[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 76 (Monday, May 18, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3006-S3007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CURRENCY MANIPULATION

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer for 
allowing me to speak briefly about an amendment I am offering to the 
trade promotion authority legislation.
  Also, I was not here earlier because I was unavoidably detained. I 
was on a flight to arrive at National Airport, and because of 
thunderstorms, they diverted us to Richmond, VA, where I spent about an 
hour this evening.
  If I had been here, I would have voted yes on both the trade 
adjustment assistance legislation and also the religious freedom 
legislation that came before this Chamber earlier this evening.
  Again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak now about an amendment I 
am offering to the underlying legislation, the trade promotion 
authority.
  This amendment is regarding currency manipulation, something we have 
talked a lot about in this Chamber over the last week. Now is the 
opportunity for us to speak with our votes on behalf of the people we 
represent, who believe that, yes, we should be trading with other 
countries. In fact, I strongly believe that we should be expanding our 
exports and, therefore, I support trade-opening agreements that could 
be negotiated under a trade promotion authority.
  But I also believe that we need to level the playing field, so that 
while we are expanding trade and increasing our exports and therefore 
creating more jobs in my home State of Ohio and around the country, at 
the same time, we are able to tell those workers and farmers that other 
countries are going to be required to play by the rules.
  There are lots of issues that get addressed here in this Chamber 
regarding leveling that playing field. One is to ensure that countries 
don't dump their products here in the United States, and we have 
language in the Customs bill that deals with that, to ensure that 
companies can indeed seek a remedy and seek help for that.
  We also talk about subsidized products that come to the United 
States, to our shores, to compete unfairly. We have legislation to 
address that as well.
  But there are other issues that need to be addressed to ensure that, 
again, countries are playing by the rules. One is currency 
manipulation.
  We are in the process now of giving our government the ability to 
negotiate an agreement that could lower tariffs and nontariff barriers 
to our products, and that is a good thing, whether it is the agreement 
with Asia, the so-called TPP Agreement, or the agreement in Europe, the 
so-called TTIP Agreement and others.
  But the reality is that we are also in a situation where, regardless 
of what agreements we negotiated, many of the benefits of those 
reductions in tariffs or nontariff barriers could immediately be 
countered by another country saying: Do you know what? I am going to 
intervene aggressively in international currency markets to lower the 
price, to lower the cost of my currency, so that my exports, 
specifically to United States, will be less expensive. And, by the way, 
it also affects other countries in the meantime. So relative to the 
dollar, their currency is lower, so, therefore, their exports are less 
expensive to us, and our exports to them are more expensive.
  When I walk the shop floors in Ohio and I talk to workers and I talk 
to management about how this affects us in Ohio, what I hear very 
directly is: Rob, we are all for trade. We believe we can compete. But 
we need to be able to compete on a playing field where everybody is 
agreeing that there will be certain rules of the road.
  There are rules of the road. The amendment that we are offering, 
despite what some people have been saying about it and what I have seen 
written even today, which is inaccurate--the rules of the road are 
actually set up by the International Monetary Fund and by the World 
Trade Organization, by reference to the IMF.
  As an example, every single country we are negotiating with right now 
with regard to Trans-Pacific Partnership--the so-called TPP--is a 
signatory to this International Monetary Fund and to the WTO. 
Therefore, they are obliged to live with these rules.
  Our amendment is very simple. All it says is that these rules apply 
just as they are currently provided for by the International Monetary 
Fund, and that countries, when they are negotiating with us in a trade 
agreement, need to be consistent with those obligations that they have 
undertaken and that there is an enforceability measure. In other words, 
if they don't do it, there will be some consequences. Right now, there 
is no enforcement penalty. This is one reason we continue to see in 
some cases currency manipulation, which in turn, again, hurts our 
workers and our farmers, who just want the chance to be able to 
compete--and compete fairly.
  I would also say there has been some misinformation about this 
amendment out there regarding whether it would affect monetary policy. 
We will see under this amendment that we have clarified that--not that 
it was ever a question in my mind or of others who drafted it. We 
clarified that to the extent that we have actually said: This does not 
apply to monetary policy. It doesn't apply to macroeconomic policy, 
decisions that countries make.
  Instead, again, it takes the very specific undertakings that the IMF 
has established for all these countries, which says: You cannot 
intervene in purchasing other currencies and doing so in a way to 
expand your exports unfairly.
  So I think this is a very important debate we are having with regard 
to trade promotion authority. We need to get back in the business of 
expanding trade for our workers and our farmers.
  The Presiding Officer's wheat farmers in Montana are looking forward 
to a chance to get into some of these markets where they have been 
essentially

[[Page S3007]]

closed out because other countries have completed trade agreements 
lowering tariffs and we have not. So this will be good for the 
Presiding Officer's farmers and for the farmers in Ohio. One in every 
three acres they plant is now planted for export. It will be good for 
our soybean farmers in Ohio, as 50 percent of their crop is exported. 
It will be good for the workers of Ohio, as 25 percent of our 
manufacturing jobs are now export jobs.
  But we are losing ground because over the last 7 years, we haven't 
been able to knock down these barriers because we haven't had this 
trade promotion authority, which is necessary in order to create the 
opportunity for us to export more.
  Again, while we are doing that and using the leverage of our market 
here in the United States of America, the largest economy, we must also 
be sure that we are dealing with dumping, with subsidization, and, yes, 
with currency manipulation and other aspects of trade that simply 
aren't fair.
  Recently, I received a letter signed by thousands of Ohio auto 
workers, and they called currency manipulation ``the most critical 
barrier in the 21st century.'' They get it. These are workers who work 
at the transmission plant in Sharonville, OH, but I see this all over 
Ohio. More than 1,500 UAW workers will soon manufacture Ford's medium-
duty truck in Avon Lake, OH. We are really excited about that. This is 
actually production that was moved from Mexico to the United States.
  This is what they told me: We want to be able to compete. We want to 
be able to keep our jobs here at Avon Lake, OH.
  They said: Currency manipulation hurts American competitiveness here 
at home and export markets where we compete around the world.
  This assembly plant's mission is to provide our customers with the 
highest quality, and the safest, most reliable automotive products and 
services, while also fostering continuous growth and prosperity for our 
families and the surrounding communities. That is why they say that we 
must ensure that trade policies do not undermine this progress in the 
U.S. auto industry and in U.S. manufacturing.
  By the way, this letter was jointly signed not just by UAW members 
but also by the plant manager and other members of management at this 
company. Why? Because they get it. If they are working hard, making 
concessions, becoming more efficient to be more competitive, they are 
willing to do it. They know they have to. They get it. We are an 
international marketplace now. There is global competition. But they 
want to be darn sure that they aren't having an unfair advantage 
weighed against them because another government, as they say, cheated 
on their currency.
  Given what we are hearing from these American workers, I have 
introduced this bipartisan amendment with Senator Stabenow, cracking 
down on currency manipulation. I have been on the floor a number of 
times to talk about this. I want to be sure that we have the 
opportunity to be able to move forward with this amendment. We also 
have a number of other cosponsors, including Senators Burr, Brown, 
Graham, Casey, Collins, Schumer, Shaheen, Heitkamp, Baldwin, Klobuchar, 
Manchin, Warren, and Donnelly.
  We are pleased that our work here is backed up--yes--by the auto 
companies, including GM, Chrysler, Ford, but also by U.S. Steel, Nucor 
Steel, AK Steel, and others. This very idea of enforceable currency 
disciplines in trade has been backed up again and again. It has been 
endorsed by 60 Senators on the floor of the Senate through either votes 
or letters that they have signed and by 230 Members of the House.
  Again, what it does is it gives teeth to the existing IMF and WTO 
rules against currency manipulation.
  Some have said: Well, this is kind of a stretch. Why are we dealing 
with currency manipulation in this legislation? Let me remind them that 
the TPA bill being considered today--the one without this amendment in 
it, the one that was offered by Chairman Hatch, my friend Orrin Hatch, 
and supported by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew--so the administration--
includes a negotiating objective to address currency concerns.
  So this notion that we shouldn't have this involved in the trade 
agreement--it is in the underlying TPA. The problem is it is not 
enforceable. So we say that we agree that currency manipulation is a 
bad thing because it distorts trade and it distorts free markets.
  I am a conservative. I believe we shouldn't be encouraging 
distortion.
  The difference between the negotiating objective in the bill and the 
one I am proposing is that ours is actually enforceable. It gives us 
the opportunity to actually make a difference in this debate, to be 
able to ensure that countries do indeed abide by the rules they have 
promised to follow as members of the International Monetary Fund.
  Some have said this is a poison pill for trade. I don't quite get 
that. Again, trade promotion authority already includes currency 
manipulation. The question is whether it should be enforceable. If we 
believe, as we say we do, that this is wrong, why wouldn't we want to 
have some ability to enforce it?
  As I said earlier, this legislation specifically excludes domestic 
monetary policy. It is now in the text of the amendment itself, which 
is different than it was in committee.
  So I very much appreciate being allowed to speak on this tonight. I 
appreciate the opportunity for me to offer this amendment that I have 
drafted with Senators Stabenow and others. I look forward to talking 
more about this issue later this week. I do believe it is important 
that we move forward on providing the opportunity for the workers I 
represent, the farmers I represent, and the service providers in Ohio 
to expand their exports. It creates not just more jobs but good-paying 
jobs. On average, those jobs pay 15 to 18 percent more--and better 
benefits. That is important. America needs to get back in the business 
of expanding exports. For 7 years we haven't had that and other 
countries have, through hundreds of trade agreements that left us out 
and lowered the barriers between their countries. That hurts us. We 
want that market share. We don't want to lose it.
  But, again, as we do that, let's be darned sure that we are giving 
our workers and our farmers a fair shake so they have the opportunity. 
If they play by the rules and they work hard, they become more 
efficient, they make the concessions, and they know this is going to be 
something where they have the opportunity to excel, to compete, and 
ultimately to help create jobs and opportunity here in this country.
  Just as we are encouraging other countries to take on our free 
enterprise system and our values we hold so dear, we should also 
encourage them to take on these rules of fairness, including 
prohibiting the manipulation of currency that is explicitly directed at 
increasing our costs and decreasing their costs as they send exports to 
us.
  I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight.


                            Vote Explanation

  I would reiterate that I support the Brown amendment No. 1242. I was 
not able to be here for the vote because I was unavoidably detained and 
was diverted from National Airport.
  I also want to say that I support the Lankford amendment No. 1237, 
again, regarding the religious freedoms and making that a part of trade 
negotiation objectives as well.
  I yield the floor.

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