Daines Recaps Recent China Trip, Discussions on Fentanyl, Trade
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Steve Daines today joined Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria to discuss his recent trip to China. Daines delivered President Trump’s America First message to leaders in China last week highlighting the need to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors and protect American companies and producers.
Watch the full interview HERE.
Daines recapped his trip to China and emphasized the need to halt the flow of fentanyl:
Well, first of all, you step back and look at the China-U.S. relationship, economically speaking, our two economies comprise about 43 percent of the total world economy. But look, at the moment, we’ve got some serious disagreements. One of the problems we face is a drug war. There’s a lot of talk about the trade war that’s looming right now with China, but there’s a drug war that President Trump is committed to fighting and winning on behalf of the American people, and that’s with fentanyl. The Chinese supply the raw material, they call them precursors, to the Mexican cartels, and they generate the fentanyl in Mexico, and that’s what’s killing nearly 100,000 Americans every year. So I made it very clear that President Trump is fighting a drug war, and we’ve got to win this war, and we’re asking the Chinese to stop the flow of these precursors from China to Mexico… it’s a very lucrative business. We need the Chinese government to step up. We need Xi Jinping to publicly say this is over. We are not going to allow these precursors to go to Mexico. They have the capability to do that. It’s been talked about a lot, but it is now time for action. It’s time for results. You know President Trump is a result oriented, action-oriented president. That’s what we need the Chinese to do. They’ve got to take action. They’ve got to stop the flow, not slow it down. Stop the flow of these fentanyl precursors into Mexico and to certain degree Canada as well.
Daines discussed President Trump’s strong actions to protect American companies and military installments:
This is a very serious threat to the United States and our national security, no doubt about it. President Trump is taking a very aggressive and hardline stance as he should. The Chinese now are a military superpower in the world. That’s why it’s very important that we have, I’ll call it, strategic decoupling in terms of this technology and companies that pose a risk to our national security, but we also want to have strategic coupling as we’ve got tremendous opportunities for U.S. businesses in China. Nearly $500 billion a year is generated in terms of revenues to great American companies, companies like Boeing, like FedEx. They’ve got to have access into that market to keep driving their top-line revenues and then funding their long-term R & D.
Daines addressed trade deficits with China, including U.S. beef:
Five and a half years ago, it was then-Senator David Perdue, who will soon be the U.S. Ambassador to China, and myself, who were there in Beijing negotiating that Phase One trade deal with then Vice Premier Liu He. They’ve fallen way short on that Phase One trade deal. And so that’ll be an important part of negotiations going forward with the Chinese. They were supposed to commit to $200 billion of additional U.S. purchases. They’ve fallen well short of that, less than 50 percent of that, as well as a number of other, we’ll call these non-tariff issues, things like intellectual property protection, licensing and so forth.
Daines emphasized the need for tax permanency for hardworking Americans:
Well, I’ve made it very clear to my colleagues and to President Trump, and President Trump has now made it very clear: we need permanence in our tax policy. We’re facing a $4.5 trillion tax increase the first of the year if Congress doesn’t act. We’ve got to take that off the table going forward. That’s why as we put together this tax bill it needs to be made permanent. Remove the uncertainty that Congress places on the private sector, which reduces capital expenditure as well as hiring because they don’t know what Congress is going to do. And so this is a very significant moment one, of the most important things we’ve got to deliver here in Washington is to is to make these tax cuts permanent. Regarding the debt ceiling, I think it’s probably wise to put that in this bill. Either we’re gonna pass a debt ceiling increase with Republican votes or the alternative is negotiate with Chuck Schumer for a debt ceiling increase and you can see, he would exact a huge price in exchange for a debt ceiling increase. That’s why we’re better off to pass this with Republican votes through the reconciliation process.
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Contact: Matt Lloyd, Rachel Dumke