Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. JONES. Mr. President, I rise because I am deeply concerned about what is happening across the country to our farmers as a result of the President's trade war with China.

Let me first say, I agree with the President 100 percent that we need fair trade deals and that we have to make sure American workers and consumers are not being taken for a ride by other countries, especially rogue countries and bad actors like China. Yet, since this trade war began last year, these tariffs are having the complete opposite effect on the people they are supposed to help. That is because tariffs are taxes, plain and simple. Tariffs are taxes, and they are being raised every day by the administration.

The President insists that tariffs force China to pay money to the U.S. Treasury, which is just not true. It is just not factually accurate at all. It is also misleading to the American people. When a tariff is placed on a Chinese good, it is the American company that is importing that product, in addition to the American consumer who ultimately buys it, that pays that additional price. It is just like adding a sales tax to any consumer good or to any commodity on which a tariff has been levied. From businesses to farmers, to consumers, these taxes are being paid for by Americans. That is not politics; that is economics.

The President thinks these tariffs will somehow punish China for its bad behavior, but it is our people who are suffering right now. Last week, we saw a report that showed that the cost of these tariffs had fallen entirely on U.S. businesses and on U.S. households. Just yesterday, China announced it is planning on retaliating, once again, with increased tariffs on $60 billion worth of American-made goods, which sent the stock market into a tailspin.

Unemployment is incredibly low today, and the economy is doing well today, but across the country, there are so many people who don't always feel the effects of that booming economy. Yes, they have jobs, but they also have families, healthcare costs, and other costs, so they don't always feel the economy is doing as well for them as it is for others whom they see on the news, on TV, and in Washington, DC. Working folks aren't going to feel the true benefits from this economic growth and from the tax cuts of 2017 if they are paying higher taxes on the products they are buying every single day.

Just yesterday, the President was talking about the tariffs and feeling a little bit of pain but about how great a deal this is going to be and how our government will be happy. The President said: ``[O]ur government is happy because we're taking in tens of billions of dollars.'' Yet that money is being brought into the Treasury on the backs of working people--hard-working American taxpayers. It is not the Chinese companies; it is not the Chinese people; it is not the Mexican people; and it is not the Canadian people. It is the American public that is paying that money into the U.S. Treasury.

Tariffs are taxes, and we are all going to pay because of this trade war. Call them whatever you want, but that is the effect they are going to have on the wallets of American taxpayers. Even the President's own economic advisers admitted this week that it will be the Americans who will suffer as a result of this trade war, with the increased taxes being placed on them every day through the consumer goods they are purchasing.

In Alabama, our farmers, in particular, are hurting, and that is an understatement. Tariffs are affecting a cross-section of our manufacturing workforce. It has our automobile dealers concerned because of the threat of foreign automobile tariffs. Yet, even in the best of times, it is the farmers who are at the most risk. Farming is a risky business, and their margins are very tight. Many farmers in Alabama have already suffered devastating losses from natural disasters, like Hurricane Michael. Quite frankly, they are suffering another congressional disaster right now--in the words of my colleague and friend Senator Isakson from Georgia--because we can't put politics aside quickly enough to get disaster aid to farmers in the South, to folks who have suffered from flooding, or to folks who have suffered from wildfires. We can't do this because of politics, so now they are suffering. The farmers whom I visited back in South Alabama after Hurricane Michael are suffering now from the congressional disaster.

The last thing in the world they need is another administration disaster that is being manufactured because of the Chinese tariffs on their crops. In particular, soybeans are being hit. Soybean farming supports more than 11,000 jobs in Alabama, but soybean prices are at the lowest they have been in a decade. You can see from this chart how they started up. It was over $10 just in April of 2018--over $10. Now it is just above $8, and it is continuing to slide. The longer this goes on, the more it hurts.

Cotton farmers have been hit. Cotton has had an almost 25-percent reduction in the market price since these tariffs took effect. We have record low unemployment in the country right now; yet we have a growing number of bankruptcies in farm country. I was looking at reports just today that showed the rise in the number of bankruptcies, the point being that these are hitting people now.

We all want a great deal. We all want to make sure the President gets a good deal for the American public, for the American consumer, but this is hurting people right now, and they will not be able to recover if this does not end soon. Unless the President can reach a deal soon, we can expect prices to continue to deteriorate and for the economic conditions in farm country to get even worse, which will put in jeopardy generations of farmers who may get run out of business.

This is a dire situation. I am not trying to just light fire somewhere. This is really serious for these folks. You only have to watch the news every day. These are people who have supported the President of the United States and who voted for the President of the United States. They want a good deal, and they want a fair deal, but this has been going on for a long time, and there does not seem to be any end in sight. Many of my State's farmers--probably most of my State's farmers--support the President, as do others around the country. They have had his back over the last 2 or 3 years, even during the campaign. Yet, in return, these trade policies have taken money out of their pockets.

When this first started over a year ago, they believed they would get a good deal soon. They believed they could get crops in the field, that they could get their loans paid, and that they could recover from the disasters that had hit them, but it has just dragged on and on. Every time we see a new round of tweets or a new press conference, we talk about what a great deal this is going to be. Yet, when you look behind the curtain, everything is different, and the trade war goes on and on and on.

I fear he is not listening to these farmers or to the Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle--like our Finance chairman--who are telling him that these policies are hurting farmers, that they are devastating farmers. I am not sure how much longer they can hang on in this trade war. Many will. Many can hang on. Yet others cannot. Whether the next generation of farmers will take up the mantle of farming remains to be seen.

This is one reason I am introducing a bill today to update the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, which was originally created by my colleague Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, to provide help for farmers and producers who have been hurt by these retaliatory tariffs. TAA was originally created to help provide assistance to workers who were impacted by trade, but it was updated in 2002 to include assistance to growers, producers, and fishermen. This bill that I introduce today, as well as a companion bill that has been introduced in the House, would, once again, update the program to help folks who are hurting because of trade actions that have been carried out by our government--not by another government but by ours.

Look, the fact is, no matter how many legislative stopgaps my colleagues and I propose or bailouts the President offers, the massive losses from which farmers and producers suffer are not going to end until the President calls off this trade war.

We all want better trade deals, and farmers want access to global markets. China has, without a doubt, been a bad actor on many trade issues--a rogue country on trade issues. We should be working with our allies in Europe and elsewhere to hold China accountable. Instead, the administration has decided to go it alone. We are picking fights with friends over our own trade issues with them rather than working through diplomacy to try to work those deals. We are picking fights with them, and we are going it alone against China when we so desperately need our friends to help us. China is a growing concern around the world, and we need global partners to help us with our trade issues to try to make sure the global economy stays stable.

I will be absolutely thrilled if the President of the United States negotiates a great deal. I hope he negotiates the best deal ever--the one that he says he is going to negotiate. I hope and pray we get that great deal and that we can do a trade deal with China that is fair and better for America than it has ever been in the history of this country. For all of our sakes, I hope it happens. I really do. This is not a partisan issue. This is about where we are as a country. I hope for the best for him, but, right now, these tariffs are having the opposite effect, and it is hurting so many people.

What many of us fear is going to happen in the cynical world we live in today--and we all get caught up in it, including Members of this body--is that when the President finally wakes up and realizes he has done irreparable harm and irreparable damage to so many of his own supporters with these tariffs and when he wakes up and approaches 2020 and understands that his support may be eroding among those who form the core backbone of his support, he will scramble to make a deal regardless of whether it will be a good deal or not but a deal nonetheless and regardless of whether America will come out on top.

When all is said and done, we can claim victory, but it may be a very hollow victory because, in going forward, we may have a little bit better deal or we may have a much better deal, but it will not change what is happening today or what has happened over the last year. Even if a deal is struck, we have already lost.

Farmers will still have to be digging themselves out of this financial hole for a very long time. Many will have to declare bankruptcy and lose their farms because they couldn't wait out the President's trade gamble and his tough talk.

To mitigate the tariffs' harmful impacts, the administration is providing some aid to help farmers who are struggling as a result of the trade war. They did so last year, and they need it, but those government bailouts--and that is what they are, they are bailouts--are being paid by other American taxpayers in order to alleviate the pain inflicted by the administration's policies.

That is right. Working families across the country are being asked to step up. We do those things. We are charitable people. If somebody is in pain, we want to do that and help, but when the pain is being caused by the very person who is causing us to then step up, that makes no sense.

Folks, these handouts will not come close to making up for the losses these farmers have suffered, and it is sure not a long-term solution for a healthy trade market.

The biggest problem for these farmers is that they don't want handouts. They don't want government subsidies. They don't want handouts to them for the problems they are facing because of these trade policies. They want their markets. They want to go to China. They want to go to places around the world and share their products. They are proud of their products. We should be proud of those products.

We should not be just simply telling farmers: Do not worry because we will pay for you to grow your product. We are not worried about your markets because we will buy your soybeans. We will buy the cotton. We will buy those things if China doesn't do it. That is not what these farmers want. They don't want that charity. They want their markets. They work hard for those markets.

So how much more can our farmers take? How much more? How long can they go on like this? At what point will they be forced to cut their losses and find another way to support their families while we negotiate with China, while we tweet the fact that a good deal is coming?

At what point will Members of this body and the House of Representatives who ignore the math and the suffering of their constituents--at what point will those in this body and the House of Representatives who ignore the suffering of their constituents by supporting these harmful trade policies, at what point do they stand up?

There are so many people I have talked to who do not support these trade policies, but yet they are silent, and they say: Give the President time. He is going to get a good deal.

At what point does it come where they recognize the suffering of the farmers of the United States and my State of Alabama? At what point do they finally stand up and say enough is enough?

Over the years, the Congress of the United States has ceded a lot of authority to the executive branch of government, and now it is coming home to roost. We can't do much of anything except give speeches like this. We can try to introduce bills that probably will never get to the Senate floor. We can go home and listen to the pain, listen to the suffering, listen to people who so badly want to support the President and what he is doing, as all of us do for these new trade deals, but the fact is, we have ceded so much power to the executive branch of government. It is time for Congress to stand up. It is time for people to speak out to help their farmers, to let the administration know that this cannot go on much longer. We have to stand up and stop this pain as quickly as we can.

We can do it. The President can do it. He has smart people surrounding him. They need to explain to him again that these tariffs are being paid by the American people, not another country. Let's get this negotiated, and let's stop the bleeding for the American farmer as soon as we possibly can. ______

By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Whitehouse, Ms. Klobuchar, Ms. Harris, and Mr. Booker):

S. 1469. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit interfering in elections with agents of a foreign government; to the Committee on the Judiciary.

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