What I Said About Trade Enforcement in San Diego Yesterday:
Hello, San Diego! God, I love this city. When I die, I want to be reborn here.
I was telling my granddaughters, who are on this trip with me, that you used to be able to say — I think I’m wrong by one city — but more days of sun here than any other major city in the United States. I keep saying that. I think there’s one other. But at any rate. But what a great, great city. And what an incredible port.
The fact is that you’ve been tired of hearing me over the last eight years and even before that talk about infrastructure, and talk about the need for us to modernize our ports throughout the United States of America. My wife, representing the Administration, led a delegation down to the opening of the new locks in the Panama Canal. I had taken a number of my Republican and Democratic friends, governors and senators, down to see the locks. It’s like the Eighth Wonder of the World, if you’ve been down — if you haven’t seen it. Because when these post-Panamax ships, if you go on the East Coast from actually the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Maine, there’s only two ports that can berth them. It is absolutely bizarre that we are not doing more for infrastructure.
But here in San Diego, you’re ahead of the curve for a whole range of reasons.
And one of the things — and let me say to the military that’s here, thank you for your service and thank you for all you do for us. I mean that sincerely. We’re a military family. And God bless you, man.
And also — if you excuse the point of personal privilege, I’m a union guy. For the unions that are here, thank you. One of the things the President and I have tried to do — not just us — a lot of people is we got to figure out how to restore the middle class after this godawful recession and the hit it’s been taking over the last 20 or more years.
And one of the ways to do that — the best way is good-paying jobs. The reason why this port and so many other ports are so critically important and why we should be expanding them. I realize this is a topic for another speech, port expansion, but it’s because you can actually make a living wage working in the port. You can actually — and let me explain what I mean by middle class — being able to own your own home and not have to rent it; send your kid to a local park and be confident they’ll come home safely; and being able to send your kid to a local high school, and they do well, they get to college. And if they get to college, you’ll find a way to get them there. And when one of your elderly parents passes away, you’re able to take care of the other. That’s not asking a whole hell of a lot. That’s the basis. They’re the folks who built this country.
And when the middle class does well, everybody does well. The wealthy do even better, and the poor have a way up.
And that’s the underlying subtext of everything I want to talk to you about today. And, Randa, thank you by the way. It’s obviously a woman is running things here it’s running so well.
Marshall, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for everything. Actually, he’s the one who said that to me when he introduced me to Randa.
America’s economic might and dynamism — and our ability to compete with the rest of world — depends on our ability to access world markets. There’s that old joke. They asked Willie Sutton why does he rob banks. He said, “Because that’s where the money is.”
Well, why do we need ports that are efficient, competent, able to get products to market quickly, able to get raw materials to manufacturers quickly? It’s because if you don’t, folks are going to go somewhere else. They’re going to go somewhere else.
One of the reasons why we’re in such good shape right now is that America is in a better place — there is an outfit called AT Kearney. Every year they do a survey for the past I think 18–20 years. And they ask the 300 largest industrialists in the world: Where is the best place in the world to invest your money? And for the fourth year in a row by a margin larger than any time the survey has been kept, they say the United States of America. And that’s for three reasons.
One, we have the most productive workers in the world, and we do. Number two, we’re in a situation where we’re going to be energy independent the remainder of this century. The epicenter of energy is North America. It is not the Arabian Peninsula. It is not Africa. It is not South America. It is the United States of America, Canada, and Mexico.
And so, folks, we also have the single-best research universities in the world. That’s why almost every new invention, every new breakthrough has stamped on it: Made in America. We’re the most innovative people in the world.
And thirdly, we’re in a situation where we have venture capitalists that are prepared to invest in things that work. But, ladies and gentlemen, the fact is that if you think about it, compared to the rest of the world, we are better positioned. We’ve created more jobs than all the rest of the industrial world combined — combined — since this godawful recession. We still have a long way to go. We’ve gone from crisis to recovery. We’ve on the verge of resurgence.
But the point is, of all of this, is that trade matters. This is a global economy. Now all the effects of globalization are good.
But what Americans have always done is they’ve always bent reality to the benefit of Americans and American workers. With every new industrial change in the world, we have adapted.
And, ladies and gentlemen, the fact of the matter is that right here in San Diego that dynamism flows through this port — 58,000 direct and indirect jobs are related to this port. As the chairman pointed out, nearly $8 billion in economic activity, not just for the companies involved in trade, but for businesses, and workers, from customers, from local diner, to gas stations, to hotels. It’s all across the region.
But to ensure American workers and businesses have a fair shot and equal access to those world markets and aren’t put at a competitive disadvantage by cheating, we have to enforce the rules the road that govern global trade.
Since day one, our administration has enforced our trade laws aggressively, more aggressively than any administration in the past, using more tools and going after bigger cases than ever before.
Today, I want to talk about a couple of ways we’ve done that and why we have to continue it for the benefit of the American worker.
First, we’ve filed 21 cases with the World Trade Organization, the group that settles trade disputes among 160 countries that belong to the WTO.
There’s a lot at stake. We need to sell to customers abroad; 95 percent of the world’s customers are over there. They’re beyond our shores — 95 percent of the world’s customers. We have the best products in the world, so we have to make sure they have equal access both here and abroad.
Exports support 10 million jobs, around one-eighth of our gross domestic product. Today, I’m here to announce that the 13th WTO case we’re filing against China, and it’s the 22nd one we have filed since 2009. And we’ve won every single case that’s been decided by the WTO. And I’m confident we’ll win this one.
Here’s what’s happening. When companies in China ship raw materials abroad, they put a tax on the raw material that comes from China. That drives up the cost of those materials for the buyers in other countries and puts American companies at a disadvantage in competing the sell the products that need those raw materials.
Let’s say you’re an American manufacturer that needs graphite to make refrigerators or batteries. You have to import because we don’t produce graphite here at home. And because China taxes the export of graphite 20 percent, American companies pay more for graphite than the companies competing with them in China making batteries and refrigerators and whatever else is needed — needs graphite.
And any business owner will tell you, it’s tough to compete when you’re paying 20 percent more for the raw material than your competitor is.
And it’s not just graphite. It’s key materials like tin and copper that are used everywhere from cars to electronics to semi-conductors. But with the action we’re taking today, we’re aiming to change that.
Here in San Diego alone, let me tell you what it will mean. Qualcomm is going to — when we win — pay less for Chinese tin than it pays now, and no more than any Chinese company because Qualcomm makes semi-conductors. It will reduce the cost of them making those semi-conductors and make them more competitive not only in this market against Chinese companies, but worldwide. This is a worldwide market.
DJO Global will pay the same price for cobalt when it makes medical devices that its Chinese competitors pay, making the competition at home and worldwide fair. And when it’s fair, America wins. When it’s fair, America prevails.
Ladies and gentlemen, the failure to act would cost jobs and revenue in sectors ranging from aerospace to automobiles to electronics. This all adds up. Big time.
Manufacturers for brake parts that employ 20,000 people; fertilizer and animal feed companies that employ 61,000 people. This case builds on previous WTO cases we’ve won to level the playing field for American businesses and workers. Everywhere.
China put a $5 Billion illegal tax on American-made cars being shipped into China, driving up the cost of those cars. We’re taking away market, meaning fewer people working on the assembly line. Fewer American cars, which are better made, more competitive than other cars moving into China. We filed a case against them. We won. We won for the 926,000 workers in American auto industry that are back selling the best cars in the world and more than they ever did.
And by the way, for those who didn’t like me pushing to bail out, the automobile industry, go to hell. It doesn’t matter. It worked. There’s 926,000 autoworkers, making a decent, honorable wage.
Ladies and gentlemen, the previous government in Argentina illegally shut out a wide array of American products from electronics to cars, to parts for medical devices — costing American companies tens of millions of dollars in potential exports and American jobs.
We filed a case against them. We won.
Today, the United States exports $9.2 billion worth of electronics, machinery, aerospace parts, chemicals, and plastics made in California, Illinois, Michigan, Florida — exports them to Argentina. They’re able to compete and export to here. That’s okay. All we want is a level playing field. Whenever, it’s level, we do just fine. We do just fine.
Four years ago we filed a case against the country of India because it was refusing to allow poultry to be brought into its markets, hurting our industry and thousands of farmers from Georgia to Arkansas to my home state of Delaware. In 2015, we won.
By the time India finishes complying with the WTO ruling, it will mean an additional half a billion dollars in exports of American poultry abroad. That’s a big deal. That’s a lot of jobs.
That’s what standing up for 50,000 of America’s farmers looks like. We also filed and won cases against Peru, Colombia, Honduras, and South Africa on everything ranging from intellectual property to pork and beef to solar panels and timber.
Folks the point is simple, we are demanding — not asking, we’re demanding that other countries abide by the letter and spirit of international obligations they sign onto. In the past, they’ve been reluctant to do that. Would that hurt relations in other areas? Would that impact on our foreign policy? Would that, in fact, affect industries who are invested here? This is about American jobs. We’re going to continue to be as aggressive as we can when any country violates agreements they’ve made hurting American business, American entrepreneurs, and American workers.
Another way we’ve made sure other countries pay for violating the law is penalizing them when they don’t abide by the law. The motivations in other countries are clear. Some countries are trying keep workers in their industries, unprofitable industries that can’t compete, keeping them alive. How do they do it? What they do is they subsidize the product they’re making so it can be sold much cheaper. They’re not making any money. It’s an employment project they have. But their employment, unable to make a product that can compete, costs Americans jobs.
Others want their companies to take up market share, crowd out competitors. It’s real simple. Look at the steel dumping cases. They sell steel below cost — below the cost it cost them to make it and ship it. Why do they do that? Say, what the hell? We wouldn’t do that. American company can’t stay in business. Well, they do it for a simple reason: To shut down American steel manufacturers, put them out of business, grab the share of market. Once the market is controlled, prices can be raised. It’s not a new idea. It happened with the robber barons back in the late 1800s here in America.
But, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve sat by too long. Countries do this, as I said, with products like steel and rubber, aluminum all the time to gain unfair share of — not just our market, but a global market — crowding out American companies in an attempt to try to put them out of business. When countries do these things, we act.
Under the World Trade Organization, we’re allowed to levy a tax, assuming we get the decision — and we have — a tax on import of those foreign goods in the amount of the subsidy or the amount of the dumping cost — to cover the difference. We’ve been vigilant doing this, and we’ve won. We have put in place 338 duties. That is taxes on their illegal behavior from nearly 40 countries that engage in these unfair trade practices. The total amount has been an extra $1.2 billion they’ve had to pay for their unfair behavior.
Last year alone, we initiated another 62 investigations of countries we believe are disadvantaging U.S. companies — the most cases filed in 14 years.
Folks, it’s simple: Agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written on, unless they are enforced.
One of the reasons so many Americans are upset about trade is because we have not adequately enforced them — these agreements. There’s always been other considerations. We’re not afraid to make it clear to any country we deal with, as long as you play by the rules, you beat us fair and square, it’s yours. But don’t try to stack the deck against us.
Well, why do we want fair trade agreements? As I said, because that’s where the customers are. Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers live outside our borders. Let me make something clear, by all objective indicia and data that’s available, we make the best products in the world — by and large. Number one.
Number two, our workers by every independent study show they are three times as productive as workers in Asia and more productive than workers in the EU. How many of you heard over the — all during the ’90s how Japan was going to own us? They were going to buy up everything. Japan Incorporated — we couldn’t compete.
Then you heard about how, oh, man, tell you what, the European Union, we can’t compete with them; 385 million people, man. We can’t do it. And then China. China is going to eat our lunch, own us. I want them all to do well. I mean it sincerely. I want them all to do well economically. And they have enough money to buy our products. They have enough money to buy our products. Grow the world economy. But, ladies and gentlemen, raise your hand if you’d trade places economically with any one of those entities I named. God love China. And they’re a lot. I want to see them succeed. They not only don’t have enough energy, they don’t have enough water. Water.
We want them to succeed. It’s in our interest. But, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time we take off the mask and understand just how strong we are, just how capable we are. Not we, Barack and Joe Biden, this administration, the American people. It comes down to competition. It’s fundamental to who we are.
I was with — well, I shouldn’t go into that. But I was with a couple foreign leaders. They’re asking me why I was so confident, why I wanted to see them succeed. I said, so we can sell you our products.
He said, what makes you think you can do that? I said, we make better products. And by the way, we do. We do.
Over the last eight years because of the grit and determination of the American people — and to be very blunt about it — some of the very tough unpopular decisions the President and I have had to make, we’ve gone from crisis to recovery, on the cusp of resurgence here.
The United States is better positioned in the 21st century to be the leading economy in the world for this century than it even was in the 20th century. We have everything. And we should not apologize under any circumstances for enforcing the rules of the road, for enforcing the agreements other nations have signed onto. It’s based on a simple proposition. All we have to do — and I know they always refer to me as Middle Class Joe. In Washington that’s not meant as a compliment. That’s meant when you’re middle class, you’re not sophisticated. I am middle class. I know where I come from. I know why we’re who we are. And the thing that disturbs me about so many people around the world — and some here — is they forget that ordinary people do extraordinary things. Ordinary Americans do extraordinary things. And all you got to do is give them a fair shot. Just a fair shot. They’re not asking for anything. Just give me a fair shot. I can take care of myself.
Well, as long as I have this job, which the good news for some of you is, not much longer — I am going to make sure that we make no apologies for enforcing trade agreements. And any future trade agreements that are made, that are fair and equal where the American worker and American industry gets an even shot. And we do that, we’ll do just fine.
Thank you all for sitting out in the sun, although I like sitting out here in the sun. Thank you for listening. God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you, everybody.
Thanks for what you do here at this port. Thank you.
