Blumenauer Opening Statement at Trade Subcommittee Hearing
(As prepared for delivery)
Today’s hearing comes at an important junction for the Generalized System of Preferences, our oldest trade preference program. This program was established in the 1970s to extend benefits to sectors of developing countries which were not competitive.
Today, some GSP beneficiary countries have sophisticated and large economies with globally competitive sectors that receive duty-free access to our market.
The global economic landscape has fundamentally changed since the 1970s. China, for instance, was not the second-largest economy then. Nor were supply chains nearly as globalized.
While GSP has supported economic opportunities abroad, and it has been leveraged to improve standards in developing countries, including worker rights, in its current form GSP does not reflect the evolution of trade policy.
That is why House Democrats have sought common sense and equitable reforms to GSP. Such reforms include updating GSP’s labor criteria, adding an environmental criterion, a human rights criterion, and making the GSP program more transparent.
Last year we were ready to move on these common sense and equitable reforms to GSP. We proposed updating GSP to advance the rights of working people around the world. GSP reforms should improve labor standards abroad and support workers in developing nations, especially those who face gender-based violence in the workplace.
House Democrats also support adding an environmental criterion to GSP, which the current GSP eligibility criteria do not include. One of the greatest challenges in the last 40 years is the awareness of climate change. The American people expect us to address this climate crisis. Adding an effective environmental criterion to GSP would align the program with our broader trade policy, which has elevated environmental and conservation issues in our broader trade policy.
As we will hear from Roy Houseman with the United Steelworkers today, there should not be loopholes to enforcement in the form of requiring that violations of GSP's labor and environmental criteria be "sustained or recurring" and shown to have occurred in a manner "affecting trade" to be actionable in a GSP review.
Another topic we sought to address in our bill concerns the rules of origin for the GSP program. As Roy points out, in its current form GSP allows for most of a product to come from a non-GSP country. I am hopeful that we will be able to address this issue as we work to improve and renew GSP.
Finally, if we are serious about supporting the American worker we need to reauthorize and reform Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). We need to ensure that American workers have all the tools they need to succeed in the global economy.
That is why last Congress House Democrats passed legislation that renewed and reformed both GSP and TAA. If this Congress is going to reimburse duties for GSP imports, it should also reauthorize TAA.
I stand ready to work with my Republican colleagues and turn our rhetoric into action. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on these issues as we consider ways to update GSP. Thank you.
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