At Senate Foreign Relations hearing, Sen. Coons highlights his legislation to counter economic coercion

Hearing

U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, participated today in a hearing focused on economic statecraft and discussed his legislation to support allies facing economic coercion. That bill, the Countering Economic Coercion Act of 2022, is also led by Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.), and equips the president with new tools to reduce the impact of economic coercion by strengthening trade and commerce ties with partners on an expedited basis.

Senator Coons at Senate Foreign Relations Hearing: Thank you very much Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Risch, and our panel of witnesses. Chairman Menendez, I am very encouraged by your focus on economic coercion, your legislative leadership on this and look forward to working with you closely on it. I think you've brought a real focus in the work on this committee to not just studying or thinking about what we need to do strategically and what tools we need, but then delivering those results so that we can strengthen the hand of our partners, diplomats, development professionals, and I'm excited to work with you on your Economic Statecraft in the 21st Century Act.

I have recently introduced a bill, the Countering Economic Coercion Act, with Senator Young. I view them as complementary and I'm very hopeful that we can work together to move both of these pieces of legislation. We have both seen ways in which Russia, and China, and other states deliberately inflict economic damage, economic harm, on some of our partners and allies and countries that are at an uncertain point. They use economic power to punish or bully or influence sovereign states in our hemisphere and around the world, sometimes through informal pressure, intimidation, or threats, sometimes through formal actions. It harms our national security interests, our economy and undermines international rules. The Chairman's bill would establish an interagency task force to develop a strategy to counter economic coercion, and I enthusiastically support that, and my bill would provide the President with new tools to offer rapid and -- I would argue -- effective economic support to our partners targeted by economic coercion. For example, many of us have offered our support for Lithuania in recent months. President Biden has voiced support for Lithuania. The bill I'm trying to move forward would add tools to the president's toolkit to make such support not just in words but in deeds by targeting specific tariff reductions, by expediting decisions on relaxing import restrictions or export restrictions, offering greater flexibility for export financing.

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