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Floor Speech

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Ms. SMITH. If the Senator from Oregon would yield for a question, I would appreciate that. I have a specific question, but I would like to just actually follow up on the interesting conversation you were having with Senator Cantwell from Washington about soybeans, because I represent Minnesota, a very large soybean State, and I was just home in Minnesota last weekend. I heard a lot about what is happening with soybeans.

You are exactly right, Senator Merkley. We are having a bumper crop of soybeans. The beans are pretty much out of the field, and Minnesota farmers and producers are trying to figure out what to do with those beans.

Because of Trump's tariffs, the Chinese market for soybeans has been decimated. Trump tariffs have completely ruined that market. And as I think you said, Senator Merkley, these export markets for American agricultural products--it is not like an on-off switch; it is not like a pipe that you just open or close. These relationships in these export markets are incredibly important. So what is happening here is that American and Minnesota farmers are looking at this and they are seeing: OK, Trump tariffs have made U.S. soybeans basically noncompetitive, and so China, our biggest export market, is turning to South America--in particular, turning to Argentina.

American soybean producers are literally wondering how they are going to pay the bills when their operating loans are coming due right now, and they are looking at the loans they are going to need to take out, the working capital loans they are going to need to take out this winter in order to buy fertilizer and seed and all they need to get crops in the ground for springtime.

It is so offensive to them that at the same time that they have lost this market in Argentina, the President, President Trump, is sending billions of dollars to Argentina.

So I think I have seen, Senator Merkley, that the amount of money that the President is sending to Argentina to bail out the Argentinian debt, to resolve this capital crisis in Argentina--there is one group that we know for sure is going to benefit from this bailout, and these are the friends of Donald Trump in the United States of America--the big fund managers, the big private equity firms that made huge investments in Argentinian debt, hoping that it was going to go up, and sure enough, it will because of what the current President is doing.

So helping big Wall Street fund managers, hurting American farmers-- that is the story of what is happening with Donald Trump and his tariffs right now.

Senator Merkley, I was listening last night to what you were talking about, and you gave a really powerful quote or a paraphrase, perhaps, from the book ``How Democracies Die,'' and one of the things that you highlighted, I want to just quote here.

You said there has to be a fierce reaction in the year that the authoritarian starts to dismantle the Constitution.

Well, this is the year. And I was reflecting on this as I was thinking about what happened all across the country and what happened in my home State of Minnesota and I am sure in Oregon as well with these huge demonstrations that we saw all over the country. I am going to ask you to reflect a little bit more on what you said last night and what we have seen here with this reaction to the authoritarian activities of the President.

But I wanted to just share that what I saw in Minnesota was really remarkable. By all accounts, nearly, you know, maybe up to 100,000 people turned out just in Minneapolis, which is, you know, the biggest city in my State. Minneapolis and Saint Paul are roughly 2.5 million people all in. And we had 80 of these events all over the State.

What I saw--and I am wondering what you saw in the demonstrations in Oregon--what I saw was incredibly patriotic people showing up--people who love their country and want to keep it, people who understand that in this country, we swear allegiance not to a King but to our democratic values and to our Constitution. It was remarkable to me to see that love of country and that patriotism.

I also saw--and I would love to hear your response to my question and comments--I also saw a lot of people turn out at these big events who don't typically come to these, don't come to political demonstrations. It is just not their thing. But they felt compelled to do this, maybe because of what you were talking about, Senator Merkley, earlier, which is they understand there needs to be a fierce reaction in the year that an authoritarian starts to dismantle the Constitution, and they were there to demonstrate their allegiance to our Constitution.

So maybe I will pause there, Senator Merkley, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

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Ms. SMITH. If the Senator would yield for one more question?

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Ms. SMITH. I want to just follow up on something that you talked about with the attempt by the Trump administration to consolidate and get some control over our voting process in this country. One of, I think, the strengths of our country is while we should have high national standards for free and fair elections, we have control over elections at the local level, and that gives our electoral system a lot of resilience.

I want to just thank our Secretary of State in Minnesota, Secretary of State Steve Simon, for refusing to provide to the Trump people our voting rolls and data about our voters as a way of protecting our local control over our ballots.

And I want to just follow up also with what the Senator from Oregon was talking about with the way that the President is ignoring the rule of law, ignoring the article I--you know, ignoring the powers of Congress, and, you know, I was thinking a lot about what the preamble of our Constitution says.

I mean, the preamble of our Constitution says:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

That is the promise that we all make each other in this great democracy. And what I think we see happening--I wonder if the Senator would like to comment on this--what I think we see happening is that President Trump is trying to undermine that promise, and he is trying to exhaust us and distract us and make us feel like we actually don't have any power to have much of an impact on what he and Russell Vought and his administration do and that that will cause us to just give up and give in.

But, of course, Americans are stronger than that. Americans are more resilient than that. Americans care more about their democracy than perhaps Donald Trump believes or expects.

And one of the powerful things that I see happening, that I saw happening this weekend and I see happening all over this country, is Americans standing up and saying, basically, we know a bully when we see him. He is not as strong as we think that he is. And he is not as strong as he wants us to believe that he is, and we are going to stand up to it.

And that Senator Merkley gives me a sense of faith and a sense of hope as I see people put their faith in this democracy into action every single day in the ways that are meaningful for them personally.

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