[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 81 (Thursday, May 12, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H4867-H4868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TRADE DEFICIT AND MEANS OF PRODUCTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the recent numbers on our trade deficit in 
this country tie in strongly with our supply chain issues we have been 
facing during COVID and during this new administration. We have reached 
a new record of $110 billion for 1 month of March of our trade 
deficits.

[[Page H4868]]

  So why are we in this precarious situation?
  We are not producing the way we need to in this country. I just spoke 
with some dairy folks a while ago from California. They are having more 
and more difficulty in producing but also exporting. We are not 
adhering to our trade regulations and our trade agreements. Basically 
the USTR is saying we are not being empowered to make new trade 
agreements, we are instead more worried about other things such as 
climate change and things like that.
  How are we supposed to compete?
  How are small towns and small town economies supposed to keep going 
when we cannot produce here and we cannot have trade agreements that 
are adhered to?
  Under the Trump agreements with China we were $300 billion behind 
because they were not being enforced.
  How are we supposed to have the means of production in this country 
when we don't enforce our trade laws and our trade agreements?
  We have shiploads that come over here full of more electronic 
gadgetry or what have you from China and others, and then they leave 
our ports a lot of times empty. They don't even fulfill obligations. 
When they leave the ports in southern California they are supposed to 
stop in the Port of Oakland, for example, and pick up our ag products, 
almonds, et cetera, and take them back. Yet they don't because they are 
not being enforced.
  What does that mean for our economy?
  It means bad things. Bad things for our rural ag economy and bad 
things for our rural trade deficit. So if we don't have the means of 
production here, if we are not sustaining them, then we will not have 
food and we will not have the other things that Americans produce as 
part of our trade agreements, and then we will be even more dependent 
on imported food and imported products that have already put us over a 
barrel.
  Somewhere around 90 percent of our pharmaceuticals, for example, are 
produced in China.
  What if they decide to cut off their export to us and keep us over a 
barrel on that?

  How are we supposed to continue to compete?
  How are we supposed to have an economy?
  We need the President and his U.S. trade representatives to adhere to 
enforcing our trade agreements because it means so much to our jobs, 
and it means so much to our economy. If they are not producing for 
export, then they are probably not going to be around to produce for 
our domestic use.
  So as we see the world food crisis mount up--and we haven't seen 
anything yet indeed as water is being cut off in California, for 
example, because of BOR and others are not finding that a priority over 
fish and over salinity in the delta--we are going to find ourselves in 
2023 without the food that we should have been growing in 2022.
  It is not that tough. It is pretty simple. You need to plant a year 
ahead in agriculture and food supply to have what you are going to need 
next year. But we don't because we are after pie-in-the-sky other 
priorities. So electrification of tractors they are talking about. No 
farmer is going to be able to change his fleet out and get rid of his 
trucks and his tractors to meet these ``goals'' set by somebody in 
Washington, D.C., or Sacramento. We need to get back to basics. We are 
coming out of 2 years of COVID. We are coming out of a timeline where 
the economy has been harmed greatly by overbearing COVID regulations 
and taking people out of the production chain. So we are all feeling 
the effects of that--unemployment. Yet there are many employment 
opportunities out there, and we are not taking advantage of the ability 
to fill them because instead we are mailing out $1,200 checks for 
prioritizing other things.

                              {time}  1045

  I just do not understand how we have a strong country, a strong 
economy, when we don't prioritize domestic production, keeping the 
supply chains filled.
  We are having difficulty getting railroad bookings to move our 
products back and forth between the coast and the Midwest to feed 
ethanol plants in California, for example.
  We want this newer, cleaner fuel, and we can hardly get the grain 
there. What is going on with that? Why can't we have train track time 
in order to move these very needed products?
  Why are ports so balled up, being on the receiving end of imports but 
not being able to get our exports out because we are not being more 
forceful on our trade agreements?
  How long are we going to keep doing this? It makes me wonder if the 
administration is actually on the side of the American people or other 
interests.
  We are not going to be in a good way as we already suffer higher 
costs for food, empty shelves. We need the Biden administration to 
focus on full shelves and not empty shelves.

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