Hearing on U.S. Trade Policy Agenda ________________________________________ HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ________________________ MARCH 21, 2018 __________________ Serial No. 115-FC08 __________________ COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS KEVIN BRADY, Texas, Chairman SAM JOHNSON, Texas RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts DEVIN NUNES, California SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington JOHN LEWIS, Georgia PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas VERN BUCHANAN, Florida MIKE THOMPSON, California ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut LYNN JENKINS, Kansas EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota RON KIND, Wisconsin KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey DIANE BLACK, Tennessee JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York TOM REED, New York DANNY DAVIS, Illinois MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania LINDA SÁNCHEZ, California JIM RENACCI, Ohio BRIAN HIGGINS, New York PAT MEEHAN, Pennsylvania TERRI SEWELL, Alabama KRISTI NOEM, South Dakota SUZAN DELBENE, Washington GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina JUDY CHU, California JASON SMITH, Missouri TOM RICE, South Carolina DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana CARLOS CURBELO, Florida MIKE BISHOP, Michigan DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois DAVID STEWART, Staff Director BRANDON CASEY, Minority Chief Counsel _________________________ Hearing on U.S. Trade Policy Agenda U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Washington, D.C. ____________________________________ WITNESS The Honorable Robert E. Lighthizer Ambassador, United States Trade Representative Witness Statement ___________________ Hearing on U.S. Trade Policy Agenda House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) announced today that the Committee will hold a hearing on the U.S. trade policy agenda with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, March 21, 2018 in 1100 Longworth House Office Building, beginning at 10:00 AM. In view of the limited time to hear the witness, oral testimony at this hearing will be from the invited witness only. However, any individual or organization may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing. DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS: Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit written comments for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing page of the Committee website and complete the informational forms. From the Committee homepage, http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select “Hearings.” Select the hearing for which you would like to make a submission, and click on the link entitled, “Click here to provide a submission for the record.” Once you have followed the online instructions, submit all requested information. ATTACH your submission as a Word document, in compliance with the formatting requirements listed below, by the close of business on Wednesday, April 4, 2018. For questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call (202) 225-3625. FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS: The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to format it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the Committee by a witness, any materials submitted for the printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee. All submissions and supplementary materials must be submitted in a single document via email, provided in Word format and must not exceed a total of 10 pages. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears. The name, company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness must be included in the body of the email. Please exclude any personal identifiable information in the attached submission. Failure to follow the formatting requirements may result in the exclusion of a submission. All submissions for the record are final. The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days’ notice is requested). Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as noted above. Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available at http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov/ U.S. TRADE POLICY AGENDA Wednesday, March 21, 2018 House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Kevin Brady [chairman of the committee] presiding. Chairman Brady. Good morning. The committee will come to order. Before we get started this morning I just wanted to take a moment to express my sincerest condolences on the passing last week of our friend and colleague, Representative Louise Slaughter. She was truly an institution within this body, and her candor, intelligence, her humor, and her passion will be deeply missed. Today our committee is honored to welcome back U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to testify on President Trump's trade policy agenda. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. Our country was born because of trade. We have led the world in commerce and trade for the last century. Trade is part of everything we do as Americans. The freedom to trade is our greatest economic freedom. So freedom to buy, sell, and compete anywhere in the world with as little government interference as possible. Through trade America has built roads and bridges, towns and cities. We have brought peace, freedom, and hope to our people and the nations of the world. At this moment we stand at a crossroads. If we stand still or worse take the path of isolationism we will abandon our greatest freedom in the very DNA of what makes us Americans. There is a better path. We are already seeing benefits from the historic tax cuts that President Trump just signed into law, which is increasing America's competitiveness and making us the best place on the planet to do business in. Our trade policy must build on that growth. In the competitive world it is not enough to merely buy American, we have to sell American to billions of customers outside America. That is how we help our local businesses and farmers create American jobs and spur American economic growth. Mr. Ambassador, America must continue to lead. And we lead and Americans win when we open up markets for our products and services through high standard, ambitious and enforceable trade agreements. This has to be our top priority. If we don't break open new markets through trade agreements with countries like Japan, the U.K., and the Trans-Pacific Partnership 11 we will be left behind. China and Europe will write the rules, and they will cut American producers and workers out of other markets. We can't wait any longer while others pass us by. I strongly support President Trump's request for TPA renewal. I look forward to your report showing how you will use it to negotiate agreements that are consistent with congressional objectives and good for America as you have set out to do, Mr. Ambassador. I am pleased with your progress to modernize NAFTA, the largest and most successful trading relationship in the world. U.S. Trade Representatives' office and you, Ambassador, your team have worked tirelessly to achieve bold and ambitious standards. I am hopeful we will be able to vote on and pass a new modern NAFTA for America by year end. That said, the road ahead isn't easy. Congress wants strong protections for intellectual property, increased market access for our dairy farmers and an end to Canada and Mexico's harshly restrictive customs barriers, such as unreasonably low de minimis levels. We need workable solutions on rules of origin and procurement that recognize how Americans benefit from global supply chains, otherwise we lose out to China. I also caution that any agreement without a binding dispute settlement, including investor state dispute settlement, won't find sufficient support in Congress. Congress explicitly set out this requirement in TPA knowing it is the only way to hold trading partners accountable to make sure that strong agreement you negotiate, Mr. Ambassador, our trading partners will be held accountable. America must also lead on China. China's chronic oversupply in steel and aluminum has put many Americans out of work and companies out of business. It is a blatant theft of our company's technology and intellectual property, and it can't be tolerated. I believe strong enforcement is needed, and I appreciate President Trump's leadership on holding China accountable. But we can't do this alone. If we hurt our allies America will ultimately lose. Our challenge -- every President's challenge is to target remedies to address true national security risk to eliminate unfair trade and take into account our entire economy. The wrong remedy puts significant American jobs at risk. We have to make sure we don't punish American families and workers for China's misbehaviors. Often times indiscriminate tariffs are not the right approach, and before the administration puts those in place it also should provide a strong opportunity for public comments so the effect of these tariffs on our economy can be properly assessed.