Political Quotes

“I rise to speak on the NDAA bill that is before us today. I think most people know that we have been engaged in some tariff discussions with other countries through the administration. We have a trade act of 1974 and one of 1962 that have laid out provisions as to how we would go about dealing with tariffs. In section 232 there is a place which states that the President of the United States can declare something a national security issue. When he does that, it keeps him from having to go through the normal process that one goes through in dealing with tariffs. Typically, when the President chooses a section of the trade act, he has to go through a process. When he decides that he wants to put a tariff in place on another country, he has to go to the ITC or some other entity to show that, somehow or another, the United States has been harmed as the reason that he would be putting tariffs in place. What our President has chosen to do in recent times is to declare that almost everything that he is dealing with relative to tariffs is a national security issue. When he does that, it means that he does not have to lay down grounds for having done that. He can just determine that it is in our national security interests to put in place tariffs on other countries, whether it is automobiles, whether it is steel, whether it is aluminum, or whether it is some other issue.…”