The major legislation on the floor was the third leg of a three part trade package you heard a lot about earlier in the year. The first piece was so-called “Trade Promotion Authority” or TPA for short. That legislation authorized the President to submit a trade agreement involving various Pacific nations for an expedited up-or-down vote (without amendment). The basic theory behind that is that it is difficult to reach a politically sensitive resolution with a dozen different countries if each one takes that agreement home and has it changed by their respective legislatures.That’s fine and all, but frankly, a lot of my colleagues and I don’t trust this President to negotiate well for this country and didn’t trust the leadership to give the agreement the full measure of consideration and transparency it required. I voted against giving him that authority.
The second piece of the three-part package is the actual trade agreement itself. Without rehashing the whole enormous affair, my suspicions remain and there is a huge amount of skepticism on both sides of the aisle. Just this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned the President publicly about sending the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement up for a vote before the elections next November. Not a good sign for the President’s supporters, but I think it is a good sign for the American people. This shouldn’t be taken lightly. It took the better part of a decade to negotiate because the issues are so tough. Congress shouldn’t rush a rubber stamp vote. That’s just one man’s opinion.
In any case, this week’s vote was on the third piece of the package. The bill focuses on customs and trade enforcement mechanisms. When a country like China subsidizes the production of a certain good – let’s say steel pipes – and then sells that product on the market for less than the actual production price, that’s what trade law refers to as “dumping”. If we detect dumping, we file a suit with the World Trade Organization and if successful, we begin applying what is known as “countervailing duties”. In practice, it means we slap a tariff on a good equivalent to the amount the other country is subsidizing, thus returning the good to a fair market price. It’s a big problem and so stepping up the actual mechanical enforcement mechanisms is a positive.
The bill, which I voted for, also included a negotiated provision to make the ban on taxing access to the internet permanent. You might not have paid much attention to that issue in the past, but trust me, if the taxes ever started… you definitely wouldn’t have been happy about it. We’ve been trying to get that ban made permanent for a long time and it’s great to see it headed to the President’s desk.
Next week, Congress will be considering a spending bill to cover the various government agencies for the next fiscal year. There are still furious negotiations going on and I will have a much better idea of what we’re actually looking at after we see the text on Monday. If you all need anything in the meantime, you know where to find me.
Congressman Rich Nugent represents The Villages in the U.S. House of Representatives.
