IN SPEECH TO AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE, BROWN TOUTS BUY AMERICA & TRADE WINS

Press Release

Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) spoke to the American Iron and Steel Institute about the strongest-ever Buy America requirements he secured in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan, and the changes in U.S. trade policy under President Biden that will support steel jobs in Ohio and around the country, including the US-EU agreement announced this weekend.

The Buy America requirements will ensure all federally funded infrastructure projects use American-made steel. The legislation will close loopholes and make certain that steel for infrastructure investments are made with steel melted and poured in America, made by American workers. Brown also spoke about the Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act, which he and Sen. Portman (R-OH) introduced earlier this year to strengthen U.S. trade remedy laws and ensure they remain effective tools to fight back against unfair trade practices and protect American workers.

Sen. Brown's remarks as prepared for delivery are available below:

With President Biden, right now we have the most pro-steel, pro-steelworker government in a generation.

Just this weekend, the Biden Administration secured an agreement on steel with the European Union that will work to address China's steel overcapacity problem.

And they brokered this agreement in direct consultation with the Steelworkers and with American steel companies.

Of course the work isn't over -- this is a first step, and we must monitor compliance over the next two years. But for the first time in a long time, I'm optimistic.

This is a president and an Administration that understand not just the importance of American industry, but the importance of direct investments in the entire supply chain -- and having those supply chains in America.

The president is about to sign into law what no recent president has been able to do for American steel: historic investments in infrastructure, with the strongest Buy America laws in our nation's history.

And when I talk about Buy America, I don't mean, "import a steel slab from China or Russia, make it into a pipe, and call it American-made."

Every bridge, every project is going to use American iron and steel, melted and poured in America.

You all know what this means for your companies, and for the entire supply chain. You know what it means for steelworkers' jobs. And you know how long we've worked for this.

Since I came to the Senate, I've always tried to add Buy America provisions to every bill possible. And together, we've always had to wage these fights bill by bill, year after year.

That's why I wrote the Build America, Buy America Act in 2017, and re-introduced it this Congress with Senator Portman and Congressman Tim Ryan-- to apply Buy America standards throughout the entire supply chain, to all taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects.

We were hoping for a dramatic investment in American infrastructure. Of course we know that didn't happen back then.

Now, this year with President Biden, we're finally getting it done.

I was hoping that by the time I spoke to you tonight the president would have signed it into law. I'm confident that's going to happen in the next few weeks.

And for the first time, we're seeing consistency on this issue across the federal government.

The deal the Biden Administration announced will require EU steel that comes into the U.S. duty free to be melted and poured in the EU.

The deal also includes a climate component. America already makes the cleanest steel in the world -- this is good news for your industry, and for the investments we're making in net zero emission steel production.

Over the past couple of months, I've been to suppliers across the state -- I saw Lourenco Goncalves at Cleveland-Cliffs in Toledo in September. They are running one of the cleanest steel mills in the country.

We are going to bring more business to those mills -- and to your companies all over the country. We worked to make sure that our Bridge Investment Act was in the infrastructure plan -- that provision alone means we have the potential for hundreds of bridge repair projects, just in Ohio.

And the bipartisan infrastructure bill is going to work in tandem with the Build Back Better bill we are also going to pass in the next few weeks.

We are securing domestic content requirements in clean energy grants, so that wind turbines are made with American steel.

We have an opportunity to build entirely new, U.S.-based supply chains, with the investments we're making in renewable energy projects and EVs, combined with these Buy America requirements.

I think about places like the Mahoning Valley -- a place central to U.S. steel production, with one of the proudest manufacturing and auto heritages in the country.

Ohioans there have been hit over and over by bad trade policy and bad tax policy. Today, we have the potential for rebirth.

Ohio can lead the world and lead the country -- making autos, making batteries, making engines, and pouring the steel that's going to go into all of those parts.

And for the first time in my career, I'm optimistic that our country isn't going to turn around and undermine all these investments with bad trade deals.

With President Biden, we are seeing a dramatic change in U.S. trade policy.

I know you'll hear from Ambassador Tai tomorrow. She is already proving to be the best U.S. Trade Rep in decades.

For all his bluster on China, President Trump did nothing to actually change their government's behavior. He alienated our allies instead of working with them to address China's chronic state-subsidized steel overcapacity.

Your industry knows how that hurts U.S. jobs and businesses all too well. They're doing the same in the solar sector.

This agreement with the EU is just the beginning.

We need real WTO reform. China has turned the WTO and the dispute settlement process into another tool to bully its competitors.

We need to actually force policy concessions from China. And we need stronger tools -- domestically and internationally -- to hold them accountable when they cheat and bend the rules to their advantage.

I worked with Senator Portman to pass the landmark 2015 overhaul of our trade remedy laws, the Leveling the Playing Field Act.

It gave U.S. companies new tools to fight back against unfair trade practices. And it delivered results -- it allowed businesses like Whirlpool to seek relief from unfair foreign competition at the International Trade Commission.

This year, Senator Portman and I teamed up again to introduce Leveling the Playing Field 2.0.

It would help us tackle China's cross-border subsidies, helping us crack down on repeat offenders and serial cheaters, by establishing the new concept of "successive investigations."

We know our competition hasn't stopped coming up with new ways to skirt the rules and distort the global market to benefit their own companies.

Our trade laws must keep up. We can't have rules from the Hoover Administration tackling 21st century trade problems.

We know these changes will take time to yield results. This country has sacrificed your industry, and the communities and workers it supports, on the altar of globalization for so long.

We were often out there on our own. It seemed like no one in this town would take these issues seriously. The years of work we've done together -- building support for Buy America, for leveling the playing field, for making the dispute settlement process effective -- all of that work is finally paying off.

And it's going to make a difference in people's lives. The steelworkers I talk to in Ohio are optimistic about what this means for their jobs and their wages -- instead of being afraid of closures, they're excited for expansion in net zero carbon emission steel.

Fundamentally, this is what happens when we have a president and a government on the side of workers, and on the side of American industry.

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