[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 27 (Monday, February 10, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H587-H588]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                TARIFFS AND ALLIES OF THE UNITED STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, at the end of the first week of President 
Trump's Presidency, he announced with great fanfare that he was 
imposing 25 percent tariffs on our neighbors, Canada to the north and 
Mexico to the south. The Wall Street Journal, hardly a Democratic 
newspaper, described this effort as the dumbest trade war ever.
  It was dumb because, number one, it violated the trade agreement that 
President Trump himself signed into law in 2020, the United States-
Mexico-Canada Agreement. Again, tariffs like that are completely 
violative of that agreement.
  Number two, Canada and Mexico made it crystal clear that they would 
retaliate with tariffs of their own aimed at U.S. businesses and 
sectors of all sorts.
  It is mostly dumb because it is going to raise prices for Americans, 
which I think most of us in this Chamber who were on the ballot last 
November can still remember that that was the number one issue that 
Americans had.
  It is going to raise prices not just because I am saying it. The 
American

[[Page H588]]

Farm Bureau, which represents a cross-section of American food 
producers all across the country, warned the minute that proposal came 
out that it was going to raise the cost of fertilizer input costs that 
was going to end up in the grocery stores in terms of higher prices.

  American Home Builders, hardly a Democratic group, warned that those 
tariffs were going to raise the costs of building materials, whether it 
was wood or metal materials. That is going to translate into higher 
prices for new homes, the last thing we need in the middle of a housing 
crisis.
  Predictably, February 1, the first day the markets were open, the 
markets tanked in response to this proposal. Within hours, the 
President engaged in a face-saving measure to delay those tariffs for 
30 days. They are still out there and pending. We will see what 
happens.
  Yesterday, right before the Super Bowl, the President came out with 
another proposal of a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum 
indiscriminately across the globe to any and all countries who do 
business with the United States of America.
  I want to talk about one Nation in particular, Australia. I co-chair 
the Friends of Australia Caucus. Today, the U.S. economy has a trade 
surplus with Australia. We export more into Australia than they export 
back to us. They have been a signatory with a free trade agreement with 
no tariffs going back to 2002.
  Again, as Secretary of Defense Hegseth stated yesterday at the 
Pentagon, when he met with the Australia Deputy Prime Minister, our 
alliance between our two countries, going back to World War I, is 
probably the most deep and strong of any other Nation in the world.
  At that meeting he was also there to receive word from the Australian 
Government that they are making the first payment on AUKUS, the 
Australia, U.K., and U.S. security agreement.
  Australia is putting $500 million into the U.S. industrial base to 
help our shipbuilding sector build more submarines, which is part of 
the AUKUS deal. It is a total of $3 billion. Again, the first check was 
delivered on Friday by the Australian Government for $500 million.
  Two days later, what do we see? We see a 25 percent tariff on steel 
and aluminum products coming from Australia into the U.S. at a time 
when we have a surplus with Australia.
  Australia is a key strategic ally for our country. They are 
positioned in the Indo-Pacific at a place where, again, tensions are 
sky-high. We need their input and their help in terms of making sure 
that we are going to rebalance that security environment and protect 
the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific.
  Instead, what we are seeing is a completely needless insult to the 
people of Australia by raising tariffs on Australian products coming 
into this country at the same time we are working with them and they 
are buying three nuclear submarines, cash on the barrelhead, full 
price, no gimme, no giveaway.
  Again, by all the measurements that President Trump talks about trade 
issues and that we are being ripped off by other countries, in this 
case every one of those arguments fails. The Friends of Australia 
Caucus is a strong bipartisan caucus that actually understands the 
importance of Australia.
  Again, we will do everything we can to make sure that this 
administration changes course and treats our friends and our allies 
with the respect that they deserve in terms of the contributions that 
they are making to their national security in a critical part of the 
world and our national security.

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