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C-SPAN.org. | |
| NBC News and others are reporting that the Trump administration is preparing an executive order for President Trump that would abolish the Education Department. | ||
| The article goes on to note that the President must get congressional approval for such a move. | ||
| During Mr. Trump's campaign, he promised to get rid of the Federal Department and posted a video message in 2023 that said, One other thing I'll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states. | ||
| The Department of Education was created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. | ||
| Wednesday, a look at ways to increase government efficiency and reduce unnecessary spending with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and Citizens Against Government Waste President Thomas Schatz testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. | ||
| Watch it live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| President Trump's senior advisor on trade and manufacturing said the Trump administration's threat of tariffs against Mexico and Canada have brought leaders of the two neighboring countries to the negotiating table. | ||
| His remarks came during a conversation with Politico reporters. | ||
| We begin the discussion with Representatives Linda Sanchez and Adrian Smith and their thoughts on the administration's trade and tariff policies. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
| Hello, everyone, and good morning. | ||
| Thanks for coming here this morning. | ||
| My name is Doug Palmer. | ||
| I'm the senior trade reporter at Politico, and I'm privileged to be joined by California Representative Linda Sanchez to talk about the topic that's on everybody's mind these days: trade. | ||
| Representative Sanchez is the new ranking member of the House Ways and Means Trade Committee, and she's the first woman to hold that chair or to hold that position. | ||
| Excuse me, there. | ||
| Since we only have a short amount of time, let's jump right into the topics. | ||
| And let's begin with this tariff threat against Canada, Mexico, and China. | ||
| Those have now been paused on Canada and Mexico. | ||
| They're still in effect on China at the moment. | ||
| And then overnight, China indicated a little bit about how it would retaliate. | ||
| What do you think of President Trump's actions generally? | ||
| And how do you think it'll impact the country, your district, California? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So I think that the singular term that could best describe Trump's position on trade is chaotic. | ||
| And I think that since he has, you know, on a whim, announced tariffs, it has really thrown things into upheaval. | ||
| And he announces things, then he gets scared and he withdraws them or retracts them. | ||
| He leaves fragments in place. | ||
| He delays others on a whim. | ||
| So it's clear that his trade policy is not very well thought out. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And in addition, you can see that it's not about helping American manufacturers or leveling the playing field or investing in jobs here at home because these are broad tariffs which includes everything. | ||
| So Tariffs are meant to be a tool to level the playing field when somebody is not playing fair or they're cheating on trade. | ||
| And it's like using a sledgehammer when you should be using a scalpel. | ||
| There are specific industries that we've been concerned about for some time. | ||
| You can use tariffs to target those industries, but broad-based tariffs do nothing but cause markets to be spooked, business owners and farmers to wonder what's next. | ||
| Many of our employers, our manufacturers here in the United States, have very integrated supply chains with Canada and Mexico. | ||
| And if you start willy-nilly slapping tariffs and then the potential for retaliatory tariffs, what that means is that prices are going to go up for U.S. consumers. | ||
| And the number one pledge that Trump made when he was running for office was that he was going to bring down the cost of everyday goods. | ||
| But we see by targeting Canada and allies and Canada and Mexico, who are some of our staunchest allies, I mean, Canada is a member of NATO. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You know, to really try to bully them to extract concessions is not the way to go about things. | ||
| What he got was nothing. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| The concessions that Mexico and Canada gave, those were things that they had already pledged to do, were already doing. | ||
| In fact, Mexico already has 15,000 troops on the border to try to stem the immigration flows. | ||
| And Canada, which, you know, Trump seems very concerned about the fentanyl issue and wanting Canada to step up its enforcement. | ||
| Most of the fentanyl that comes into this country doesn't come through the Canadian border, nor does it come on the back of immigrants that are coming from the southern border. | ||
| 90% of fentanyl in this country comes from packages that entered in this country under the de minimis standard. | ||
| They come through the ports of entry. | ||
| And so to threaten our allies and to try to bully them and to get concessions that weren't really concessions means that he has accomplished nothing, which fully underscores the fact that it's performative, it's theatrical, it's, you know, he wants to seem like he's doing something grand. | ||
| In effect, it's spooking the markets and it's creating uncertainty, which any business owner will tell you the thing that they most need is certainty so they can plan for the future. | ||
| So his trade policy is not going very well. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| And you said you think he got scared, that he was scared of the market reaction or scared that. | ||
| He pays a lot of attention to the stock market, and I think he did get spooked by the market's response to his announcements. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| You mentioned the de minimis program. | ||
| I mean, that's kind of a nerdy term. | ||
| For people who aren't familiar, it's this program that waives tariffs on low-value shipments, less than $800. | ||
| Shippers love this program, but critics say it's like a loophole for fentanyl to come into the United States in these packages and it erodes the tariffs that are on larger volume shipment. | ||
| His executive orders actually suspended de minimis for China, Canada, and Mexico. | ||
| I mean, do you approve of the action in that area at least? | ||
| Well, it's important to remember that these are temporary. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That in order for it to be permanent, Congress needs to act because that is our jurisdiction in trade. | ||
| And unless you get at the transshipment issue, which is goods that are sent to a third country and then shipped to the United States, you're not going to really get at the fentanyl issue. | ||
| It may temporarily slow things down, but it's not a permanent solution. | ||
| You really have to address the transshipment issue in the de minimis issue, and you really need a comprehensive approach to de minimis in federal law, so that's Congress's job. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Do you see Congress getting there this year? | ||
| They haven't quite been able to get across the finish line on de minimis. | ||
| That is one of the areas that I am working very hard on, and I would like to see my Republican colleagues step up and support this. | ||
| It will be interesting because I have heard not a peep out of my Republican colleagues who are typically very free trade, very anti-terrorism. | ||
| They just seem to acquiesce to what the President is doing, and I'm looking for those that are willing to stand up and assert, no, this is Congress's jurisdiction. | ||
| We need to attack this problem in a comprehensive way, and we need to do it legislatively. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Well, in terms of that, I mean, the separation of power between the Congress and the White House. | ||
| I mean, President Trump has taken us down this tariff road before in his first term, tariffs on China, tariffs on steel and aluminum. | ||
| I mean, do you think Congress should be standing up and saying, you know, we gave too much authority to the President, it's time for us to take some of that back? | ||
| I think Congress really does need to reassert its jurisdiction in that era, in that area, I should say. | ||
| And there have been attempts against Republican and Democratic administrations to try to pull back that power because giving the President unchecked power, especially given the track record that he's had these last few days, is a recipe for disaster. | ||
| We really do need Congress to step up and to reassert our jurisdiction in that area and to legislate. | ||
| That's our job. | ||
| That's who should be handling. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But I know two members of the Trade Subcommittee, I think Representative Delbemi and Representative Beyer, they have put out a bill that would basically require congressional approval of tariffs implemented under IEPA, the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. | ||
| Do you support that legislation? | ||
| Yeah, that's a bill that I've am in the process of reviewing today. | ||
| But I think they're on the right track. | ||
| I certainly think that they are on the right track. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, cool. | ||
| So we talked about this, that you're the first woman to be ranking member of the trade subcommittee. | ||
| How does Trump's action so far, how does that color what you think you're going to be doing in this job this year and next? | ||
| Well, it's really interesting because right now the Republicans control all the levers of power. | ||
| So they really set the agenda. | ||
| However, I fully believe that they are going to need Democratic support to get many bills across the finish line. | ||
| So I think it's a good time to sort of look at what is on the trade table and what do we need to address. | ||
| So I fully expect in my new role that I will be doing a lot of oversight over the administration. | ||
| I have been, Democrats, not just me and my predecessor, really have been advocating to try to get trade adjustment assistance renewed because that has expired and that is a program that helps people who have been displaced by our trade policies get retraining so that they can switch careers or burnish their skills to get other jobs. | ||
| And they have allowed that to lapse. | ||
| They've not allowed us to integrate it into any of the trade bills that we thought were moving. | ||
| We're going to start the review process for USMCA, so our agreement with Mexico and Canada. | ||
| And let's be very clear-eyed on this. | ||
| Canada and Mexico are two of our largest trading partners. | ||
| And we can't afford to just throw our weight around and try to bully them into concessions. | ||
| We are going to need them. | ||
| They are allies. | ||
| And I think we can accomplish a lot more with diplomacy than with trying to beat them over the head with a cudgel. | ||
| So review of USMCA. | ||
| AGOA. | ||
| The African Initiative needs to be renewed. | ||
| And so I will be looking to see if we can find partnership with Republicans to get that across the finish line. | ||
| Right, but on AGOA, African Growth and Opportunity Act, that basically waives tariffs on goods from sub-Saharan African countries. | ||
| And then there's this bigger program, GSP, that waives it on imports from developing countries generally. | ||
| I mean, it seems like we're in an era where people are talking about putting tariffs on rather than waiving tariffs. | ||
| I mean, do you think, is there Republican, is there bipartisan support for renewing those programs? | ||
| Well, I know that the chairman took a trade delegate, I mean, took a delegation to Africa to meet with African leaders to talk about AGOA. | ||
| And there are probably some modifications or improvements that we could make to it. | ||
| But many of the goods that come in tariff-free under AGOA are not goods that compete with U.S. businesses. | ||
| They're things like artisanal handicrafts and things like that that developing countries rely on to keep their economies afloat, but they don't really impact U.S. industry. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I wonder if you talk a little bit more about your trade philosophy. | ||
| I know you voted for the U.S.-Mexican-Canada agreement in 2020, but I believe that like on some other trade agreement issues, you've been on the other side of the fence. | ||
| I think you voted against Trade Promotion Authority and perhaps against some previous free trade agreements. | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| So how would you describe your trade philosophy? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So I think, you know, coming from the background that I come from, I'm a union member. | ||
| So I always look to our trade agreements to balance the interests of not harming our domestic industry or creating job losses for our workers here. | ||
| In many of prior trade agreements, they did not have labor standards that would allow the U.S. to compete fairly. | ||
| So I feel like I'm in a unique position to try to bridge the gap between the progressive wing of our caucus and the more free trade-centered part of our caucus in that I understand these trade issues and their impacts that we have on workers. | ||
| And like I said, I mean, trade adjustment assistance, that should be a no-brainer because that impacts all of our districts. | ||
| There are distortions and job losses in every district, blue or red, and yet Republicans have been unwilling to renew that program, which gives people an opportunity. | ||
| So I think that I can hopefully speak to both of those wings and bridge the gap and get us moving in a direction because we need to be engaged with the world economically. | ||
| China right now is eating our lunch in Africa and Latin America because we have been absent and they are stepping in to fill that void. | ||
| China is our largest economic competitor. | ||
| If we want to be competitive, we need to do more trade, but we need to do it in a way that's balanced and that, you know, it's not just an economic tool, it's also a diplomatic tool. | ||
| So we need to be more engaged in trade in the world. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I want to switch topics a little bit. | ||
| I mean, Republicans and the Trump administration are very interested in renewing the 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| And I have two questions related to that. | ||
| I mean, what do you think about extending the tax cuts, you know, generally? | ||
| And then secondly, There's this idea of using tariff revenue to help pay for some of the tax cuts, you know, even like legislating a 10% universal tariff. | ||
| What do you think about that idea? | ||
| Yeah, I think that's a terrible idea. | ||
| I think the 2017 TCJA, the Tax Against Jobs Act, was terrible. | ||
| The bulk of the benefits went to the highest income earners and to corporations who, by the way, did not ask for a 21% tax rate. | ||
| Many who came into my office would have been happy with 28 or 25. | ||
| And I'm one of the few Ways and Means members that was around in 2017 when we actually debated TCJA, and they kept saying that these tax cuts were going to pay for themselves. | ||
| They did not. | ||
| They kept saying it was going to simplify the tax code so much that you could file your tax return on a postcard. | ||
| I don't know anybody that files their tax return on a postcard these days. | ||
| And it put us in the hole trillions of dollars. | ||
| So the talk about extending them means we are going to put ourselves more into debt, something that Republicans scream about when there's a Democratic administration, but somehow when there's a Republican administration, they don't mind adding trillions to our debt. | ||
| And to use tariffs to pay for that means tariffs are going to increase the cost of goods for everyday Americans. | ||
| These are the people that voted for Trump believing that he was going to lower the price of gasoline and lower the price of eggs and lower the price of groceries. | ||
| So to extend these tax cuts, again, that are going to benefit the top income earners and to have everyday Americans who are struggling to make ends meet pay for it through increased tariffs, to me, seems completely tone deaf to what is going on with the average American family today. | ||
| So I think it's a terrible idea to extend those tax cuts without making it more balanced and without paying for it with something other than tariffs. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I mean, how would you gauge the chances of that happening, of tariffs being passed by Congress? | ||
| You know, if I had a crystal ball, I would pull it out. | ||
| I don't know what the Republicans are in a little bit of disagreement about how they're going to get this over the finish line and how they're going to pay for it. | ||
| So those are headaches that they have to deal with if they're going to try to go it alone and do it with only Republican votes. | ||
| They want to engage with Democrats. | ||
| We can talk about ways in which we can pay for it or scale it back to make it more balanced. | ||
| But that's something that they're going to have to, they're going to have to figure that out. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Well, there's so much uncertainty around trade policy. | ||
| I was hoping that you could just tell me to clarify definitively what was going to happen on that one particular issue. | ||
| Let me invest in a crystal ball and we'll work on that. | ||
| Yeah, that would be great. | ||
| And then we just have a few more minutes left, but I know that your platform states that you want to bring the Made in America label to more U.S. countries. | ||
| Could you talk about that and is there anything you're working on in Congress right now to promote that idea? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So the Made in America label still holds a lot of value overseas. | ||
| When people see products that are made in the USA, they know that there are certain standards that That they are held to before they're allowed to be manufactured or created. | ||
| And so it still is, our brand is still a very strong brand overseas. | ||
| The problem is we don't do a lot of exporting to more than one country. | ||
| And small businesses don't. | ||
| I'm going to explain this. | ||
| Small businesses might export to one country, but once you sort of have the template, you can export to other countries, right? | ||
| And one of the things that I have done in my district, I brought folks in to talk to small businesses about how to export, because again, the made-in-the-USA label holds a lot of allure for overseas consumers. | ||
| In my particular district, beauty products, because we are Los Angeles and Hollywood has a mystique, anything that's made in the USA that's beauty products-wise has huge appeal overseas. | ||
| And many of these companies, as I said, were exporting to maybe one other country, but we brought folks in from Treasury and sort of simplified the process, explained it to them so that they could be more successful in exporting to more than one country. | ||
| We are a multilingual, multicultural country. | ||
| We have the opportunity to export to many countries around the world, and yet people aren't quite there. | ||
| So try to give small businesses and medium-sized businesses the information, the resources, and the expertise that they need in order to grow and expand, create even more jobs here. | ||
| Great, great. | ||
| Well, I think that's a fabulous topic to end on. | ||
| And since we're out of time, I'll wrap up the conversation. | ||
| Thank you, Congresswoman Sanchez, for being here today. | ||
| And everybody, please stand by for our next conversation with Trade Subcommittee Chair, Representative Adrian Smith, and my political colleague, Victoria Guida. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Congressman, thanks for joining us. | ||
| Delighted to have you here on Tariff Day. | ||
| As Annie said, could not be better timing. | ||
| So, yeah, I want to jump right in. | ||
| We have some tariffs taking effect. | ||
| We have the North American tariffs still sort of in train, but delayed for a month from now. | ||
| And so my first question is, what is Congress's role here? | ||
| Well, obviously the new administration, as outlined even before the election, wanted to move on some tariffs. | ||
| And so these, I think, are to be expected. | ||
| Now, what we've seen over the last few days, you know, Canada and Mexico responded with, I would say, a posture of cooperation. | ||
| And I think that's a step in the right direction. | ||
| And I've long said I'm not a huge fan of tariffs. | ||
| I do understand they need to be a tool in the toolbox. | ||
| And I think we need to come to terms with the fact that President Trump is going to use those tools. | ||
| And this is after four years where it was really unclear what our trade policy was, even though the previous Trump administration was very active, very vigorous in terms of a trade agenda, and actually bringing people together. | ||
| And that led to USMCA and I think one of the most bipartisan trade agreements probably in history. | ||
| Yeah, you mentioned that you've not historically been a big fan of tariffs, which is true of a lot of people in your party. | ||
| We didn't really see much public pushback from Republicans in Congress to what we've seen over the last few days. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Well, it's all still very fresh as well. | ||
| And I think looking at what the response has been from Canada and Mexico shows that we'll hope for a negotiation, ultimately cooperation by our trading partners, and move forward from there, hopefully in a productive way. | ||
| So, during Trump's brief spat with Colombia, there was talk of potentially legislation to back up those tariffs. | ||
| Do you expect Congress to actually legislate on tariffs, whether it's reinforcing some of these one-off actions or something a little bit more formalized? | ||
| Well, I don't expect Congress to ultimately have the votes to just grab everything back. | ||
| And I think, however, watching the administration and hearing from the administration on a vigorous trade agenda, I think can lead to some positive results. | ||
| We saw that last time. | ||
| And I say that, again, not as a huge fan of tariffs, but a vigorous trade agenda from the previous Trump administration led to USMCA, led to a preparation of a trade agreement with Kenya, for example, that was pretty much ready to go, and then nothing was done by the Biden administration. | ||
| In fact, the Biden administration said, well, we'll talk to Kenya, but not about tariffs, even though Kenya is already in a GOA country with tariff relief. | ||
| I'm still bewildered by the fact that so little was done, but even more specifically, that we didn't engage more with Kenya on a continent that I think provides huge promise for what our needs are economically, what the opportunities can be across the continent of Africa, and then we aren't as dependent perhaps on some of our other trade partners as we have become. | ||
| Yeah, in terms of opportunities, I mean, it doesn't seem like there's much talk of expanding our exports right now. | ||
| And, you know, Nebraska, your district, agricultural trade is a key component. |