At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) spoke about tariffs.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. DeBar. And just to clarify for the record, members of this
00:03committee will not be required to run an Ironman. You are encouraged to run an
00:13Ironman if you feel so inspired, but you will be enabled. I climbed Mount Fuji,
00:20but I was 19. I have my past staff behind me. I tried to encourage them to do a
00:27half Ironman when I was a DOE, and I got some significant HR pushback on pressuring
00:34them. Understandably. And I will say on the Republican side of the aisle, two of
00:42our members, Mark Wayne Mullen and Dave McCormick, are both former very
00:48accomplished wrestlers, and more than a few of us have been trying to arrange a cage
00:52match which we think would sell a lot of tickets. We have been unsuccessful in
00:56scheduling that, but hope springs eternal. Senator Sheehy just would shoot them both,
01:01so it's all a difference in perspective. All right, to the work at hand. Mr. DeBar,
01:08your experience at the Department of Energy, your two-decade career in
01:11financial management, your success as the founder of a quantum technology company,
01:16all of that makes you very well qualified for this position. Tell us, why do you
01:20want to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce? As I mentioned, Senator, this is an
01:26exciting time for the scope. Obviously trade, as was mentioned by both you and the
01:31ranking members, obviously front and center. I have a significant amount of
01:34background of that in the private sector. And the bureaus that are primarily
01:39science and technology, NOAA, BIS, the Patent Office, the CHIPS Act, those and
01:47others, NTIA, are primarily science and technology efforts. And obviously I have a
01:53great background in it, but I'm also very passionate about each and every one of
01:57those areas. So as you and I discussed in my office yesterday, the president and
02:03this administration has two paths before it. One path that I think is very, very
02:07positive, one path that I think is very, very negative. The positive path, I think
02:11President Trump right now has extraordinary leverage, unprecedented
02:15leverage to negotiate lower tariffs from our trading partners in exchange for
02:20lowering the tariffs that he has threatened to impose on them. I think if
02:24we end up 30, 60, 90 days from now in a world where we've got markedly lower
02:29tariffs across the globe, that would be an historic victory for Americans, for
02:35American jobs, for American workers. On the other hand, the second path we could go
02:41down is a path that maintains very high tariffs in perpetuity, American tariffs on
02:50all of our trading partners, and we can expect retaliatory tariffs from our trading
02:54partners. I believe that would be a very bad path. I believe that would be a path
02:59that would hurt Texas and would hurt America. What is your view? Which path is
03:04is preferable for the administration to take?
03:08So the president has been very clear on support of the president's positions on
03:13the different drivers of trade and the different potential accomplishments of
03:18trade. One of them may be to drive down barriers and tariffs, non-tariffs and
03:22non-tariff barriers in our trading counterparties. Another one is to
03:28re-industrialize the U.S. as we lost significant amount of jobs, especially since the
03:32WTO acquisition of the PRC drove down industrial jobs. The third one is
03:40national security. I think yourself and many others here talk about the national
03:44security impact of the trade deficits. And the last one is potentially revenues. I am
03:50not certain of the exact negotiations between various parties, but I could
03:56certainly see that some negotiations may be more focused on accomplishment of one or
04:02two of those, and some might be others. For example, I've testified many times
04:08before the Senate about China and national security issues, and I certainly think that
04:12when we talk about the PRC, national security and re-industrialization is going to be much
04:19more focused as a likely outcome of negotiations.
04:23I recognize you will not be the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to the
04:29president's trade policy, but you will be one of the voices in the room, and it is my
04:32hope that you will be a voice in the room advocating for using these tariffs as
04:37leverage to secure freer and fairer trade, because I think that's the right
04:42direction for the administration to go. Let me shift to a different topic. One of
04:47the Department of Commerce's most consequential responsibilities is the
04:50allocation and management of spectrum through the NTIA. Last year, Leader Thune,
04:56Senator Blackburn and I introduced a bill to restore the FCC's authority and establish
05:01a clear actionable spectrum pipeline, one that empowers commercial businesses to
05:06invest, innovate, and create jobs. We now have the opportunity to advance a
05:11pipeline through reconciliation, which will not only bring in significant funding
05:16to the Treasury, but will also help unleash American prosperity through market
05:21innovation and investment. Notably, the bill does not constrain the various parties in determining
05:30how to meet the goals of the pipeline. It provides instead a framework for success.
05:36It also enhances our national security, as any agency that becomes more efficient in
05:41its use of Spectrum will receive significant funding. The NTIA will play a lead role as the
05:47federal government's Spectrum Management Agency. Do you agree that it is important
05:52for the federal government to make additional spectrum available for commercial use, and that
05:57this can be done without compromising national security?
06:00Yes, Senator.
06:02Tell this committee what the benefits are of making additional spectrum available for private
06:08development.
06:09So there's two in particular, Mr. Chairman, that I would highlight. One is satellite 5G,
06:17which is still very early stage. And then one that I'm particularly interested in focusing
06:22on, if I'm so lucky to be confirmed, is on satellite 6G, where the U.S. needs to jump forward as
06:30a next competitive battlefield with a PRC. So the utilization of Spectrum to not only get
06:35to 5G satellite, but also get to 6G satellite, which hopefully by the end of my term, if I'm
06:42so lucky to be confirmed, that we will be moving forward on that and showing leadership on that
06:47over the PRC.
06:48I very much agree that it is critical that America win the race for 5G and for 6G and
06:54that we not fall behind China. And if we find ourselves in a world where China and Huawei
07:00Huawei in particular has provided the global architecture for telecommunications worldwide,
07:07that would do enormous damage both to our economic security and our national security. And I trust
07:12you we'll work hard in this new role to prevent that from happening.
07:16Ranking Member K.