WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, outlined critical advantages of free trade at today’s hearing on sunsetting preference programs. The U.S. is facing a projected $32 billion agricultural trade deficit for 2024, on the heels of a recorded $17.3 billion decline in ag exports last year.
“I hope I have a reputation of being a free trader. I think, as time goes on, I’m a minority in the Congress on that point and maybe in a minority among the country as a whole. I wish our country would learn a lesson from the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs of 1930 that was supposed to help protect American agriculture and industry […],” Grassley said. “I think we’ve learned since the Second World War, free trade has lifted millions of people out of poverty. I think I’ve read where free trade and capitalism together has probably reduced, in the last 60 years, the world poverty rate […] from 50 percent down to about 10 percent.”
Grassley has a proven track record of expanding international trade partnerships. During the 116th Congress, Grassley shepherded the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement into law. He also helped champion landmark free trade agreements with Australia and Central America. A testament to the importance of opening export markets, Grassley hosted a tour to generate goodwill for Iowa’s products, where ambassadors to the U.S. visited the state for a week to meet with farmers and producers.
During the 116th Congress, Grassley sought to extend the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which expired in 2020. At the Finance Committee today, he urged the Senate Finance Committee to reauthorize GSP, as well as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which is set to expire on September 30, 2025. Grassley’s questions of Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome, Vice President of General Economics and the Stiefel Trade Policy Center, are below:
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