[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 63 (Tuesday, April 8, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2468-S2469]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Tariffs

  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, this morning, we had a Finance Committee 
meeting, and Ambassador Greer was there, our U.S. Trade Representative, 
whom I voted for and have a lot of confidence in. I asked him a line of 
questions. Then I saw the press getting lazy and not reporting what I 
said. So I felt like, instead of having to talk a lot to the press, 
here is what I said:
  I was a partner at Price Waterhouse for most of my career. I have 
advised big clients on big projects. What I was asking the Ambassador 
today was a simple question on policy--or, I should say, on business--
that didn't resonate with the people in journalism who have, 
apparently, never worked a day in business. We used to have this 
concept of ``one throat to choke,'' right? When somebody makes a 
business decision for a major enterprise, there is always one person--
it is not the President; it is not the Vice President, as they are in 
elected positions, and they have to roll out experts.
  All I was saying there is I support what is going on, right now, with 
trade. As uncertain as it may seem now, I think the President is right 
in challenging other nations that have, for decades, abused their 
relationship with the United States--to press. I think he should. 
Whether or not I would do it ``alla prima,'' as I described--that is 
all at once--or whether or not I would pick out the top quartile of the 
worst offenders, work on them, and then kind of work down the list is 
subject to debate.
  But the point that I was making is that someone in the 
administration--I assume, when they decided to do broad-based tariffs 
against dozens and dozens of countries, that they gamed out the second- 
and third-order effects of that decision. I am assuming that anybody 
with a modicum of business experience would have understood that the 
markets are going to react the way they did, and that is OK. Markets go 
up and down. Markets reacting the way they have over the past few days 
over the long term is a problem.
  So my request--just to make it clear what I said--of ``one throat to 
choke'' is just in jest: Whom is it I am either going to put on a 
pedestal and show up at the ticker-tape parades when all this stuff 
works out well or whom am I going to hold accountable for not thinking 
through some of the second-

[[Page S2469]]

and third-order effects? That is what businesspeople do, and that is 
what I did for the majority of my career. Presumably, with the very 
successful businesspeople consulting President Trump, they have thought 
it through.
  We need to know that because the American people are wondering. I 
have got farmers--and the Congress has failed to pass a farm bill for a 
few years now. So I have got farmers living harvest to harvest, and now 
we are being told that there may be some nontariff trade barriers 
shutting down markets. So I will hear from my pork farmers and I will 
hear from soybean farmers and I will hear from cotton farmers and I 
will hear from people who grow about 80 different commodities at scale. 
We are one of the No. 1 pork States, and we are one of the No. 1 
chicken States. They need certainty. I am willing to have some of this 
happen, but at some point, we have to settle it down and sooner rather 
than later.
  The only other thing I said that, I think, bears repeating is that 
businesspeople do think in long terms. Most of the business cases I 
have built for clients were for 5-year, 10-year, 15-year sort of 
horizons. You don't have that luxury in business. If you get the 
country on the right track or the wrong track, you suffer the political 
consequences or the benefit every 2 years. So anybody who tells me this 
trade stuff is going to be tumultuous for a couple of years does not 
understand American democracy. Americans give you about 14 months after 
January when you get sworn in to demonstrate that you are putting the 
country on the right track. If you do, you get rewarded at the ballot 
box, and if you don't, you get sent home.
  So the only thing that I was trying to communicate today is I hope 
and I believe that there are people in the White House who are 
protecting the President by looking around corners and implementing 
policies that are going to benefit the American people. If they did, 
then this should work out really well. If they didn't, they should be 
that ``throat.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Senator has left the floor, but to 
follow up on the comments of the Senator of North Carolina, I would 
just say that we should all be reminded of the fact that half of the 
people in America do not know that their futures lie in the Dow Jones 
average. They may not own stock or they may own it in a retirement 
account and not follow the stock market on a day-to-day basis. What 
they do worry about is whether or not they have enough money for 
groceries and gasoline for the car, to pay the rent or the mortgage, 
and perhaps to sock away a little money for the educations of their 
kids. Those are the fundamentals.
  I think many of them are concerned, as I am, that the volatility of 
our economy, at this point, does not point in the right direction. It 
raises a question as to whether or not decisions are being made, 
particularly on tariffs, that are going to have an impact on ordinary 
working American families--a negative impact on that basis. I think 
that we all want to be sensitized to that fact.
  You can watch CNBC, and you can commune with the economists of note, 
but for most people, it is pretty basic: Do I have enough money to get 
to the next paycheck? A lot of people struggle with that every single 
day. That is the reality that we are faced with.