Michelle Wu: “as I tried to make my case earlier that this trade agreement is just not in fundamental American interests, I would like…”

“as I tried to make my case earlier that this trade agreement is just not in fundamental American interests, I would like to restate that argument very briefly. If we both, America and China, dropped our trade quotas, dropped our tariffs to zero, we would lose control over imports and China would not. China has a nonconvertible currency. They have a second level of control, because you cannot get the foreign currency to buy goods and bring it here. We have heard many, many arguments today also about the salutary effect of business. When I was young, I believed in the Tooth Fairy, I believed in Santa Claus, and I believed that all these good things just came sort of naturally. Later on I figured out that my parents made deep, deep sacrifices and worked hard to put things on the table so that we could have things in our family. The problem here is that we would like to believe that trade will automatically change everything, that it has this wonderful transformative effect. But the truth is that generations before us made deep, deep sacrifices. They knew that it was more than about business, that the business of America must be more than business alone. They made broad sacrifices. They did not see their business as business alone. They saw the business of America as pressing hard on a broad set of human values, of human rights, of civil liberties, of the rule of law. We must stand in that tradition today.…”