Ron Kind: “We had a very important caucus meeting earlier today, the Democratic Caucus, talking about the provisions of this trade…”

“We had a very important caucus meeting earlier today, the Democratic Caucus, talking about the provisions of this trade agreement. What I heard in that caucus, and I am not going to speak on behalf of those who spoke, but there was a lot of pent-up frustration. For the last 6 years with one-party control, our ideas, thoughts and values were excluded in terms of the template of trade agreements and what was in these bilateral regional trade agreements coming before Congress. But also, as you just recognized, there is a big concern about the lack of enforcement of existing trade agreements and the likelihood of enforcement being done by this current administration in future trade agreements when they come before Congress asking for our ratification. That is a legitimate concern, a concern that I hear back home from a lot of my constituents as well. Unless the administration wants to step up and start enforcing these trade agreement and say we entered into these trade agreements for a reason, and that is to uphold the terms of the agreements and make sure everyone is playing by the same rules, trade confidence in this country is going to continue to ebb, and it is going to get worse. I think that would be disastrous ultimately for our long-term national economic growth and for helping our workers and expanding economic opportunities both at home and abroad.”