Michael Bennet Questions US Trade Rep. Katherine Tai About Impact Of 'Americas Act'

5 months ago

At a Senate Finance Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) questioned US Trade Representative Katherine Tai about the Americas Act.

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Transcript

00:00 Like for courtesy, this is going to be a hectic day. Senator Bennett, you're next.

00:03 Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions today. Ambassador Tai,

00:09 thank you very much for being here. I guess I wanted to start and maybe spend most of my time

00:18 on the Americas Act, which Senator Cassidy and I have now introduced as a recognition of the

00:26 importance for us to work with our hemisphere on a whole range of issues. It's not just about trade,

00:33 it's about migration, it's about economic development. I think Bill and I have found a

00:41 way in a divided Congress to remind everybody that we do have a set of values here that are

00:49 pretty shared. I think in the hemisphere, we have a set of values that are pretty shared.

00:54 And when I'm at home in Colorado and people there are saying to me,

00:57 how are we going to compete with China? They've got 1.3 billion people and they get to do whatever

01:09 Chairman Xi wants them to do. We're a messy democracy and we're 330 million people.

01:16 And my answer to them is, well, we've got really good trading partners in Canada and in Mexico.

01:24 We've got the benefit of what I think almost everybody on this panel agrees is a 21st century

01:32 trade agreement in USMCA. Is there a way to begin to sort of think about how to build that out

01:40 in the hemisphere? And that is what has led Bill and me to introduce the bill that we have.

01:47 I wonder, I know you've noticed it because we've talked about it, but could you talk a little bit

01:51 about how the administration is seeing the hemisphere? I'd be happy to hear anything

01:59 you've got to say about our bill, but really what I want to do is understand what our strategy is.

02:06 Thank you so much for your leadership on this particular issue, Senator Bennett. I remember

02:11 seeing you at the city summit of the Americas that was held in Denver last year. And that was a very

02:18 visible representation of the connectivity of the western hemisphere economies through the lens of

02:26 cities and Colorado and Denver's place in that connectivity especially. Here I just start with

02:32 saying that this particular effort that's embodied in the Americas Act is very much consistent with

02:40 the values of the administration and the efforts of the administration that's embodied in the

02:46 Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity. I think that through both efforts we are looking

02:52 at ways to frankly become more regionally integrated, to have more of a coherent regional

03:01 economic identity. And I think that the opportunities here are in, for example,

03:08 the Americas Partnership, I think of the 12 countries, so that's 11 other than us, we have

03:15 FTA relationships with eight of them already. Now they might be bilateral, they might be in groups

03:20 like USMCA or the CAFTA, but there's already a strong architecture with respect to the kinds

03:27 of trade disciplines we've established between ourselves. I think the real opportunity there,

03:32 and I think that this is maybe an interpretation of your comment about USMCA, I think the

03:38 opportunity there is one, USMCA is right now our gold standard, how can we upgrade a lot of the

03:47 rules in these other relationships and bring them up to today. And the second one goes to supply

03:52 chains, and that's the economic integration piece of it. And I think that, again, in terms of

04:00 our new more strategic approach to trade, we'll want to look at this sectorally, and this is part

04:06 of the work that we're doing, the Americas Partnership, but I think that this is also

04:10 consistent with the spirit of the Americas Act. I mean, it's our job, obviously, to convince

04:16 Chairman Wyden and the ranking member, Senator Crapo, that this is something that merits the

04:24 attention of this committee and the Congress, but I do think the benefit of it is that then it will

04:30 last from administration to administration, which is the kind of predictability that our partners

04:37 need, and I think, frankly, Colorado's producers need too. So I'm grateful for the work the

04:43 administration is doing on it. I'm hopeful that we can get to a place where we persuade our

04:48 colleagues that figuring out how to institutionalize it is important. I mean, you think about it,

04:53 in the last 20 years or so, China trade in this region, in Latin America, has gone from $12.5

05:00 billion to $480 billion. That's a 4,000% increase in our region with our neighbors, and that's to

05:12 say nothing of the infrastructure that they're building and the debt traps that they're creating.

05:17 I just think there is a huge opportunity for us. I'm out of time. I look forward to working with

05:22 the chairman and the ranking member on this, and Senator Cassidy has been an amazing partner,

05:27 and you, to see if we can advance the ball as far as we can between now and the election.

05:33 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank my colleague. We'll follow up with you and Senator Cassidy.

05:37 Let's see, the next is Senator Tillis. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Michael Bennet Questions US Trade Rep. Katherine Tai About Impact Of 'Americas Act'

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