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Jan. 15, 2025 15:00-15:06 - CSPAN
05:58
Washington Journal Rep. Adrian Smith
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo Source
Participants
Appearances
p
pedro echevarria
cspan 00:47
Clips
barack obama
d 00:02
bill clinton
d 00:02
donald j trump
admin 00:09
george h w bush
r 00:02
george w bush
r 00:04
jimmy carter
d 00:03
ronald reagan
r 00:01

Speaker Time Text
Trade Negotiations and Tariffs 00:05:43
unidentified
And the House has gaveled out.
Today, members are working on several pieces of legislation, including a measure to provide tax relief for residents of Taiwan who also pay U.S. taxes.
Lawmakers are also considering a measure to increase transparency for the incomes of certain employees of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest public power provider.
And later this week, we expect a bill to come to the floor that would deport undocumented immigrants convicted of certain sex offenses and other violent crimes.
You can watch live coverage of the House when members return right here on C-SPAN.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼
Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼
Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼
Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼
We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼
Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼
American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
unidentified
We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼
This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼
We are joined by Representative Adrian Smith, Republican of Nebraska.
He's the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chair, and he serves the third district of the state of Nebraska.
Representative Smith, thanks for joining us.
unidentified
Great to be here.
Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼
As chair of the subcommittee, can we get your personal thoughts on how tariffs should be applied in the United States?
unidentified
Well, tariffs are something that's been around a long time.
We've found out that they can have varied impact at various times, impact the economy as well.
Overall, I can't say I'm a huge fan of tariffs, but I do believe they need to be a tool in the toolbox as negotiations take place.
It's very important that we are tough negotiators to level the playing field that over time has been pretty slanted against us.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼
When you say you're not a huge fan, is that because of their ultimate impact on an economy or are there other reasons?
unidentified
That potential, certainly.
And representing a lot of agriculture, we don't really like it when other countries place tariffs on our products.
And we're good exporters of ag products, let's face it.
Other countries tend to like our quality and price and value.
And so we don't like it when they place the tariffs on us.
That said, we need to keep our options on the table as negotiations would move forward.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼
President Olik Trump has talked about a variety of ways to approach tariffs and wants to achieve certain amounts of things with them.
Generally, what do you think of the approach he's taking?
unidentified
Well, I think it's important that we drive a tough negotiation.
And, you know, I've shared this with a lot of folks that we need to level the playing field, make no mistake.
And I think what we've seen over the last four years and lack of action, in fact, some of my Democrat colleagues just yesterday in committee criticized tariffs.
Now that Trump's coming back in, even though nothing was done about tariffs over the last four years, and let me say even more importantly, there was such a lack of action on trade across the board for the last four years.
That inaction, I think, is especially damaging because our competitors, our trade partners, expect more from the United States of America than what they've seen in the last four years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼
Specifically, then, what would you like to see the administration do to a specific country when it comes to tariff policy?
unidentified
Take Kenya, for example.
The previous Trump administration teed up a trade agreement with Kenya.
Now, Kenya already enjoys the benefits of what we call AGOA, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, an important policy.
Kenya enjoys those benefits, basically tariff relief.
And so there are other aspects, though, of trade with Kenya that we could benefit from in terms of market access, agriculture being one of those.
So the Trump administration teed up a trade agreement, like I said, with Kenya.
The Biden administration comes in and says, well, we'll talk about trade, but not about tariffs.
I can't understand why that's been the case when, like I said, Kenya already benefits from a GOA.
Let's talk about market access and how we, our exporters from the United States, can get their products into a country such as Kenya on a continent that's growing in population.
That's what separates Africa from so many other continents is its growing population.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼
And I suppose those countries go, then China would come to the top of that list as far as how we apply those tariffs.
What's the concern and what's the benefit of applying tariffs going forward or applying other tariffs?
unidentified
Well, the details can be very fine on all of trade.
Trade is a lot of work.
And with growing technology, diversifying economies, that makes trade even more difficult.
So digital, for example, that is an important one because the U.S. leads the world in digital trade.
Other countries say, well, that's a great source of revenue, especially if it only comes from another country such as ours.
That can be damaging in various ways, among them access to information and the flow of information.
That is important as well.
China, as a competitor, let's face it, and they are engaging in places around the world where we are not.
That's a problem.
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