Grassley Says Multilateral Deals Better, but Japan Deal 'Very Good Agreement'

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said tariffs on autos are not related to national security. When asked to respond to news reports that the U.S. and Japan could not finish a deal because the U.S. was not willing to promise to spare Japanese autos from those tariffs, he said, "The president ought to give that assurance and get this show on the road."

According to a Japanese news agency report on Sept. 24, Japan and the U.S. have agreed on a minideal, though an official signing can't be done before a legal scrub is completed. "All negotiations ended today," Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters after his meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. "We can hold a good ceremony on Wednesday."

In Grassley's weekly conference call with reporters, he said that the deal is "a very good agreement, and that's why we want to move forward"

He said, "You ask a bigger question: Do I think we ought to have a comprehensive agreement, and broader than what just now we have? That's what we should've done." But he said given that U.S. agricultural producers are losing market share to Trans-Pacific Partnership countries that are able to export to Japan at much lower tariffs now, "then I've got to accept something less, and that something less is what the president negotiated."

Grassley said that when it comes to trade liberalization, World Trade Organization rounds are best, followed by multilateral free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "But this president is committed to bilateral, and not doing it any other way." He added, "I want this president to be re-elected so that [bilateral approach] would be for the next six years. At least."

A handful of House Democrats, including the three Democrats in the Wisconsin delegation, complained that because the administration was not required to consult with Congress during these negotiations, dairy exporters are not getting the benefits of the deal (see 1909230051).

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said in a hallway interview Sept. 24 that he does not have that concern, because he said Congress delegated negotiating authority to the executive branch. He said he has no knowledge of how dairy exporters will be treated in the deal. "Obviously, as the senator from Wisconsin, we want to have fair and reciprocal treatment from all trading partners," he said.