In this second story on District 3 Representative, John Curtis, he discusses the Trade War with China and the impacts it has on constituents. He does not agree with the President’s strategy of imposing tariffs on China and doesn’t think it benefits the economy. Carolyn Murray has this:
Representative John Curtis said the trade war is mostly hurting small businesses and that he hears from his constituents almost daily about how it’s impacted them.
“..and have heard for months almost daily, if not daily, weekly from businesses its hurting and unfortunately it’s having a disproportionate impact on small businesses. And, 99 percent of the businesses in my district are small businesses. We need to quickly resolve this because they’re the ones who are least able to sustain it.”
Curtis said he hopes with the recent talks, there is a resolution coming soon.
“Now that we are this far into it and this far along, I would just highly encourage President Trump to continue talks with China. Now, we’ve had some positive news in the last few days about progress in talks and I am optimistic that we will be able have those talks and hopefully resolve it as quickly as possible.”
Curtis said the trade war with China could have been avoided. Tariffs shouldn’t have been imposed because it escalates into a retaliation scenario with additional tariffs piling on.
“It’s kind of a race to the bottom and nobody wins a trade war. So, my preference is we would have used other tools in the toolbox.”
He said he acknowledges the serious problems with China’s behavior but thinks other things could have been done instead of imposing tariffs on the Chinese goods.
“So, I think anything from barring Chinese companies from our stock market to being tougher in enforcing copyright and trade infringement. There’s a whole host of things that we could have done that would not have been so punitive to US businesses.”
On Tuesday, the President told reporters the trade talks were going very well, calling it one of the largest deals ever made. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said there was no progress on key issues such as intellectual property, stealing trade secrets, and requiring corporations to share information with the Chinese.
The final report on our conversation with Representative John Curtis talks about legislation he has sponsored in his first year in office.