Political Quotes

“tomorrow the Senate will be bringing up the Customs bill that I intend to support moving to. I believe it has a number of good provisions, and I hope to be able to support its final passage. But first, I want to bring attention to the weakened currency provisions that the conference report included. This is not the language that initially passed the Senate, but instead is much weaker. The Senate, several times, has affirmed the need to provide the Treasury Department and the Department of Commerce tools to prevent currency manipulation. In 2011, the Senate passed such a bill to provide the Commerce Department with enforcement mechanisms by a vote of 63-35. Second, in 2013, 60 Senators signed a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative, calling for the inclusion of enforceable currency provisions in Trans-Pacific Partnership. Finally, in May of 2015, the Senate passed by a 78-to-20 vote this Customs enforcement bill, which, for the first time, included new tools that are necessary to defend American manufacturers from foreign currency manipulations--the language to confront currency cheating that the Treasury Department acknowledges is occurring, but they have refused to take action to confront it. That original bill would have required, where this kind of currency manipulation occurs, action be taken to fix currency manipulation. Unfortunately, that language was removed from the conference report.…”