This evening U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) delivered remarks ahead of the Senate's vote on his amendment, as part of the debt ceiling deal, to raise tariffs on imports from China until the United States’ unsustainable trade deficit with China comes into balance.
"In the last 20 years in the state of Missouri, we have lost 60,000 jobs to the People’s Republic of China—that number nationwide is almost 4 million," said Senator Hawley. "We can talk about budget reforms, and we can talk about savings here and there, but until we do the work of bringing back productive capacity to this nation and good-paying, blue-collar jobs you can raise a family on, we will not put our economy on the basis that we need to address the economic challenges that we face.”
In May, Senator Hawley introduced the Raising Tariffs on Imports from China Act which would require the President to impose an additional tariff of 25% on all goods imported from China if a bilateral deficit is recorded during the preceding calendar year.
In March, Senator Hawley introduced the Ending Normal Trade Relations with China Act, legislation that would revoke China's normal trade relations status and subject imports from China to a higher base tariff rate.