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Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk a few minutes tonight about a couple of topics--only one, if I run short of time, because I don't want to delay our vote. The first topic I would like to talk about--I know it is very sensitive--is trade and tariffs. They have both been much in the news lately.

There are really only two reasons why a country would impose a tariff, and every country in the world, to my knowledge, does have tariffs. There are only two reasons for a country to impose a tariff: first, for national security.

I think it is virtually unchallenged that China, if it could, would destroy the United States of America--not the people of China, but the Government of China. I regret to say that, and I hope someday we will live in a world where that isn't the case, but I think it is undoubtedly and unconditionally the truth.

So if China is determined to--let me try to use a more neutral word-- to undermine the United States of America, I could see where we would limit, want to limit, some of our goods such as, let's say, semiconductor design equipment. We would limit the sale of some of our precious technology to China. That is what I mean by ``national security.''

But the other reason, and the reason that most countries use the tariff, is to protect the domestic industry.

Let me give you an example. These are not two countries, but they are two States; and this would be unconstitutional, but I think it will serve my purpose. Let's suppose that Louisiana, which has the best king cakes in the Milky Way, can produce a king cake for $10, and our friends in Alabama, they can produce a king cake--not nearly as good as Louisiana's--but the best they can do is produce it for $12. Well, I would not agree, but I could understand why the elected officials in Alabama are going to say: Well, Louisiana's king cake is 10 bucks, our king cake is $12. We want to protect our king cake bakers here in Alabama, so we are going to impose a tariff.

What would that do? Let's suppose they impose a $4 tariff. So now the king cake, the better king cake made in Louisiana sold in Alabama would cost $14, and that would force people to buy the $12 Alabama king cake.

Now, my personal opinion is that most Alabamians, who are very smart people, would pay extra for the Louisiana king cake because it is so much better, but that is how tariffs work. If you have a domestic industry, like a king cake bakery, and you want to protect it from competition to allow it to grow and employ the people in that particular country, maybe you impose a tax, a tariff, on folks on the outside of your country who want to sell into your country.

I want to say this unequivocally. Canada is one of my favorite countries in the world, and the American people and the people of Canada are friends, and I would like our economies to be friends. And I mean that. But lately, we have been having a gentle disagreement--some would say not so gentle--in terms of tariffs and trade and our economy.

Canada and the United States of America do a lot of business with each other. In 2024, the United States sold to the people of Canada about $350 billion in goods--that is a lot of goods, $350 billion. Canada sold Canadian goods to the United States in the amount of $412 billion. So there is what we call a trade deficit of $63 billion.

And then you drill a little deeper, and you realize that the U.S. economy is 10 times bigger than the Canadian economy, and the population of the United States of America is 8 times bigger than the population of Canada. Canada has 41 million people; America has 340 million.

So you step back for a second, and you go, huh. Now, the United States is 8 times bigger, and our economy is 10 times larger than Canada's, but yet Canada is selling more of its goods into the United States than the United States is selling into Canada.

Any fair-minded person would have to conclude that it is because of tariffs. It is because the Canadian tariffs on American goods are higher than the American tariffs on Canadian goods. And that is what the dispute is all about.

President Trump, who believes passionately in the virtue of tariffs, thinks that the tariffs ought to be equal. That there shouldn't be a trade deficit.

Now, trade is very complicated, and I don't think that all trade deficits are bad. I am also not saying that all trade deficits are good. Trade in the complex global economy today is very complex.

But I see the President's point. I am not suggesting that I agree with the President on everything about tariffs, but when you have got your neighboring country and good friend that is 8 times smaller than you are, and in terms of population, it is 10 times smaller than you are, and your neighbor is selling $63 billion more in goods to you than you are selling to them, that seems kind of unfair. And the President, as we all know, has made that point very vociferously.

In response, the Canadian Government, the new Prime Minister Carney, he has pretty much bowed up. When President Trump said: Well, the tariffs are uneven, so I am going to raise American tariffs, Prime Minister Carney has bowed up and said: Well, President Trump, you don't believe in free trade. You are not a free trader. If you raise your tariffs, then I am going to raise mine even more.

And that is how you get into a trade war. And I don't want a trade war. And I don't think Prime Minister Carney wants a trade war, and I don't think President Trump wants a trade war.

But I think Prime Minister Carney is wrong when he says that President Trump is not a free trader. President Trump is a free trader, but like most of us, he also believes in fair trading as well.

So here is my respectful, gentle challenge to Prime Minister Carney tonight. Prime Minister Carney, you have criticized President Trump, and I see your point of view. You said, because he is raising tariffs on Canada, that he, President Trump, doesn't believe in free trade. You have said that he doesn't--he believes in tariffs. And you have said you are going--you, Mr. Carney, are going to change your tariffs.

I hope Prime Minister Carney does change his tariffs, but I hope he does so in a way that we have a race to the top and not to the bottom. Rather than the Prime Minister of Canada raising tariffs on the United States of America after the United States of America raises tariffs on Canada, which will cause us--friends, friends--to have a trade war, I would respectfully suggest to the Prime Minister Carney of Canada that he should reduce tariffs to zero. He should reduce all Canadian tariffs on United States' goods to zero and then turn to President Trump and say: I am asking you to remove all tariffs on Canada as well.

Now, if Prime Minister Carney believes in free trade--and I take him at his word that he does--and if President Trump believes in free trade, but fair trade--and I take him at his word that he does--then let's both go to zero. How much freer can trade be? How much fairer can trade be?

Let's avoid a trade war. Let's let those good Canadian companies compete with good American companies and selling goods into the United States, and let's let those good American companies compete with those good Canadian companies in terms of selling goods into Canada. And may the best, cheapest product win.

That is my respectful challenge to Prime Minister Carney tonight. If you think President Trump is being unfair and is not a free trader, then reduce your tariffs to zero, and ask President Trump to reduce our tariffs to zero on Canada, and let's go back to being friends again.

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