U.S. Trade Secretary Robert Lighthizer went out of his way Wednesday morning to praise House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-Calif., stance on trade policy, calling her an “early, forceful” advocate for challenging China’s unfair practices.
The comments come as the White House is trying to round up bipartisan support to pass President Trump’s U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement on trade through the House by summer, a trade deal that the speaker has not firmly committed to taking up.
“As with many important issues facing our country, prescience has been bipartisan. The speaker was an early, forceful, and foresighted leader on this issue,” Lighthizer said in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee. “I have admired her perception and hard work over the years and have counseled with her regularly in my position.”
Lighthizer’s office is taking point for the administration on gathering congressional support for the deal, lawmakers and industry lobbyists have told the Washington Examiner.
The administration’s top trade negotiator then read aloud from comments that the speaker made in April 2000 regarding granting China permanent normal trade relations. She called the U.S.’s trade terms with China “seriously deficient” and a “surrender” of the U.S.’s leverage over Beijing. “I ask, if her position had prevailed [at the time], how different would things look now?” Lighthizer asked.
Earlier this month, Pelosi told reporters that she was “optimistic” about passing USMCA, which would replace the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, but that “we are not there yet.” She has emphasized the need for the deal to include strong enforcement provisions to hold trade partners to their requirements under the deal.
