During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) questioned US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hey, Mr. Greer, thank you for being here.
00:04When I speak to my rice people and my shrimp people back home,
00:08they say that the tariff barriers and the subsidies by other countries for those products
00:16are so much that it is putting some of our shrimpers and some of our rice people
00:22either out of business or in incredible financial binds.
00:25And so the fact that the president is attempting to address these
00:29as well as the non-tariff trade barriers is incredibly important.
00:33Let me first say that.
00:35But I'll also hear from my producers that the mean tariff being selected to apply to a country
00:43may not account that for rice, for example, the tariff is much higher for that particular product
00:49and that it is not adequate to address that which is taking place.
00:54Any thoughts on that and how can we have something more particular for products
00:58which are really over-tariffed?
01:01Yes, thank you.
01:03And I appreciate that concern and the tariff rate applied to many of these countries.
01:08Again, it was a countrywide rate.
01:10It wasn't product-specific.
01:12My sense is if countries come to us and they expect to have some kind of a different plan,
01:17they will need to change these things, right?
01:19And they will have specific products, specific barriers that they would have to address, right?
01:24Or else, you know, the president, again, he's fixed his purpose.
01:27He wants to see production back here.
01:29He wants to see our agriculture producers doing well.
01:31And these countries just have to have reciprocal trade with us.
01:34And that means taking care of the types of barriers and tariff rates you're talking about.
01:37So it sounds like you, one of the things I think they want to know is that since shrimp might be a relatively small part of trades
01:44with some of these countries, that the interests of, for example, shrimp will not be sacrificed in part of a greater whole.
01:51No, I think, and I saw a really interesting article today in New York Times on shrimp.
01:55You may have seen that where the tariffs have actually given a bit of a lifeline to these shrimpers.
02:00And I think that, you know, if there's going to be any kind of change to any of this,
02:04and I'm not going to prejudge that, we have to make sure that our industries are protected adequately
02:09so we don't go backwards with the deficit.
02:12Let me ask, in the president's America First trading policy,
02:19there's several sections relating to free trade agreements and how they will be evaluated.
02:24Senator Bennett and I are working on an America's Act, which would be a hemispheric trade policy,
02:28which would have several purposes.
02:30One, to strengthen those ties.
02:32Secondly, to keep the Chinese from making the incursions that they are absolutely making throughout the hemisphere.
02:37Some are calling the Caribbean a Chinese lake.
02:40And so this would allow us to push back upon that.
02:45Can you share anything regarding the analyses of the free trade agreements we have within our hemisphere?
02:53And then specifically on countries like Argentina who would like an FTA with our country.
03:00Certainly.
03:01I would say that we are first and foremost focused on addressing this emergency and the reciprocal tariff action
03:08and implementing it appropriately.
03:09With respect to relations in the hemisphere, any kind of trade arrangements with these trading partners,
03:15I think need to be coupled with strong rules about third countries.
03:19What I don't want is a situation where these countries are using their export platforms to incorporate content and goods from China or other Asian countries,
03:28where we have a real issue with our deficit and offshore of manufacturing.
03:32I would expect any kind of changes to these arrangements to be accompanied by changes in rules of origin
03:37to ensure that the United States and U.S. workers are really benefiting from these agreements.
03:42So nothing from an FTA in general, but the specific of where it's being used to circumvent the intent of the FTA is the concern of the administration.
03:50That, yes, that's certainly a huge concern.
03:52And again, the president wants to see factories back here.
03:55The most certain way to not have a tariff is to build your factory in the United States.
03:59If people want to use other countries and insist on that,
04:02then we want to make sure that they're not using that to arbitrage for higher tariff jurisdictions
04:06to use them as an unfair export platform.
04:08Let me ask you this.
04:09Louisiana has some of the largest ports in the nation by tonnage.
04:12And so, and all the commodities going from the Midwest flow through my state going out to the world.
04:19Earlier, USTR proposed imposing like a million dollars for every vessel built in China.
04:26And I'm told that if the Koreans have a fleet of 50 and five of the ships are built in China,
04:31then the million dollars would apply to all 50, not just to the ships that are built in China.
04:37Now, that would clearly impact a ship coming to the United States to offload.
04:44If you will, impact my ports and the ability of our goods throughout the nation to move through the Mississippi.
04:50Is USTR going to hang by that or considering modifying that?
04:54Can you kind of give us any idea about that?
04:57So, to address the lack of shipbuilding in the United States, USTR's proposed actions are just those.
05:03They're proposed actions.
05:03There are a series of potential remedies that could be used to incentivize shipbuilding in the US.
05:09They're not all going to be implemented.
05:10They're not all going to be stacked.
05:11We've asked for a lot of input, and we've had a hearing on that.
05:14We've collected comments.
05:15We've reviewed it.
05:16I've met personally with certain stakeholders during that time period.
05:20And I think the president will look very carefully to make sure that we have the right amount of time
05:24and the right incentives to create shipbuilding here without impacting our commodity exports.
05:28Okay, thank you.