On the recordJune 12, 2015
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Trade is pretty simple. We do it every day, whether you are trading in the old car for a newer car, or whether it is the largest economy in the world trading with the rest of the world. We do it every day. At the end of the day, what we want is a fair deal. I give you something; the benefit of the bargain is I get something back. Any country that wants access to our markets needs to play by the rules. We can't allow cheating to hurt our workers, their wages, our businesses, or our economy. And the American people get it. That is why they are so apprehensive about any trade deal this Congress puts before it, because they want to know, will we lead on their behalf? Or are we going to let the special interests dictate the rules? Will we retreat from our responsibility to make sure that if some foreign company is going to have access to our markets, they are going to play by the rules? When I take a look at this trade promotion authority legislation, I ask myself, how can you ever get a good trade deal out of this when the rules are rigged against America? One simple example. Everyone agrees we have had a bipartisan consensus in this House--more than 230 Members have signed on to a letter in the past saying, We have got to stop countries that manipulate their currency to try to make their products produced by their companies look cheaper than American products.…





