I come to the floor today to talk about the nomination of the President's nominee to run the Department of Commerce, an Agency that is charged with a broad mission and a lot of complex issues that affect many sectors of our economy. The next Secretary of Commerce will have to deal with a wide-ranging, growing list of issues, from trade and export controls, expanding broadband, weather forecasting, patent issues, export controls on AI, and figuring out some of the most thorny issues related to how we move our country forward, generally, in commerce. So it is fair to say that if the Commerce Secretary doesn't get it right, the American people and our American economy pay the price. Unfortunately, I believe that Howard Lutnick, the President's nominee, isn't the right person for this job at this point in time. Now, Mr. Lutnick and the President have made it very clear that one of Mr. Lutnick's key responsibilities will be for trade policy and the tariff policies that the President supports. In my conversations with Mr. Lutnick and before his Commerce Committee hearing, he made it very clear that he intends to be very enthusiastic about the President's plans for tariffs. When he talked about tariffs, I don't know if he knew how much the U.S. economy was going to start paying the price.…
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