions and negotiate for higher wages, it helps our workers. Mexican workers right now can be paid as little as $6.50 a day. The minimum wage per hour in our country--in Tennessee, Oregon, and Ohio--is higher than that. This is $6.50 a day. We have been asking American workers to compete with that. We have already heard some critics say Brown-Wyden will force Mexican wages to rise. I know a lot of CEOs who make $7 million, $8 million year who want to keep wages low in other countries. They accuse us of forcing Mexican wages to rise. That is kind of the point. That is what we want to do because it takes away incentives for those CEOs--those $7 million, $8 million, $9 million-a-year CEOs in America--from looking abroad to hire cheap labor and to exploit workers and make more money for themselves. I want to especially thank Senator Wyden and his staff. Without his endorsing the proposal and without his pushing aggressively, we would not be here. I want to be clear, though. We will be straight with American workers. It is not a perfect agreement. One trade deal that the Democrats fixed, over the President's opposition, is not going to bring back auto plants like the President promises. I have real concerns that the auto rules of origin are much weaker than the administration says they are. We know the administration always exaggerates its successes and doesn't tell the truth about many of the things it does. We know that this trade agreement was a corporate trade agreement and not a worker trade agreement. Now workers are at the center. We will be watching the President. He needs to ensure companies actually comply with these rules. I will demand we strengthen them if we need to. One trade deal the Democrats fixed also will not undo the rest of President Trump's economic policies. It is a policy that, as I said, put corporations over workers. We haven't raised the minimum wage because the President is opposed. The President took overtime pay away from 50,000 Ohioans by changing the rule on how overtime is paid. This deal is not going to fix all that. This USMCA is not going to stop outsourcing when we have President Trump's tax plan that gives companies a tax break to send jobs overseas. I am going to keep fighting President Trump's corporate trade policies and tax policy, just as we did with this agreement. We have more work to do to make our trade agreements more pro-worker. I will vote yes. As I said at the outset, I will vote yes for the first time ever on a trade agreement because, by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have taken another corporate trade deal brought to us by President Trump and Democrats have made this agreement much more pro- worker. As the Senator from Oregon knows, we have set an important precedent that Brown-Wyden will be included--must [[Page S228]] be included--in every future trade agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon. Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to pose some questions to my colleague from Ohio. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. WYDEN. He has done so much work on these issues--not just in the last few months but for years and years. I want to thank him for his extraordinary commitment to the rights of workers and to all these communities that, he has pointed out, essentially lose their economic heartbeat by trade policies that cheat workers. I want to ask the gentleman about this. I have heard this, and I have heard this in lots of places. People have said: These ideas seem good, but are they really that consequential? Mr. Brown has been at this for more than a quarter of a century. We have watched him out on the floor year after year after year. Let me give my calculation of what this package which we have worked on and which he deserves so much credit for consists of. As far as I can tell--and we have worked on it with the staff--this is the fastest enforcement process by more than 300 percent because of what the Senator has done to speed up the timeline for protecting workers. It is the toughest because for the first time it allows our country to hit the worst actor the hardest by stopping rip-off artists at the individual factory level. It is the strongest because it allows us to hit companies that repeatedly violate the law. We are able to stop the products of exploitive labor at the border. I want to ask the Senator a couple of questions, but I wanted to give this overview first. Having been at this for more than a quarter of a century, is there any trade enforcement regime that, in terms of those specifics, comes close to what that new regime would consist of? Mr. BROWN. I thank Senator Wyden. I thank him for his help in putting this all together. Not even close. We have seen trade agreement after trade agreement that simply is not--even when labor standards look fairly strong, they are not ever really enforceable. Part of what we recognized--we went back and looked at what happened after NAFTA was passed, and not just what people promised but what happened with NAFTA and what happened with CAFTA. We have seen that, with any attempts at labor enforcement, the companies or the governments that don't want to enforce labor laws find a way, as lawyers are very good at doing, of just taking forever. They slow-walk. So whenever you push them to do something, they end up staying in court. There was a Central American case in Guatemala, I believe, that went on for 7 or 8 years. You know the old saying: Justice delayed is justice denied. You can't really get enforcement if the people who have done the violation, who have committed the violation, take forever. So speed is one of the things. Mr. Wyden mentioned at the outset how important that is. Another part of it is and one of the things we knew would speed it up, No. 1, and would mean that enforcement would work was that the workers would have an ability to kick off the investigation, to literally call a toll-free number. They can register that they have seen child labor violations; that they have seen workers attacked, violence aimed against workers; that they have seen wages denied for all kinds of illegal reasons. So workers can speak out and band together and go to a panel and get quick action. If a company keeps doing it--we found cases where a company would get a little slap on the wrist. They would do it again and get a slap on the wrist and then do it again. So what we did was we increased the penalties. The first time, they get fined. The fine is proportional to the violation, so it is not a huge penalty. The second time, it is more. The third time, we can deny that company NAFTA benefits if they sell in the United States. Essentially, if you break the law, if you attack workers, if you keep out the union illegally, if you deny pay to workers who have earned it, you are going to see your market dry up in the United States. That is the best incentive to stop. We literally keep the product out of the market, out of the United States, if you are a serial cheater and a company that does that to its workers. Mr. WYDEN. I appreciate Mr. Brown's taking us through this. It is faster. It is tougher because it gets at the individual factory level. It is stronger because it stops those repeat offenders who come up with products using exploitive labor. I want people to know and have it highlighted in the Record that my take is that this, given what we have seen over the last 25 years, is far better than anything we have seen before. Look, the Senator and I have worked on a lot of enforcement efforts over the years. He will recall that at one point I chaired the Trade Subcommittee, and we found people tripping over themselves to cheat because they were merchandise laundering. It was a little bit different from this. We set up a dummy website just to try to keep tabs on all the people who were cheating. We would remember--and we didn't know whether to laugh or cry--that all over the world, people were coming forward to cheat. That was useful. It didn't come close to the breadth of what has been done here. Let me just ask a couple more specific questions because I have heard lots of people in all the campaigns and the like talking about whether this was modest or really a bold set of changes. Now we have just walked through how much stronger this is than anything we have seen in the last quarter-century. The gentleman mentioned how workers can use this hotline to enforce their rights. If a worker reports violations of their rights at a call center and the government believes the complaint has merit, my understanding is that the government is obligated under the law to send labor inspectors to that facility. Is that correct? Mr. BROWN. Yes. Whether it is a call center or an auto factory, if the violations occur and there is evidence that there are violations-- and in many cases, we know about them because workers have spoken out-- then inspectors can go into those factories. One of the outcomes of this: We know corporations don't want that kind of punishment. We know corporations don't want to see inspectors there looking at their businesses because there have been legitimate, reasonable accusations of lawbreaking. So that is going to mean that corporations will probably quit breaking the law. Those corporations that have decided to move to Mexico because it is easy to evade labor laws and they can pay low wages, when they see we mean business, when they see the USMCA--Senator Wyden and I took an agreement that was another corporate trade agreement handed down by President Trump and fixed it, so it has these strong labor provisions. When they see that we mean business, that we are going to enforce these labor laws, and that we are going to pass an agreement that works for workers, some companies are going to think twice about shutting down production in Youngstown, Marietta, Toledo, or Dayton and moving overseas. That is part of the goal of this enforcement too. Mr. WYDEN. If you would, Senator Brown, take us through what kinds of actions can be taken against a facility. In other words, my understanding is, if the labor inspectors find violations when they inspect it, they have a host of remedies. The gentleman touched on this in the committee, but what kinds of actions can be taken against that particular facility? Mr. BROWN. First let me talk for a second about a sector that is very important in my part of the country: the auto sector. If a company cheats in an auto facility in a Mexican community and we find labor violations and we take action against that company, the action is not against just that company's facility in that community. If a company cheats its workers and has broken the law on any number of labor violations, that applies to any product that company ultimately sends in from any one of its factories in Mexico. It addresses sort of the Whac-A-Mole kind of attempts companies might have: Well, they cheat there, but they bring in products from somewhere else. We look at that in a pretty broad way. Fundamentally, it works this [[Page S229]] way: If we find a violation, first, there is a fine, and the fine is essentially proportionate to the violation, meaning that it is not as punitive. The first offense is not especially punitive. The second and the third offense get more serious. For the second offense, the fine is much greater--beyond proportionality, if you will. The third offense is when we step in and deny them NAFTA benefits, deny them access to our markets, and deny them the breaks they get under NAFTA at the border on the tariffs. So if it is a violation of labor law, by the third violation, the enforcement and the penalties are such that the companies are going to quit doing it. I mean, that is the whole point. I don't want to levy these fines. I want companies to obey the labor law that the Mexican Government has passed in their new labor law and that are under the NAFTA agreement. Mr. WYDEN. So would Senator Brown be saying that if it is found that there were labor violations at a car factory, the penalties could apply to any car that might come into the United States from that factory throughout the investigation, not just going forward? Mr. BROWN. Correct, from that factory and also from other factories owned by the same automaker, so that you can't cheat one place and expect to get all your autos into the United States without tariffs. We thought a lot about this. Over the last 20 years, we looked at what has happened. We looked back over the last couple of decades, working with the very good Democratic staff of the Finance Committee and with our office, and found every possible example we could on how violations occur and how you stop those violations. So we built in a process. It is pretty complicated, and it took a while. As I said, the President handed down another corporate trade agreement that helps corporations at the expense of workers, and we weren't going to let that happen this time. That is why the Trump USMCA took a long time to pass--because for a whole year, they were resistant to good labor enforcement. They wanted to help their corporate buddies. Senator Wyden will remember that there was a provision in there to help the drug companies, a big giveaway to the drug companies. We said no to that. Speaker Pelosi said no to that. We stripped that out of the agreement. We wanted this agreement to center on workers--not to help the drug companies, not to help Wall Street, not to help and encourage those companies that outsource jobs. Mr. WYDEN. I have appreciated this colloquy with Senator Brown. I have a couple of town meetings at home this weekend, working-class neighborhoods, where trade has been really important. One out of four jobs in my State revolves around trade, and those jobs often pay better than do the nontrade jobs. If anybody says ``Well, Ron, do you think anything is really going to be accomplished with what you and Senator Brown are talking about?'' I am going to say that I went through the entire enforcement process in terms of the key provisions, and we laid out for the country and the Senate that you have led an effort to speed up by more than 300 percent the timeline for an enforcement action. I mean, it used to take years and years sometimes. You have shortened that by literally more than 300 percent. You have been part of an effort that is tougher because you can go after the individual factories. Then, finally, I think this enforcement proposal gets to the heart of what we need to be doing because it means if you rip off workers, we are going to stop products those workers have produced at the border. My guess is, there will be a lot more discussion. I see we have another valuable colleague from the Finance Committee who has been heavily involved in these issues for a lot of years. But I want to say again that this didn't happen by osmosis, because when we got that flawed bill, I think everybody said: Well, they will probably have some discussions about it, and that will be pretty much it. Mr. BROWN. I saw this when Senator Wyden and I announced the success of getting Brown-Wyden into the bill. I heard from a lot of--shall we say--pro-Trump, pro-corporate lawmakers in this body, mostly on that side of the aisle but all over. They were pretty angry because they thought this was going to be another trade agreement--USMCA was going to be another trade agreement written by corporations, mostly written in secret, that will serve corporate interests, that will pad the bottom line, that will help million-dollar-a-year executives make multimillion dollars a year, that will help their major stockholders and will ignore workers. They were fine with that because that is too often what this body does. They found that--oh, my gosh--this trade agreement actually puts workers at the center. That was, I know, your goal and my goal. That is why people at your town meetings in Eugene and Portland and Bend and all over Oregon are going to hear from you about how this will help the middle class, fundamentally. I appreciate the time. Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I think this has been central to what we will be debating and we will be voting on tomorrow morning. I want to thank Senator Brown. This bill would not have happened without tough trade enforcement led by Senator Brown. This bill would not have happened, period, full stop. With that, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware. Mr. CARPER. Madam President, before the senior Democrat, the ranking member of the Finance Committee, leaves the floor and before the Senator, my colleague from Ohio, leaves the floor, I want to thank them both. We would not be here on this day without them and without their leadership--both of them. When Sherrod Brown says that he has never met a trade agreement he wanted to even think about supporting--thank you for making this one that virtually all of us can support. My highest regards. United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement Madam President, I have a speech here that starts off with ``Mr. President'' over and over again, but I am going to say ``Madam President.'' I rise today to discuss the new treaty to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, affectionately known as NAFTA. Last week, those of us who serve on the Finance Committee had an opportunity to evaluate the new NAFTA. In fact, about a half dozen or so committees have been given different jurisdictions to do that, with respect to this trade agreement. As you know, trade deals are often dense agreements that have hundreds of provisions relating to any number of issues. Ultimately, trade agreements and trade legislation move through the Senate Finance Committee. We just heard from two of our senior members. As another senior member of that committee for many years now, I have considered many trade bills and looked at what impact those bills would have on American consumers, producers, manufacturers, farmers, and businesses--citizens. After all, our economy depends on making sure that other countries can sell to us and that we can sell to other countries, especially close allies like Canada to our north and Mexico to our south. Following years of uncertainty, thanks to the President's haphazard trade wars, I believe this agreement will provide a measure of certainty for those who help drive our economy. Provisions included in the new NAFTA will help in our State, on the Delmarva Peninsula, our poultry producers gain better access to Canadian markets. It is not just important to Delaware; it is important to Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and other places where they raise chickens. Further, the new trade deal increases market access for dairy farmers in Delaware, and those across the country, to sell their milk products--products like powdered milk--to Canada. The International Trade Commission estimates that this will allow for an additional $315 million in exports annually. That is a $315 million increase in exports just under the milk side, the dairy side, in sales to Canada every year. When we evaluate the new NAFTA as what it is--a trade deal--I believe that it makes significant improvements on past trade agreements, including the [[Page S230]] original NAFTA. New NAFTA adds stronger language to ensure that the obligations to all three counties under multilateral environmental agreements, including the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, can be fully enforced. I will come back and talk more about that in a short while. Thanks primarily to Democrats, though, it is no longer the case that the failure of one NAFTA country to ratify an environmental agreement can be used to prevent the others from being held accountable for failing to honor their obligations. New NAFTA also includes new provisions that have never been included in trade agreements before. Environmental violations will now be treated as trade violations, so when the United States does bring cases under the new NAFTA's environmental obligations, those cases will be easier to win going forward. This agreement also includes significant new wins for coastal States, including binding provisions around overfishing, around conservation of marine species, and marine debris. When we talk about marine debris, just keep this in mind: There is, floating out in the oceans of the world, something called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is largely plastics. It is twice the size of Texas--not twice the size of Delaware, not twice the size of Maryland; it is twice the size of Texas. In addition to the $88 million for environmental monitoring, cooperation and enforcement, the new NAFTA creates an enforcement mechanism that gives environmental stakeholders an expanded role in enforcement matters. This will go a long way toward ensuring that environmental violations can be investigated and remedied in a substantive and timely manner. My colleagues have heard me say before that I have a friend who, when you ask him how he is doing, he replies: Compared to what? Well, compared to all the previous trade agreements that this body has considered, new NAFTA and its implementing legislation have the strongest environmental enforcement provisions we have seen to date, period. That is good news, especially for a trade deal put forth under this administration. Does the new NAFTA include everything that my Democratic colleagues and I--and some Republican colleagues--would have liked to see with regard to environmental protection? No, it does not. This new NAFTA fails to recommit the United States, for example, to the Paris accord. It fails to ratify the Kigali amendment that I mentioned earlier to the Montreal protocol, which could bring the global community together to reduce the use of something called HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons, found in products like air conditioners and freezers, and prevent, by the use of those follow-on products to HFCs, up to a half-degree Celsius increase in global warming by the end of this century, just for doing this one thing--one thing. Like so many of the Trump administration's proposals, the new NAFTA fails to even mention the words ``climate change.'' This trade agreement does add important tools and resources that were primarily negotiated by Democrats to strengthen the deal, hold the administration accountable to enforce NAFTA countries' obligations, and help ensure that those who break the rules are actually held accountable. As the senior top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee in the Senate, I am especially aware of the extreme and destructive environmental policies put forth by the current administration. Week after week, I have helped to lead the fight against some reckless rollbacks, too many unbelievably unqualified candidates, and their relentless attempts to chip away at our Nation's bedrock environmental protections. We know what to expect from this administration when it comes to environmental policies. As a result, I know that the environmental provisions in new NAFTA-- thanks to the hard work from Democrats in both the House and the Senate, and some Republicans too--are far stronger than where we started. It is certainly not perfect, and we can, and we must, do more going forward. But it is better than we have ever done before, and that must be recognized. I want to pause for a moment to thank Ambassador Robert Lighthizer and his staff--the Trade Ambassador, Trade Rep's office--for their hard work and their willingness to engage with my colleagues and with me. It has been an extraordinary outreach, great responsiveness. I just want to say thank you to the Ambassador and to his team. It reminds me of what we had with Michael Froman when he was the Trade Rep in the last administration. Let me end it with this, if I could: While it is good news that we were able to reach an agreement on the new NAFTA, I want to caution my colleagues that the uncertainty caused by President Trump's haphazard approach to trade is far from over. President Trump's multifront trade war with our allies and our trading partners is approaching 2 years now. That is 2 years of American farmers, American manufacturers, retailers, and small businesses experiencing increased costs from President Trump's tariffs while simultaneously being locked out of overseas markets due to retaliatory tariffs. That is 2 years of uncertainty and disruption for American business that have had to put investments and hiring decisions on hold and 2 years of uncertainty for the American workers who are not sure if their jobs will continue to exist as trade wars drag on. Where has that gotten us? A limited trade agreement with Japan, which may be better than nothing, but it is largely an attempt to cover up some of the negative effects that withdrawal from the transpacific trade partnership, TPP, has had on our economy and our global competitors. For those who don't remember, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, as you will recall, negotiated in the last administration, was a 12-nation trading bloc, negotiated primarily by the U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, and his staff. That included 40 percent of the world's economy in one trading bloc, 12 nations. Guess who led it: We did. Guess who was excluded: China, for the bad behavior they sometimes follow. On the outside, they were looking in. And somehow we walked away from that. What we have come up with in its place is something that is, in my view, not nearly as bold and, unfortunately, not the path we have taken. I am still reviewing the text of the ``phase one''--I will put that in quotes--China trade deal that was signed, I think, today. But from what I have seen, the agreement falls far short of the structural reforms to China's planned economy that President Trump has ``trumpeted'' for some time. As best as I can tell, the structural reforms in China's economy did not make the final cut. As we enter this new year and a new decade, I sincerely hope our President will rethink what many believe are senseless approaches to trade and return to a multilateral approach--much as we had on the Trans-Pacific Partnership--where the United States works with our allies and trading partners to constructively write the global rules of trade. With that, I see one of my colleagues, also from Ohio, rising to address a welcoming audience. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio. Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I appreciate my colleague from Delaware and his comments on trade. I ask unanimous consent that my colleague from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, be permitted to address the Chamber for a brief tribute following my remarks. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. PORTMAN. I am on the floor today to talk about international trade. What a week it has been. In the same few days, we are seeing the culmination of nearly 3 years of effort by this administration to deliver wins for American workers, for businesses, for farmers, and for consumers with regard to our three biggest trading partners, China, Canada, and Mexico. This is a big week. While the media is focused on impeachment--and I can say that because as I walked in that is all the reporters wanted to talk about--here we are on the floor talking about something that directly affects the constituents we represent. I think it is very positive in all three areas--China, Canada, and Mexico. In a way, it is like [[Page S231]] the World Series and the Super Bowl of trade all in the same week because these are big agreements that make a big difference. The U.S.-Mexico agreement is being finalized, and it will be voted on tomorrow. Second today is the signing of phase one of the China agreement, something many of us have been focused on over the past few years and wondered whether we would get here, and here we are. As a former trade lawyer and as a former U.S. Trade Representative under George W. Bush and as someone on the Trade Committee, which is the Finance Committee here, I follow these issues closely. Most significantly, I come from Ohio, which is a State that depends on trade and depends on that trade being fair to our workers, our farmers, our service providers, and our small businesses. We have a lot of manufacturing and a lot of agriculture. In fact, 25 percent of our State's factory workers have export jobs. One out of every three acres planted in Ohio is planted for export. Think about that. When you drive through our beautiful State and you see the corn and the soybeans out there in the field, one out of every three acres is being planted to be exported somewhere else. That is great for our farmers. It gives them markets, and it raises prices for their product at a time when they really need it. By the way, these trade jobs are good jobs too. Jobs dependent on trade pay, on average, about 16 percent more than other jobs, and they have better benefits. We like to be able to send more to the rest of the world. We have about 5 percent of the world's population in this country. We have to be sure that with 25 percent of the world's economy here and 5 percent of the people, that we are selling stuff overseas to the other 95 percent. It is always in our interest to open up overseas markets for our workers, our farmers, our services, and our service providers. While promoting those exports, we need to ensure that we are protecting American jobs from unfair trade and from imports that would unfairly undercut our workers and our farmers. Simply put, we want a level playing field. With that level playing field, where you get fair and reciprocal treatment from other countries, we will do just fine. American workers and businesses can compete, and they can win if it is fair. That is all we are asking for. To me, the sweet spot is balanced trade, where we are able to send our exports overseas without high tariffs and other barriers, and we are able to see imports coming in fairly traded into the United States. If we do that, we will be fine. The good thing about this week is that both of these agreements--the new USMCA, which replaces NAFTA, and this phase one of the China agreement--are exactly focused on how to have balanced trade. At times, recently, other countries have been wondering whether the United States was going to make progress on trade, to be frank, so this week is also important because the world is watching. What the world is seeing is that we can fulfill our stated interest in renegotiating and improving trade agreements and trade relationships. Concluding these two agreements proves that the United States can get to ``yes'' on these very big issues. We are able to work through our partisan differences here at home. We just saw this on the floor this afternoon where Democrats and Republicans alike are talking about their support for USMCA. In tough negotiations with our trading partners--we had some tough negotiations with Canada, Mexico, and China--we can reach outcomes that benefit our country and help to create that more effective balance for American workers. There is, perhaps, no better example of this balance than USMCA. Without it, by the way, we go back to the status quo, which would be NAFTA. That is a 25-year-old agreement that had to be updated. It just doesn't reflect the realities of a modern economy. Thanks to important measures designed to strengthen our economy, create jobs, and increase market access for American exports, this new USMCA will help level that playing field we talked about. First of all, USMCA means American jobs and economic growth. The independent International Trade Commission has studied it. They have said this new agreement will create at least 176,000 new jobs and will grow our economy. It also says that with regard to the auto industry, it will create tens of thousands of jobs. That is, again, very important to Ohio. We are a big State for auto production. These jobs are going to mean a lot to workers in my State. Part of the way it is going to create jobs is by leveling the playing field with enforceable labor standards. We just heard about this from the Senator from Oregon and the Senator from Ohio, about how this agreement has new enforceable standards with regard to labor. It also, though, has higher content requirements for U.S.-made steel and auto parts. This is important. I will give you an example. USMCA requires that 70 percent of the steel and 75 percent of overall content in USMCA-compliant vehicles come from USMCA countries. In other words, other countries can't come in and take advantage of the lower tariffs that we are providing under USMCA by adding too much to the content of those vehicles. The 75-percent overall content requirement is up from 62.5 percent in NAFTA. That makes that 75 percent the highest percentage of any trade agreement we have. It means more jobs in the United States, in particular, and fewer imports from countries like China, countries like Germany, countries like Japan that otherwise would come in and take advantage of this. Some have criticized these content provisions as being somehow protectionist. I disagree. We are saying to these countries that if you want freer trade with us, enter into a trade agreement, lower your barriers, and give us access to your markets as we are giving Mexico and Canada access to our markets. That is what a trade agreement is all about. If you don't want to do that, you shouldn't be able to free ride on our USMCA. I think this makes sense. Why should Japan or China or Germany be a free rider on our agreement with Canada and Mexico? This will incentivize good jobs in America, but it also incentivizes these other countries to enter into trade agreements with us. They can see that if you do an agreement with the United States, it is balanced and fair. You will have some benefit as well. The International Trade Commission expects that USMC will grow our economy by double the gross domestic product of that projected to be increased under what is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I tell you that because TPP, Trans- Pacific Partnership, is one that Members on the other side of the aisle have talked about as being such a great agreement. This grows the economy by more than double based on the ITPF estimate. Again, this is a big deal. USMCA also means important new rules of the road for online sales. So much of our commerce today takes place over the internet, but there is nothing to protect it or promote it in NAFTA. Because it was done 25 years ago when there was hardly any internet business, it doesn't have any protection. This USMCA was written to fix that. It does. It prohibits data localization requirements by banning tariffs on data online and by raising the de minimis level on customs duties for sales to Mexico and Canada. This means they can't require the servers to be in Canada or Mexico, as an example, for our digital economy here in the United States, which is one of our great advantages. For a lot of small companies in Ohio and around the country and for startups that do business online and rely on smaller shipments, this is very important. The relief from the customs burdens and also the data localization requirements and the inability for other countries to put tariffs on data is really important. This is great for us as a country. The third thing I want to mention is that American farmers are going to see unprecedented levels of access to new markets in Canada and Mexico under USMCA. Between bad weather, low prices even going into the bad weather, and the tariffs that were in place to get to this agreement with China, in particular, farmers have been hit pretty hard. So this is the light at the end of the tunnel. This gives them a chance, under USMCA, to get some new markets. That is why nearly 1,000 farm [[Page S232]] groups around the country have announced publicly that they strongly support this agreement. A lot of politicians and pundits have their views on who won the negotiations over USMCA that we will vote on here tomorrow on the floor. You can go back and forth on that, but in my view, thanks to the hard work of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and thanks to President Trump pushing on this, the winner here is the American people. That is who I think benefits the most. They are going to benefit from a new, more modernized trade agreement that will replace an agreement that has shown its age with unenforceable labor and environmental standards, nonexistent digital economy provisions, and outdated rules of origin provisions that allow more automobiles and more auto parts to be manufactured overseas rather than being manufactured here in the United States. I think the American people benefit. We all benefit. I am glad we are going to finally have a chance to vote on this landmark trade agreement. I urge that tomorrow we pass it on a bipartisan basis, and I think we will. Getting this to the finish line is a significant achievement but to also do it signing onto the phase one agreement with China today is really incredible. Again, it has been a strong week. I want to congratulate Bob Lighthizer, the Trade Rep, President Trump, and others who worked to bring this win to the finish line. When I was U.S. Trade Rep for George W. Bush, we conducted the first- ever economic relationship review with China. We issued a report, and it concluded that our trade relationship with China lacked equity, durability, and balance. Well, 13 years later, China still doesn't play by the rules. So much of that continues. One reason the trade deficit with China is going to be the largest in the world is because of that. In 2018, we sent China about $180 billion in exports, and they sent us about $560 billion in exports. That means we had a resulting trade deficit of about $380 billion--the biggest trade deficit in the history of the world. That is a problem, but it is more than just the trade deficit. That isn't the only way to measure trade. Beijing routinely uses subsidies, state-owned enterprises, and a lack of transparency by government control on their own economy in order to surpass the United States as the world's economic and innovation leader. China's current policies undercut critical commitments China made, both to the WTO, the World Trade Organization, and to us and other countries--agreements that they would open up their market, protect intellectual property rights, adhere to international recognized labor rights, and meet its WTO commitments on unfair trade practices such as subsidies, which they provide. I encourage you to read the U.S. Trade Representative's section 301 report on China. That is its basis for this phase one agreement and the basis for the administration putting those higher tariffs in place on Chinese products over the past couple of years. The report notes that in 2016, the multilateral Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, ranked China the fourth most restrictive investment climate in the world, despite them being the second largest economy in the world. Based on this OECD report, China's investment climate is nearly four times more restrictive than that of the United States. That is why we needed to take some action and have a negotiation with China to come up with something that was mutually beneficial. I have supported these 301 actions by President Trump to create this more level playing field for American workers, farmers, and business owners. The only significant leverage we had to be able to do that, by the way, was by controlling access to our own market by raising tariffs. Higher tariffs had collateral consequences, and we have seen that for our consumers and other countries. They have been a necessary evil to hold China's feet to the fire and force them to the negotiating table and to get the result we have seen today. These tough measures are now paying off. Think about it in terms of what I said before--equity, durability, and balance. In the interests of a more balanced relationship, phase one directly addresses that $380 billion trade deficit we talked about. China has agreed to increase its purchases of American products by at least $200 billion over the next 2 years, with additional increases likely in the future. That is going to help reduce our trade deficit and provide some relief, particularly in the agricultural, manufacturing, and energy sectors. The agreement includes provisions to make our relationship more equitable. That includes new commitments on intellectual property protection, new obligations on tech transfer, and a discipline on currency manipulation, similar to that which is in the U.S.-Mexico- Canada Agreement. Specifically, Beijing committed to eliminate pressure on U.S. companies to transfer their intellectual property to Chinese firms as a condition of doing business in China. This is a big deal, and it is a critical step in addressing the IP theft China has used to fuel its economic rise. Chinese companies aren't forced to hand over their patents as a condition of doing business here in America and American companies shouldn't be forced to do the same in China. We will also be able to keep a closer eye on China's currency manipulation. When the Treasury Department found evidence of manipulation to boost Chinese exports, they labeled Chinese a currency manipulator for the first time since 1994. That designation was just lifted because of phase 1. This new agreement contains new transparency and accountability commitments to ensure that American trade enforcers can better monitor future manipulation. The phase 1 agreement is a first good step toward creating a more balanced and equitable relationship between our two countries, but our trade relationship will remain durable only if we enforce these agreements. That is why it is also very significant that this agreement includes the option to reimpose tariffs should China fail to live up to the commitments it has made. Enforcement is critical. Just as the rest of the world is watching our success at getting to ``yes'' on these trade agreements, it is also watching how aggressively we are going to enforce these commitments. That is why it is imperative that the United States utilize this enforcement process assertively and swiftly should we find evidence that China has violated its commitments. Congress is watching. With such a big day for trade, especially only a couple of weeks into the new year, it would be easy to ask if anything else is left for the rest of the year. My answer is, yes, there is a lot. We should celebrate our accomplishments tonight, but tomorrow continues to bring a host of challenges and opportunities to advance a bold trade agenda. Most importantly, the next step is to negotiate the phase 2 agreement with China that will address the additional structural issues I mentioned earlier--the subsidies, the state-owned enterprises, and the lack of transparency--that make doing business in China an uphill battle. Resolving these issues will be critical to ensuring that our two economies are playing by the same set of rules, not different sets of rules. Between the USMCA and this phase 1 agreement, 2020 has already been a significant year for trade, but there is even more progress we are set to make. I look forward to phase 2 negotiations with Japan this spring, especially regarding new market access for ``Made in America'' automobiles. I look forward to potential FTA talks with Switzerland and with the United Kingdom post-Brexit--new trade agreements to open up more market access. We also want to ensure that the extension of the WTO moratorium of tariffs on data continues, and I hope we will see renewed efforts at WTO reform. We need to address America's longstanding fundamental concerns about the appellate body, special and differential status, and the decline of the WTO's negotiating function. We have lots to do. I hope Congress will consider new legislation to toughen our anti- dumping and countervailing duty laws this year to crack down on trade cheats, and I hope we will pass the Trade Security Act to return section 232 to its original purpose of protecting genuine national security threats. Clearly, there is a lot of work we can do in 2020, and I look forward to it. Yet we should pause today and congratulate the Trump administration on these two successes we have talked [[Page S233]] about. I have long advocated for balanced trade that prioritizes market opening and tough enforcement, and I believe that both the USMCA and the China agreement embody this philosophy of balanced trade. Most importantly, I believe our country is better off because of it. I yield the floor. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Ohio. Remembering Chris Allen Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to honor a dedicated public servant whom we tragically lost last week, Chris Allen. Chris served in the Senate for nearly a decade, most recently on Senator Grassley's staff. I appreciate that Senator Grassley happens to be presiding right now as the President pro tem of the Senate. Chris was a leader in our efforts to solve the pension crisis that threatens the retirement security of more than a million Americans, including a number of people in the Galleries today. My staff and I got to know him well while working together to find a bipartisan solution. He was part of what we consider to be a sort of pensions family in the Senate. We didn't always agree, but Chris always understood the stakes. He took this crisis seriously. He knew it affected people's lives in the most central way. He understood what collective bargaining was about--meaning, you give money up today in wages to protect your future. He was committed to finding a solution. Most importantly, as Senator Grassley knows, he always treated the retirees with dignity, and he respected their work. He understood what this retirement crisis meant to those families and the pressures they were under. In 2018, when we worked together with him and Senator Grassley's staff and Chairman Hatch and Senator Portman on our bipartisan pensions committee, we held a field hearing in Columbus in order to hear directly from current workers, retirees, and small businesses. Chris came to Ohio for the entire field hearing. He didn't have to, and a lot of staff members didn't. Yet he understood how important it was to talk to the people whose livelihoods were at stake in this crisis. Workers and retirees came from all over Ohio. Companies that had often been in business for 100 years came from all over the region for that hearing. We had a 25,000-person rally outside the Ohio State Capitol. I would add again that a number of people in the Galleries today were at that rally. Our staff was a little nervous about how Chris might react when he saw that, for his boss had had some disagreements with these folks in the best way to find a solution. Yet Chris just looked at that sea of people and said: ``That's cool.'' That empathy was a part of who he was. He was responsive. He was kind and thoughtful. He embodied the decorum of what the Senate should be. He wasn't interested in partisan warfare. At a time when too many people retreat to their partisan corners, that was not Chris Allen. That spirit of cooperation and of mutual respect will be missed more than ever. He was dedicated to his work. He was dedicated to the people whom our work affects. He would meet for hours and do whatever it took to work toward a solution. The only thing he stopped for was his family. Chris was a devoted father to his two daughters, Lucie and Sophie. Connie's and my hearts go out to them and to Lynda, Chris' wife. I know nothing we can say could erase the pain of the sudden death of a father and a husband so young. I hope they take some comfort in knowing how many lives, starting with Senator Grassley's, Chris touched. We miss him. We will continue to fight for a bipartisan solution that honors Chris' memory and protects the pensions that American workers have earned over a lifetime of work. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington State. Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for mentioning and honoring Chris Allen, and our sympathies to the Grassley family. Thank you so much for talking about the hard work that so many of our staff do around the Capitol that people don't realize. While we have lost some on our side, too, it is important to remember those who give so much of their time and energy to make our country better. H.R. 5430 Mr. President, I rise to support the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement we are going to be voting on tomorrow, and I want to thank all the people who worked on it, including Senator Grassley, Senator Wyden, Senator Brown, Speaker Pelosi, and many other people to get us a final product that I think we all believe should move forward. It is very important to me, coming from one of the most trade- dependent States, that we continue to open up trade markets, but I hope my colleagues will also realize that the world economy has reached a tipping point. Over half of the world is now either middle class or wealthier. So that means that we have more people to sell more U.S. products to. That means bigger market opportunities for U.S. manufactured goods, for agriculture products, and a way for us to continue to compete in some of our most important industries. That is why I have always supported making sure that we continue to open up trade markets in a fair way. And for us in Washington State, the North American Free Trade Agreement was a positive move. In the context, prior to the NAFTA agreement for Washington, in Mexico, there was $300 million of Washington exports. Now there is more than $2 billion, and they are our largest export market for Washington apples. Today, Canada, you can see a similar story. Prior to the North American Free Trade Agreement, our products into that country were roughly about $2 billion; today, they are more than $9 billion. So continuing to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement is an important step for Washington and for our economy. The important aspects of this deal help us open and get a fair playing field for wheat, for making sure that digital trade continues in a fair way, and that dairy products are accessed into Canada in a fair way and that our wine industry--believe it or not, Canadians drink a lot of wine, particularly in British Columbia, and they have not always given us fair access to that market. So it is very important that it will increase access to Washington wines into Canada, which is the largest market for Washington wines, buying about $10 million in exports a year. But as I mentioned, USMCA will maintain a duty-free access for our dairy products to Mexico; it will certainly make sure that our wheat products are on a level playing field and continue the access to digital trade. I want to thank my colleagues Senator Brown and Senator Wyden and Speaker Pelosi and all those in the labor movement who worked hard with getting an enforcement and capacity-building provision in this legislation. But what we are doing here that I know of for the first time is business and labor coming together and saying ``we need to build the capacity within a country so that they can enforce trade agreements.'' This is a positive step, not just for Mexico, but a positive step for what we need to do around the globe. I wish we could just say to every country, ``Yes, put up the regime to enforce these laws, and make it happen tomorrow, and we can help you and your economy.'' But it just doesn't work like that. And when you retreat from trade--and, trust me, I believe this administration has retreated from trade when it starts with a tariff-first approach. You cannot start the discussion with throwing out tariffs and then penalizing our farmers and then thinking that we are going to get the door open. So I am all ears to hear how we are going to get a real agreement with China. But I thank my colleagues who did the hard work on this USMCA agreement to make enforcement and capacity building real for the first time. Why? Because as we look at that world economy outside the United States, it is one of the biggest economic opportunities we will see. That is, we know how to grow things. We know how to make things. We should make sure we are opening up markets in a fair trade regime to those products. So I will continue to work with our colleagues here to make sure that that is achieved. I hope the President will stop the tariff-first approach, stop the continuation of the tariffs and the impacts that we are seeing now, and get down to continuing to negotiations with our being a leader for opening up markets. [[Page S234]] The United States can't lose shelf space to very, very competitive markets and then come back years later and try to regain it. Let's be a world leader in establishing the rules for fair trade and pushing for provisions like we see in the USMCA agreement so we can move forward, making sure Washington products, U.S. Products, American-made products, get delivered to a growing, wealthier world. I yield the floor. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota. Mr. CRAMER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. China Trade Agreement Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the NAFTA 2.0 trade agreement negotiated by President Trump. This agreement is opposed by labor unions like the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, as well as by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. It is opposed by numerous environmental organizations, including the Sunrise Movement, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and virtually every major environmental organization in the country. Further, it is opposed by the National Family Farm Coalition, which believes it will lock in rules that have devastated family-based agriculture and expand corporate control over agriculture in North America. I am proud to stand with these labor unions, with the environmental groups, and family farmers against President Trump's NAFTA 2.0. I not only voted against NAFTA in 1993, but I marched against it. In 2000 I voted against permanent normal trade relations with China. I opposed the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and other trade agreements. The bottom line is that we need trade agreements in this country that work for workers, that work for farmers, and not just the CEOs of large multinational corporations. There is no doubt in my mind that we need to fundamentally rewrite our disastrous trade agreements and create and protect good-paying American jobs, and that we need trade agreements that will improve the environment and combat climate change, and we need trade agreements that end the destructive race to the bottom, where workers are forced to work for lower, lower wages. Unfortunately, this revised trade agreement with Mexico and Canada does none of these things. It must be rewritten. While NAFTA has led to the loss of nearly 1 million American jobs, this agreement does virtually nothing to stop the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico. Under this agreement, large multinational corporations will still be able to shut down factories in America, where workers are paid some $28 an hour, and move to Mexico, where workers there are paid less than $2 an hour. When Donald Trump was a candidate for President, he promised that he would stop the outsourcing of American jobs to Mexico, China, and other low-wage countries. That has not happened. The truth is, since Trump took office, over 170,000 American jobs have been shipped overseas. In 2018, we had a recordbreaking $891 billion trade deficit in goods, a $419 billion trade deficit with China, and an $81 billion trade deficit with Mexico. In 2018, for the first time in our history, manufacturing workers began getting paid less than workers overall. It used to be that manufacturing workers made really good wages compared to the rest of the workforce. It is not the case anymore. Today, manufacturing workers get $28.15 an hour, while the average worker makes 15 cents an hour more. Last month we lost 12,000 factory jobs, and despite Trump's rhetoric, we are in a manufacturing recession. There is a reason why virtually every major environmental group is opposed to Trump's NAFTA 2.0. This agreement does nothing to stop fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron from dumping their waste and pollution into Mexico and destroying the environment. In fact, it makes it easier for fossil fuel companies to bring tar sands oil into the United States through dangerous pipelines like the Keystone XL. This proposal does not even mention the word ``climate change.'' Imagine in the year 2020 that we have a major trade agreement that does not even mention the words ``climate change,'' the existential threat facing not only our country but the entire planet. This deal preserves the disastrous investor-state dispute settlement system for oil and gas companies, allowing them to continue to put corporate profits ahead of our air, water, climate, and health. At this pivotal moment in American history, it is not good enough to tinker around the edges. The scientific community has been very clear. If we do not act boldly and aggressively to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy, the future of this planet is in doubt, and there is no question but that the Nation and planet we leave to our children and to our grandchildren will be increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable. We have a major climate crisis and no trade deal should be passed that does not address that issue. In my view, we need to rewrite this trade agreement to stop the outsourcing of American jobs, to combat climate change, to protect the environment, and to stop the destructive race to the bottom. We have to stop large, profitable corporations that are outsourcing American jobs overseas from receiving lucrative Federal contracts. It makes no sense to me that you have large corporations shut down in America, go to cheap labor countries abroad, and then they get online and receive very large Federal contacts. We have to stop that. Further, we have to repeal Trump's tax giveaways to the wealthy, which have provided huge tax breaks to companies that shut down manufacturing plants in the United States and move abroad. Trade is a good thing done well, but this trade agreement does not accomplish that end. ____________________
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