Lankford Calls out US Trade Rep for Failing to Bring New Trade to US

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s Q&A on YouTube.

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s Q&A on Rumble.

WASHINGTON, DC – In a Senate Finance Committee hearing today, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) questioned US Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai about the Biden Administration’s lack of trade priorities. Lankford also pressed Ambassador Tai on the Biden Administration’s ongoing negotiations with Japan and the European Union to bypass “Buy American” requirements and provide subsidies to those countries under the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act.” 

Lankford recently penned a column on the Biden Administration’s misguided policies, including their manipulation of free trade agreements, to appease their climate-change base. Lankford also continued to insist that we should utilize agreements like the historic Abraham Accords to better align our trade, foreign, and national security policies internationally.

Lankford, co-chair and co-founder of the Senate Abraham Accords Caucus, led a bipartisan letter to President Joe Biden outlining the success of the Abraham Accords and urging its expansion through trade policy. He received a brief response from Ambassador Tai two days ago.

Excerpt

On the Biden Administration’s new “free trade agreements” from the Inflation Reduction Act

Lankford: We’ve talked before about free trade agreements and that this has not been a goal to go get new free trade agreements at this point. It’s trying to work with executive agreements and not bringing them back to this Committee to be able to work through the process…I was surprised to be able to read about a new type of free trade agreement with Japan and Germany to try to deal with energy and climate issues that’s also not coming back here [the Committee], and I can’t figure out how it gains market access and how it’s an FTA. So help me understand this conversation about a ‘free trade agreement’ that’s not a free trade agreement that doesn’t really increase market access for American goods that way; it’s increasing access for goods coming this way. What is this?

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