During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) objected to Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) bill to curb presidential authority over imposing tariffs.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. President. I rise to support my colleague Senator
00:04Kaine's joint resolution to terminate the Trump order placing blanket tariffs
00:09on products Americans buy from Canada. I'm going to start by saying, you know, as a
00:14ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I'm always struck by how much
00:18double-talk there is about trade. So let's be clear as we start this part of
00:25the discussion. Tariffs are taxes on things we buy from other countries. The
00:31bottom line is those taxes make it more expensive for Americans to buy those
00:36products. No other country pays the tariffs. Let me repeat that. No other
00:43country pays the tariffs. The consumer pays the tariff. So if somebody tells you
00:49they can do tariffs and do it without raising prices, I'm sorry, but anybody who
00:57says that with a straight face is basically taking advantage of you. Every
01:02credible economist, every automaker, every business on the record has said
01:06that Trump's trade taxes are gonna make things more expensive for Americans.
01:13Ronald Reagan's favorite economist, Art Laffer, just released a study showing
01:18auto tariffs are going to raise car prices by $4,700. The Yale Budget Lab
01:23estimates that the full Trump tariff scheme is going to cost an average
01:27family thousands of dollars a year. It's one thing if tariffs are imposed with a
01:33good strategy, like decreasing sales in the U.S. by raising prices to punish
01:38countries that cheat on trade and changing their behavior so that U.S.
01:42workers get a fair shake. I've consistently supported targeted
01:48tariffs in the past as a tool to fight back against trade cheating, especially
01:54by China. When China was stealing America's trade secrets, subsidizing
01:59cheap solar panels and then dumping them here to drive U.S. manufacturers out of
02:04business, we were shouting from the rooftops for more tariffs on these
02:09Chinese goods. But Canada is not China. Canada is America's closest ally, not a
02:17rival. Making everything Americans buy from Canada more expensive for some bogus
02:22reason, it's in the words of the Wall Street Journal, quote, the dumbest trade
02:27war in history. There are 8 million American jobs that depend on trade with
02:33Canada. Canada is the biggest export market for 32 states. It provides raw
02:38materials that so often farmers need to grow their crops. U.S. farmers can't
02:43replace 90% of that material that comes from Canada. Definitely not overnight. The
02:49only choice is higher prices. Again, Mr. President, higher prices paid for by
02:56Americans. So the stuff we buy from Canada gets more expensive. And on top of
03:02that, in response, Canada has already slapped tariffs on a whole host of crops,
03:07ag products, dairy, alcohol, manufactured goods. The list goes on and on. Canadian
03:13grocery stores pull U.S. products off the shelves. Our small businesses and
03:18farmers are losing sales as we speak because of the weird obsession in the
03:24Trump administration with attacking our northern neighbor. Mr. President,
03:29plunging our economy into recession because of the Trump desire to annex
03:35Canada is just bizarre. Bizarre, even by Washington D. C. Standards. Congress
03:43has delegated far too much of its authority to the executive branch, and
03:47it's far past time for the Congress to take it back. 1962 and 1974 Congress
03:54passed laws handling handing the president major portions of our
03:58constitutional power over tariffs. It is time to reverse that trend. Those dates
04:03I mentioned, Mr. President, were before my time, but I want everybody to know on
04:08our watch, I think this has got to be a bipartisan concern, and we've got to take
04:13these powers back because if Republicans say it's not their fault that Trump's
04:17destroying our economy, why not do something like this to restore the power
04:22of Congress to set tariffs? I'm going to close by addressing the bogus claim of
04:28the Trump administration that tariffs are actually intended to stop fentanyl
04:32trafficking from Canada. Let me be clear, our immigration system needs reform. The
04:38fentanyl crisis is a serious issue. Oregon is no stranger to the devastating
04:42effects it's wreaked on our communities, but reality is there is no crisis at the
04:47northern border. Less than 0.1 percent of fentanyl entering the United States
04:52comes from Canada. Fentanyl seizures at the northern border are down over 97
04:58percent from July 2024. I think almost everybody understands that Canada is not
05:04the issue here, so instead of coming up with real solutions to get fentanyl off
05:09the street and out of our communities, Donald Trump has decided he would rather
05:13make threats and tariff our closest allies. So now, Mr. President, my
05:19colleague from Alabama is on the floor, and we're going to have a little bit of
05:23a discussion. We just talked about how we're going to handle it, but I want to
05:28be clear. If Donald Trump and the Republicans wanted to address fentanyl
05:34in an effective way, they would pass my bill to limit the millions of low value
05:41packages that come into the United States from China and elsewhere. Getting
05:47a handle on these so-called de minimis imports will help our border agents to
05:53detect the illicit imports of things like fentanyl and pill presses before
05:57they reach communities in the United States. So with that, Mr. President, as if
06:03in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be
06:07discharged from further consideration of S1185 and the Senate proceed to its
06:13immediate consideration. The bill be considered read a third time and passed
06:17in the motion to reconsider, be considered made and laid upon the table.
06:21Is there objection? Mr. President. Senator from Alabama. Reserving the right
06:26to object. You know, the media, for some reason, is in full meltdown mode after
06:32President Trump declared today Liberation Day. Only my Democratic
06:37colleagues and the media, globalist media, would find a reason to be mad
06:43about that. I'm sadly convinced that my colleagues in the woke media would
06:48rather President Trump fail than achieve a goal to help the United States
06:53of America and the taxpayers. President Trump's views on tariffs, they aren't
06:58complicated. He believes, as I do, that America has been ripped off by unfair
07:05trade deals for decades and simply wants a level playing field. We have to change
07:12directions. What we're doing is not working. U.S. catfish and shrimp
07:16producers have faced some of the worst blows. For example, Vietnam is dumping
07:22billions, I repeat billions, of pounds of catfish and India is dumping
07:30billions of pounds of shrimp every year into U.S. markets, flooding the markets
07:36and reducing the price for our quality domestic products. It's devastating. We
07:44need to put a reciprocal tariff on these countries to protect our American
07:48producers. I get calls every day, whether it's cabinets, whether it's produce,
07:53whether it's fish, it makes no difference. Our people are going broke. Now I
08:01recognize that tariff actions may cause reciprocal tariffs from other countries.
08:08We need to take that in stride. In this country, we've had a party for 249 years.
08:18The United States has put that party on. The party needs to continue, but all the
08:27other countries that have been built off the American taxpayers, such as the
08:31Middle East, such as Europe, such as China, they need to start bringing gifts
08:37to the party because the American taxpayer can't afford it any longer.
08:41We're 37 trillion in debt and the only way to pay that down is to force other
08:47people to help us. The American taxpayer can't afford it. As a result, American
08:56jobs have been sent overseas because of all the domestic problems that we're
09:03having for labor, for things that stand out for our manufacturing. We have to get
09:09manufacturing back in this country. The days are over. President Trump is 100%
09:15committed, folks, 100%. He's gonna do whatever it takes to usher in a golden
09:20age for the American economy. And by the way, just the threat of President Trump's
09:27tariffs has already led India, Vietnam, and Israel to proactively drop
09:34significantly and lower tariffs against the United States before it's really
09:39even started. And it doesn't matter if you're a Republican or Democrat. We
09:44should all be united in wanting economic policies that put American farmers,
09:51producers, businesses, and manufacturers first. So Mr. President, for that reason,
09:58I object. Mr. President. Objection is heard. Senator Morgan. So I listened very
10:05carefully to my colleague from Alabama and I don't believe my colleague used
10:13the word fentanyl. And that's what we're concerned about in the Pacific Northwest.
10:19We're concerned that this fentanyl has hit our country and our region like a
10:25wrecking ball. And so maybe when this all gets sorted out, he'll support my bill to
10:31crack down on fentanyl everywhere through reforms of this de minimis kind
10:38of area. And I would just say for purposes of our discussion now, what I
10:43understand, and we all await the announcement I gather sometime late this
10:49afternoon, the Trump administration only is going to address de minimis shipments
10:56from China and nowhere else. And we got to make this comprehensive. My colleague
11:03serving as president knows what it's like in the in the West with fentanyl
11:10hitting is so hard. Um, you know, if you just do it with China, Chinese companies
11:16are gonna circumvent the rules and trans ship through other countries. That's why
11:21I felt so strongly about a comprehensive solution to get at this fentanyl, this
11:26poison that has hit us so hard. Because if you just go to one country, what
11:32you're gonna have is something called merchandise laundering. Mr. President, we
11:35saw it when we did an investigation in the committee. A Chinese company ships
11:40his product through an intermediary in Vietnam or another third country. The
11:45intermediary then slaps a made in Vietnam sticker on the Chinese product
11:50and falsely labels the product, and they can easily evade the Chinese product
11:54restrictions. And with millions of shipments coming in from China, there's
11:58no way for customs and border protection to police Chinese products
12:02trans ship through third countries. This is not a new gimmick. Chinese
12:07companies have been circumventing tariffs all this time with products
12:11like steel and solar panels. I've been bird dogging this issue since I passed
12:15the Enforce and Protect Act nearly a year ago. My de minimis bill that I hope
12:21will get bipartisan support for would stop the flood of low value packages
12:26from all countries on a global scale. That is the only way to deal with this
12:31problem, not create, as my colleague from Alabama would do, a gigantic game
12:38of whack-a-mole. So I hope we'll be back on this floor doing something
12:41comprehensive to fight the scourge of fentanyl, and I proposed it with
12:46legislation. Mr. President, I yield the floor.