[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 198 (Wednesday, December 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



              United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement

  Mr. President, let's talk about some of the things that have been 
occupying time here, and let's talk about something that looks like, 
finally, it is going to get across the finish line: USMCA. We hear 
about trade issues. It is correct to be concerned about trade. Our 
focus is normally on the Chinese. I do believe this has been the time 
to take them on, call them out for their bad behavior when it comes to 
stealing intellectual property, forced technology transfers, 
manipulating currencies, creating gluts, dumping it on the market; no 
one else is doing that. Until President Trump came along, nobody else 
was talking about it. He was over in Europe recently, reminding our 
allies that, when you are running trillion-dollar deficits, you can no 
longer afford to be paying the bills for the rest of the world. That is 
business as usual, thank goodness, because we simply can't afford it 
anymore.
  USMCA reflects arrangements between our two largest trading partners, 
Canada and Mexico--many inequities there, mostly because we were kind 
in those original agreements, but it needed to be changed because we 
cannot sustain that in the long run. This is going to help 
manufacturing. It is going to help farmers. The number of jobs it will 
create, even in this low unemployment context, are amazing.
  When you look at that, it finally gets across the finish line, and we 
now, over the next couple weeks, couple months--who knows--we are 
dealing with what is going to happen in one of the biggest political 
events that has occurred in the history of this country. All I can tell 
you is we will get through it.
  I don't think we are going to find out any more than what we know 
currently, but hopefully, when we do get it resolved, we are going to 
give full credit due to getting tasks done like the USMCA, lowering 
taxes, creating more enterprise across this country, and hopefully 
relying less on this institution in all parts of our daily lives until 
it sets the example that it starts to live within its means, live 
sustainably. And then we start tackling issues like the cost of 
healthcare, where we start talking about climate, when we start talking 
about the issues that future generations will have to deal with and 
that are currently paying all the bills through the money that we are 
borrowing, hopefully that dynamic will change, and hopefully, we will 
be back on track in November 2020 with the leadership that has put us 
in a position to actually change things here to where we do live in a 
way in the future that is sustainable, setting the example starting 
right here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Georgia.