During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) spoke of his support for President Trump’s trade policies.
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00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman. Ambassador Greer thank you for your time today. Sincerely
00:05appreciate you coming down to answer questions during this week. I know your
00:08time is busy. I want you to know that I support President Trump's effort to
00:13achieve trade reciprocity and equal treatment for the United States on the
00:17world economic stage with those countries that are strategically aligned
00:21with the U.S. As a short-term negotiation strategy I am hopeful that the current
00:27tactics of the administration will restore trade disparities and imbalances
00:31around the world to induce our friends and allies around the world to reduce or
00:35eliminate their tariffs on the U.S. and eliminate anti-American non-tariff trade
00:40barriers like quotas subsidies sanctions unreasonable regulatory restrictions that
00:45are there on against and on American products not to mention currency
00:49manipulation and intellectual property theft issues if President Trump is able to
00:54achieve this worthy reset it will have a material long-term benefit for the
00:59American economy and the American worker I'm confident about that I'm confident
01:04that his strong leadership can achieve these results using this tool but I do
01:08think it's also important for you to hear from me that I urge caution and
01:12express my hesitation on the use of tariffs as a long-term economic strategy
01:17rather than a short-term negotiation strategy in my opinion for your trade
01:21practices traditionally have helped spur economic growth technology innovation
01:27and cooperation of economies free trade also helps to keep consumer prices lower
01:33in my opinion I want to come back to and visit this idea of China because I
01:39think China really is the big problem here when we're looking out on the world
01:43stage I was glad to see that we even went up today from 104 to 125 percent on the
01:48tariffs according to the the tweet that was put out just a little bit ago and China
01:52I think needs to be our our focus on where we where we put our efforts in the
01:58next few few months the de minimis rule is $800 or was before the recent
02:04executive order I want the American people to understand I would love for you to
02:07explain how the China friendly de minimis rule was helping China companies
02:12undercut American companies before the president's April 2nd executive order went into
02:17place certainly so just to lay it out the de minimis exemption is it's a
02:24provision of law that allows goods to come in if they're valued under $800 they
02:29can come in duty-free and we have a lot of Chinese companies that have leveraged
02:34this to avoid tariffs right we have high tariffs on China for very good reasons
02:38and they have used this this law to bring in these goods we have also heard that
02:44this has been used because there's little scrutiny of these packages they
02:48can be used to include you know illicit substances counterfeit products things
02:53that harm you know u.s. u.s. people but also u.s. companies and so it's been a
02:58loophole and so that's one of the reasons why I know there's been bipartisan
03:03movement Congress to deal with it why the president was comfortable moving
03:06forward with that as well yeah and I think the American people don't realize
03:10what a big loophole that has been over the past four years and how devastating
03:14that has been to a number of American businesses to have China unfairly
03:18compete under that de minimis rule so I applaud the president including that in
03:22his executive order and I hope we eliminate that altogether moving forward I
03:26also want to talk to you about the fact that China is involved in a worldwide
03:30illegal and unregulated fishing around the world is the is the president's team is
03:35the administration looking at helping to stop the illegal and unregulated fishing
03:40that's occurring across the globe by China yes that's you know I have an office at
03:47at USTR that deals with environmental type issues and they're very focused on
03:51this particular issue of fishing it's something we're looking at we're working
03:55you know there are folks in the Senate too are very concerned about this you
03:58know we currently have now tariffs on China so that at least creates a
04:01deterrent from having that in our market but it's a broader issue that we
04:05should deal with yeah it not only hurts American fishing but it actually
04:09undercuts particularly the global south from being able to have a revival of
04:14their economies in their fishing waters which makes them more dependent on China
04:20as they as China comes in and invades effectively the global south as you know
04:25the US moving on to a different topic the US has now imposed as of today 125%
04:31important tariff on China China hasn't indicated that they're really willing to
04:36come to the table yet I was glad to see that all these other countries have come
04:40to the table I think that's because of the strength the president's leadership is
04:43showing across the world stage that he means business that we're gonna have a
04:47reset where American businesses are not taking advantage of but what is the
04:51administration planning to do to make China come to the table and actually
04:55engage in free freer trade or fairer trade and cut out these unfair trade
05:00practices well China doesn't believe in in in free trade or fair trade for that
05:05matter you know we had an agreement with them under Trump one and they started to
05:09comply with some of that and the Biden administration there was no enforcement
05:12and to some degree they've chosen their own path and when they're ready and
05:16when they want to talk about how to you know have a better approach
05:19obviously we always have an open door ambassador again I applaud the
05:23president's efforts particularly as it regards China to push hard on China
05:28already and to make them understand that we are not going to lay over and let
05:31them run this world that the United States is going to reset the economic
05:36stage thank you and you'll bet