President-elect Trump’s commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross will pledge to put his experiences dealing in “unfair trade” to use if confirmed, according to prepared remarks released Wednesday morning.
The banker-turned-investor will sell members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee with his five decades of experience in steel, coal, telecommunications, foreign investment and textiles.
“My companies have operated on the ground in some 23 countries around the world. Sometimes those operations have progressed happily, sometimes a lot less happily,” Ross will tell the committee.
“I’ve also been in the middle of complicated situations in our domestic manufacturing sector and being subjected to some of the bad trade activities of other countries, both in terms of non-tariff trade barriers that some countries impose on us and state subsidies of foreign exports coming into the United States,” Ross is expected to say.
“I think I’ve probably had more direct experience than any prior Cabinet nominee has had with unfair trade in the steel business, in the textile business, in the auto parts business and other sectors.”
If confirmed, Ross will explain his trade philosophy to be “not anti-trade,” but “pro sensible trade” which is not “detrimental to the American worker.”
Ross will call his work with Leo Gerard, president of the United Steel Workers of America, the “proudest” point in his career up until now. He will vow to work with global trading partners who agree to play by U.S. standards on free trade.
Ross will promise not to “put up with malicious trading activities, state owned enterprises, or subsidized production.”
Ross has been criticized for outsourcing jobs in order to accumulate his billions of dollars in wealth.
