CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Rob Portman

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

[10:16:15] KEILAR: President Trump heads to Canada tomorrow for the G-7 summit where he will likely get a chilly reception from leaders now that he's hit several allies with steel and aluminum tariffs.

Joining me now is Republican Senator Rob Portman, he is from Ohio, and he's also a member of the Foreign Relations and the Finance Committees.

Thanks for being with us, Senator.

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R), OHIO: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: So representing Ohio, this is a state with considerable industrial interests, of course. You have warned that these tariffs could spiral out of control. You also see the goal of the president, you think that maybe the goal at least is well intentioned. But what do you see that goal being?

PORTMAN: I think you said it well, I think the goal in the case with Canada is to get an agreement on the North American Free Trade Agreement and I think, you know, frankly it could be helpful to say, you know, unless we get an agreement, we're going to have to put these tariffs in place. On the other hand, if both sides escalate and increase tariffs as seems to be happening, you could end up with two situations, one, no agreement in the end because both sides are in conflict, and you know, for Ohio consumers and for Ohio exporters, a bad deal.

Canada is our biggest trading partner in Ohio, it's our biggest trading partner nationally, by the way. We send about half of our exports to just two countries, Canada and Mexico. And by the way, as a country, we send more steel to Canada than they send to us, clearly but we send a little bit more, so Canada has not been viewed as one of those countries that's cheating or using unfair trade practices with regard to steel or aluminum. And so I think we need to be careful.

KEILAR: Is there a better way to try to get a better NAFTA deal than the way the president is doing it?

PORTMAN: Well, I think it's tough negotiations. Look, the Canadians have some protectionist policies in place, definitely should be addressed. One would be dairy, which is a concern around the country, but specifically in Ohio. They have other nontariff barriers in place. So there are things that we'd like to see changed and there are things they'd like to see changed on our side. And that's what the negotiation is about.

And I think you can say, you know, unless we can achieve this negotiated product here, which would be a final North American Free Trade Agreement, you know, that there will be negative consequences. But the problem with this approach is I think you're seeing an escalation that may result in both higher tariffs, which is bad for our exporters or farmers or service providers, our factory workers, but also bad for consumer because you're going to see tariffs or taxes going up on both sides.

KEILAR: I know being on the Foreign Relations Committee you have an eye trained on what's going on with North Korea. Listen to what the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

KEILAR: This isn't even Rudy Giuliani's wheel house of what he's supposed to be doing. Is this helpful? Is this unhelpful?

PORTMAN: I don't know that it has much impact one way or the other but I do think --

KEILAR: Really?

PORTMAN: Well, look, I think there is a lot being said on both sides if you look at the rhetoric from the North Koreans, similarly bombastic at times. But I think the point here is direct talks are a good idea. I have felt this most acutely since I worked so hard on trying to get this young man, Otto Warmbier, back from Korea and he end up coming back from North Korea in a vegetative state and had been for about 16 months. They refused to tell us because we had no direct diplomacy with him.

[10:20:02] So with regard to the nuclear program and other issues including human rights, we need to have direct negotiations, direct talks, they need to be frank, and they need to be productive and I hope this one will be. So I support the summit. And I think it's overdue.

KEILAR: You are unveiling a report from Senate Republicans, just to be clear, this is a majority report, but what it found was that following the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the Obama administration tried to give Iran access to the U.S. financial system. They were converting millions of dollars worth of rials to euros and the easiest way to do that, the best way to do it is to go through the U.S. dollar because that's what the currency is tied to.

So they were trying to give them access to do that. And in the end, banks actually refused to do this and the Obama administration was not telling Congress they were doing this and certainly Republicans feel very much that the administration wasn't being honest with them.

What's the objective of your report here?

PORTMAN: By the way it's not just Republicans, the State Department itself at the time said that it was outside the scope of the agreement. So I think you have stated it very well objectively speaking, they misled Congress and misled the American people. And the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is an oversight body. So it's our job to expose those kinds of misleading statements and in this case misleading testimony, and the report also, of course, lays out legislative solutions.

One is transparency. In other words, in the future, whether it's another Iran agreement, which I hope we will have another one in the future, I hope we have a better one, whether it's an agreement with North Korea, which I hope we will end up with at some point following this summit, we need to be sure that Congress and the American people are told. In this case we were told that there was going to be no access to the U.S. financial system because as you recall, the primary sanctions stayed in place with regard to Iran. Only the secondary sanctions for other countries to do were opened up.

And while they were saying that there was no access to the financial system, they were actually providing a license, a specific license to Iran to be able to convert these rials in Oman to dollars and eventually to euros. So I think it's important to have that oversight.

KEILAR: As the administration leaves this deal, obviously Republicans don't like the deal. They're making the case certainly why leaving the deal was the right thing to do. But that said, how are you making the case for keeping Americans safe? Especially as we just heard here in recent days the ayatollah saying that they're going to enrich -- he's ordering an upgrade in uranium enrichment.

PORTMAN: Well, there are several problems that I've had with the agreement all along. And as you know, a majority of the United States Senate, a bipartisan majority, voted against the agreement. It wasn't adequate because you had to have a two-thirds vote under the rules that we had. Normally if it's a treaty, the other way around. You have to get a two-thirds vote to support it. But President Obama chose not to pursue a treaty, instead he did something by executive action, which gave President Trump the ability to change it obviously.

KEILAR: But can you -- but can you answer the question, Senator, about just at this point in time, I mean, this is where we are. What about keeping America safe, as you have the ayatollah ordering more enrichment?

PORTMAN: Well, again, the reason, many are supposing, is we didn't think it kept America safe. You know, it does have certain restrictions, but it does allow them to be able to enrich within the 15-year period, now within less, you know, 12-year period, so it frankly gives them a path to be able to not just enrich but move ahead with their nuclear weapons program, but it didn't do anything with regard to the other issue. And this is where I think there was a -- not just a grave mistake, but we have seen over the last few years what's happened.

So, look what's happening in Syria, look what's happening with Hezbollah, look what's happening with the number one state sponsored terrorist in the world, none of that was pushed back. In fact instead billions of dollars were given to the regime to support that. So it's further destabilized the region. Since the agreement, look what's happened in Yemen as an example. So, you know, we have put ourselves on a track where the Middle East has become more dangerous as a result of the agreement in my view.

It means of course that we need to have a new agreement and we need to get the Europeans and others to work with us on that. And that's what I support.

KEILAR: All right. Senator Portman, thank you so much.

PORTMAN: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source