Hatch: Congress Will Have Final Say on NAFTA

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, speaking at a conference hosted by free-trade interest groups, said Congress will assert itself when it's time to renew fast-track trade negotiating authority in July -- and that no changes to NAFTA can take effect unless Congress signs off. "Because the Constitution very clearly assigns to Congress the power to lay and collect tariffs and to regulate foreign commerce, Congress must have the final word on the fate of NAFTA," he said March 20, according to prepared remarks. "Congress will use the extension disapproval process under the Trade Promotion Authority law to emphasize that the administration must adhere to the TPA negotiating objectives and to encourage the president to seek new agreements with our trading partners."

Hatch gave a defense of free trade, which has fallen out of favor in the Trump White House. "American and global prosperity through free trade and open markets is a project that has spanned my entire life. I don’t intend to see that project abandoned," he said, noting that the country began correcting course after the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930, with new trade principles the year he was born, 1934. Hatch said businesses are hiring and investing in America because of tax cuts and a lighter regulatory touch. But he said the economic gains that come from that could be squandered by bad policy on trade. "I have been in the Senate for 42 years, and this is one of the most challenging environments for U.S. trade that I’ve seen," he said.

He said the global consensus on trade, as represented by the World Trade Organization, is threatened by China, U.S. skeptics of free trade, and some allies' approaches to pricing prescription drugs and regulating Internet giants. He acknowledged China as the biggest threat to the system, giving examples of steel and aluminum production levels set for political purposes, intellectual property rights theft and forced tech transfer. "The scope of these problems cannot be overstated," he said, but he said the right steps must be taken to counter Chinese policies. "The global tariffs set to take effect on Friday will do absolutely nothing to address" the harms to American steelworkers and aluminum producers, he said. Instead, he said, Chinese overcapacity should be addressed through antidumping and countervailing duties. With regard to IP and tech transfer, he said "targeted deployment of Section 301 investigations also can be used to bring China to the table to resolve long-standing issues." Those negotiations should be conducted with our allies, he said.