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Floor Speech
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Mr. TUBERVILLE. The media, for some reason, is in full meltdown mode after President Trump declared today ``Liberation Day.'' Only my Democratic colleagues and the media, the globalist media, would find a reason to be mad about that.
I am sadly convinced that my colleagues and the woke media would rather President Trump fail than achieve a goal to help the United States of America and the taxpayers.
President Trump's views on tariffs, they aren't complicated. He believes, as I do, that America has been ripped off by unfair trade deals for decades and simply wants a level playing field. We have to change directions. What we are doing is not working.
U.S. catfish and shrimp producers have faced some of the worst blows, for example. Vietnam is dumping billions--I repeat, billions--of pounds of catfish, and India is dumping billions of pounds of shrimp every year into U.S. markets, flooding the markets and reducing the price for our quality domestic products. It is devastating.
We need to put a reciprocal tariff on these countries to protect our American producers.
I get calls every day. Whether it is cabinets, whether it is produce, whether it is fish, it makes no difference. Our people are going broke.
I recognize that tariff actions may cause reciprocal tariffs from other countries. We need to take that in stride.
In this country, we had a party for 249 years. The United States has put that party on. The party needs to continue, but all the other countries that have been built off the American taxpayers, such as the Middle East, such as Europe, such as China, they need to start bringing gifts to the party because the American taxpayer can't afford it any longer.
We are $37 trillion in debt, and the only way to pay that down is to force other people to help us. The American taxpayer can't afford it. As a result, American jobs have been sent overseas because of all the domestic problems that we are having for labor, for things that stand out for our manufacturers.
We have to get manufacturing back in this country. The days are over. President Trump is 100 percent committed, folks--100 percent. He is going to do whatever it takes to usher in a golden age for the American economy.
By the way, just the threat of President Trump's tariffs has already led India, Vietnam, and Israel to proactively drop significantly and lower tariffs against the United States before it has really even started.
It doesn't matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat; we should all be united in wanting economic policies that put American farmers, producers, businesses, and manufacturers first.
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