Sec. 2. Findings
261 words·~1 min read·
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Congress finds the following: The United States market is widely recognized as one of the most open markets in the world. Average United States tariff rates are very low and the United States has limited, if any, nontariff barriers. With each subsequent round of bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade negotiations, tariffs have been significantly reduced or eliminated for many manufactured goods, leaving nontariff barriers as the most pervasive, significant, and challenging barriers to United States exports and market opportunities.
Often the only leverage the United States has to obtain the reduction or elimination of nontariff barriers imposed by foreign countries is to negotiate the amount of tariffs the United States imposes on imports from those foreign countries. The United States has become the world’s largest net debtor nation, having run up massive trade deficits since the mid-1970s. Every year since 1976, whether in expansion or recession, the United States has run a deficit in goods and services trade, which weakens and detracts from America’s global leadership position.
The United States trade deficit in 1993, the year before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into force, was $135.6 billion. In 2015, the United States had a deficit in the balance of trade in goods and services of $939.8 billion. In 2015, the United States had a trade deficit of $179 billion with countries with which it has free trade agreements. Persistent deficits weaken the United States economy, defense industrial base, and innovation system and increase the likelihood of ownership of large segments of the United States economy by foreign interests.