Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, China is no doubt a Communist country. It also has the largest population on Earth, which means it has the largest consumer market on Earth. It is a growing economy, although it has had a significant slowdown in the previous couple of years. It is a $400 billion market for the United States currently, in our trade, and it is a significant place of trade when dealing with agriculture in particular.

We have a lot of issues and differences with China, but we should be able to work out those differences long term, as we do with every other nation. We have to resolve some of these things.

I am proud that the administration is full force taking on the issue of China. Over the past couple of decades, every administration has tried to work out some kind of ongoing conversation with China on trade, and all of them have been somewhat successful, but significant issues are still prevailing. This administration has had a singular focus on trade in dealing with China and trying to resolve those issues with them, and I hope it is successful long term. I hope that we will be very specific in how we actually handle that strategy and that at the end of it, we will still be openly trading and reducing some of those barriers.

It is a Communist country. It doesn't always play by the rules. It also uses some of the rules to its own advantage in ways unlike any other country. For instance, when they joined the WTO--the World Trade Organization--they self-declared themselves as a ``developing nation.'' Developing nations are able to waive a lot of the World Trade Organization rules because they are developing. May I remind this body that China is the second largest economy in the world--second only to ours? They are not a developing nation. They have used the rules of WTO to call themselves developing so they do not have to live up to the international standard of basic trade.

On March 22, 2018, President Trump signed a Memorandum on Actions by the United States related to what is called a 301 investigation. They are targeting what the White House calls ``economic aggression'' from China. Let me give some specifics on that.

China uses joint venture requirements on any foreign investment. They want to have ownership in those companies actually doing business there. They put pressure on technology firms to transfer their technology to China if they are going to actually sell to China. The result of that is that they may not take the product that is manufactured there, that those original companies sell back to the United States, but they will take that information and then actually sell to other parts of the world from that stolen information from a technology transfer.

Akin to that, China maintains unfair licensing practices. Typically, in other parts of the world, our intellectual property that we have is guarded by that nation, or we actually have a licensing agreement with them that is fair market value. Not so with China. They put pressure on entities and actually cheat and steal our intellectual property at times. That doesn't happen with every company but especially certain types of firms, where, long term, China wants to produce it on their own rather than buy it from other countries. If that production is done in China, China will take the intellectual property, and the plan is clearly to then take that intellectual property and use it for themselves in the days ahead.

China is notorious for supporting cyber intrusions to take the information that they can't get, especially from American companies or Western companies. If there is a design they are interested in, whether that be an airplane or 3D printing or whatever it may be that is designed somewhere else, they reach in and try to hack and steal it. This is not recent; this has been going on for quite a while. In 2014, the Department of Justice indicted five Chinese military actors for cyber espionage against multiple U.S. corporations. Recently, in 2017, the Department of Justice charged three Chinese nationals with hacking and theft of trade secrets. And it goes on and on.

Just in the past couple of weeks, the World Trade Organization has agreed with the United States in our complaint against China and how they handle agriculture subsidies. Agriculture subsidies from any country are limited in that country, but China uses large ag subsidies through their farmers and ag companies to subsidize those products with state taxes. Let me give an example of that. Thirty-two percent of the return for rice in China is a government subsidy back to rice farmers.

I have heard folks say: Well, in the United States, we also have a farm program. We have a farm bill. We provide subsidies as well.

That is true, but our rice farmers have a 2-percent subsidy. Chinese rice farmers have a 32-percent subsidy.

The World Trade Organization agreed with us on this, and they have determined that China is in violation and the United States can retaliate on that.

China is using that policy and abusing that policy on subsidizing. It is not only causing problems in China and with trade with China and their pricing, what they sell for, it is also causing uncertainty worldwide. Let me give a for-instance. Cotton farming. Oklahoma is big in cotton farming, but China has oversubsidized cotton for years through its cotton farmers, and so they are overproducing what they need or what they can sell. Currently, 60 percent of the world's cotton supplies are stacked up in China, just in piles, not being used anywhere, but because China is subsidizing people to produce it, they are overproducing it in mass quantities. They have nowhere to send it, and they are just stacking cotton up in piles. The same thing with wheat. Forty percent of the world's wheat supplies are currently piled up in stacks in China. That destabilizes worldwide wheat prices and worldwide cotton prices because no one knows what China is going to do with that massive stack. WTO has considered them to be in violation for that, and we are allowed to reach back and retaliate.

The United States is not the only one watching China's trade policies and how they actually interact and the subsidies they give; the rest of the world sees this same issue with China. They would engage with us more to cooperate and push back on China, but currently, we have so many steel and aluminum tariffs on our friends around the world that they are not engaging with us to the level they could be to have a clear focus against China.

We need to not isolate our friends but gather friends and say that China and their policies are clearly a worldwide issue, and it needs to be resolved. Worldwide collaboration is going to be the only way that we are going to really isolate an economy as large as China.

I encourage our administration to resolve trade issues worldwide and resolve tariff issues with our friends worldwide. Instead of saying it is a national security threat with Canada and Mexico and others, and so we need to have steel and aluminum tariffs, see the real national security threat that we have from China, and gather a cooperative group and focus on that one area.

One of those areas is those 301 tariffs that I mentioned before. Any tariffs that go into place must first and foremost not hurt American consumers, American companies, and American workers. My concern is that 301 tariffs--as they have grown--will hurt and are currently hurting American consumers, American employees, and American companies.

The 301 tariffs--these are products that are manufactured in China. They are often designed so the engineering, the marketing, all of those things, the design of those--the intellectual property is here in the United States. Companies in the United States look for manufacturing expertise. They find expertise in certain types of products, like electronics, lighting, and other things, where there is a lot of that manufacturing and expertise--in China. It is a natural thing to say: There is a large body of groups and individuals and technology that is already there to do it. Let's do the manufacturing there and the design and engineering here.

It makes sense just on the supply chain function.

This administration has laid down tariffs--so far, three different tiers of tariffs.

The first tier. Every American company was allowed to say ``Is there any other place that can do it?'' and to ask for exclusions through that process. If they could find exclusions, they could petition the government and get out of it.

The second tier. They were also allowed to ask for exclusions through the process, to ask for basically a waiver, to say: This is the best place to do it. There is no other competition. There is no one pressuring us not to do it here.

But when the third and largest tier came out--$200 billion in products--no exclusion process was given for these American companies. A 10-percent tariff was laid down on these companies. Here is what that means. If you are a company that produces a consumer electronic or lighting or one of the other resources that is manufactured in China, most of the people you are selling it to--you made a contract a year or two ago on what the price would be.

Whether selling to Lowe's or Home Depot or Walmart or Best Buy or whatever it may be, you made a deal about how much you are going to sell that product for and how much you are going to sell. With a 10- percent tariff laid down, who pays that tariff? It is not going to be the end user initially because the contract has already been made. It is not going to be the Chinese manufacturing location. It is going to be the companies doing the production in the United States. The American workers and the American companies pay the brunt of all of those, and, by the way, there is no way to file an exemption on this group. For $200 billion worth of products, Americans are actually facing the brunt of that.

So far, Americans have paid $12 billion in tariffs. It is not punishing the Chinese; it is punishing us. By the end of the year, if this continues, those contracts will have run out, and they will be repricing consumer electronics products all over the country, and the American consumer will be the one to pay higher prices on this. So 301 tariffs disproportionately hurt those in the middle class and those in poverty who have fixed incomes. This needs to be resolved.

First and foremost, there needs to be a way to have a waiver process. As we have done in the first two sections, there is no opportunity to get it out of the third and largest group. It is a reasonable thing for American companies to say: How can we actually produce this?

I have partnered with Senator Coons in the Senate and Representatives Kind and Walorski in the House, and we put together a basic bill dealing with import tax relief, dealing with this 301, laying down for the first time how we would actually manage tariffs in the days ahead and what exclusion process there would be and has to be.

It is reasonable to have a predictable level to benefit the American consumer, especially those in poverty and with fixed incomes, and to benefit American workers. We can't have tariffs on a foreign country that actually hurt American workers. That is an issue we still have to resolve. I am glad to have a partnership with Senator Coons to work on that, and we hope to get that done this year to guard workers for the future.

Along with that, in any trade negotiations, we have what is called trade promotion authority. We have basic standards. An example would be environmental concerns. We don't want to work with another country that is ignoring environmental concerns. We are concerned about where we are in the environment--the air we breathe and the water we drink. That is important to us as Americans because we want to protect our families. We understand it pushes up the cost of some products, but the long-term benefit is greater, and we are very careful in evaluating our regulations. When we overregulate and it drives up costs, we push back on that, saying that we don't want to overregulate and drive up costs, but we want to have clean air and water.

For the Chinese, that is not so. In many areas of China, you can't breathe, and on a regular daily basis people wear masks over their faces because of the exhaust, the fumes, and the toxic air they breathe, based on their limitations on the environmental quality of the air. It is becoming a worldwide issue because of the amount of trash the Chinese are allowing to go into the Pacific Ocean, filling the Pacific Ocean with plastic and trash.

Part of our trade promotion authority and one of the agreements we have is to lean in and have dialogue with individuals we trade with, saying that we want to resolve trade issues, but we also want to protect our environment, and we think it is a reasonable thing to do.

It is reasonable, as Americans, to place a high value on religious liberty and human rights. It is part of our trade promotion authority and, in fact, an area I worked very hard to get implemented as a part of our trade promotion authority--that when we negotiate trade issues with countries, we also deal with the basic issue of human rights and freedom of religion.

We, as Americans, believe that our religious belief is our most precious private property, and no government should be able to step in and steal private property. Your most private possession is your faith. Every individual should have the right to have any faith they choose, be able to change their faith, or have no faith at all. That should be their choice, but that is not so in China right now.

In fact, in 1999, the State Department designated China as what is called ``a country of particular concern.'' This deals with the issue of religious freedom in their country and China's aggressive move to limit religious freedom in their country. Recently, President Xi has worked toward secularization of religion to try to make everything in the country--every area--equal and the same, stripping away religious symbols from buildings of all types, stripping away religious practice that is not approved by the Government of China. This discrimination has impacted Tibetan Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics, and Falun Gong practitioners. It has led to the destruction of houses of worship, demolition of religious educational institutions, restrictions in the practice and study of faith by people of whatever culture or language, restrictions on religious attire, religious rituals, and imprisonment of religious leaders and followers.

In fact, right now we are tracking the imprisonment of a pastor named Pastor Cao. Pastor Cao and his wife are American citizens, and his children are American citizens. He is allowed to have legal residency in the United States, but 2 years ago as of this month, he was imprisoned in China.

Pastor Cao has a hearing coming up on the 22nd of this month, and we hope for Pastor Cao and for his family that hearing happens. It has been postponed again and again.

On the 22nd of March, we anticipate the Chinese Government will have his hearing and will give him a moment to have this finally resolved. There is no reason for Pastor Cao to be in prison right now.

We don't want to see, in China, forced reeducation facilities, intimidation, lack of medical attention for people of faith. Let's see for the people of China what people worldwide have the opportunity to have--freedom of religion. In our trade conversations we think it is highly advisable to engage in that type of dialogue for people like Pastor Cao, whose children are looking forward to holding him in their arms again and for him to be released.

China is an important part of the worldwide conversation. They are a powerful nation. We should be able to work together on key issues. The Chinese Government needs to determine how they are going to trade and if they are a developing country or if they are really a worldwide leader.

We need to determine how we are going to do fair trade with them, and we need to determine who they are going to be on the world stage, dealing with human rights and dignity. It is not all about sameness of a world; this is about the power of the individual within the country.

I am sure the people of China are very proud of their country. We would love to engage with the people of China, and we appreciate their engagement with us as we receive thousands of Chinese students and visitors every single year.

This is a point where we should resolve the trade issues that have been lingering for decades now, and we hope we can get to an agreement that is right, from our administration being attentive so that the tariffs don't hurt our own citizens to the Chinese economy that is slowing down due to the ongoing trade conversation. Let's work toward the benefit of all of our people to see if we can't resolve trade issues together.

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