United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank so much the gentleman, my friend and fellow colleague from Kansas, for leading on this issue and giving me the opportunity to speak about it.

Certainly, times are very tough in agriculture, the toughest I have ever seen, the toughest, certainly, since the 1980s. The passage of USMCA, the NAFTA 2.0, is the single greatest thing Congress could do for our farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and workers.

The President has delivered, and now it is time for Congress to deliver. Delaying the implementation of this program hurts agriculture across Kansas because the deal would enable Kansas producers to trade more commodities by opening the Canadian market up for American dairy, wheat, chicken, and eggs, some for the very first time.

Additionally, this agreement will grow our business with our very top two customers, Mexico and Canada, meaning thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in increased exports for Kansans.

Finally, the unprecedented standards for agricultural biotechnology will support 21st-century innovations in agriculture and lay the groundwork for future agreements with other countries around the globe.

Some of the brightest thinkers in the world are in America, but these innovators have been robbed of billions of dollars over the previous decades due to intellectual property theft. USMCA can't be delayed any longer, as new protections for intellectual property will drive innovation and create even more jobs by strengthening protection of patents, trademarks, and secrets.

President Trump's USMCA also levels the playing field for workers in my State by expanding guarantees for the enforcement of labor protections across North America. Future economic growth and jobs for Kansas and America are increasingly dependent on expanding U.S. trade and investment opportunities in the global marketplace. President Trump has delivered this incredibly bipartisan deal, and it is long past time for Congress to bring it up for a vote to usher in a new era in American trade.

Mr. Speaker, it is now time for us to bring USMCA to the floor.

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