WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a member of the Senate Commerce and Foreign Relations committees, appeared on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power” Wednesday to discuss trade relations with China and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Excerpts from the senator’s interview are below, and video can be found here.

On trade relations with China

“You first have to recognize the reality that China is the abuser, the violator of the world trading system. They steal hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property, both military and industrial secrets, through cyber theft, through espionage plus forced technology transfers. What we need to do is we need to conclude trade deals with the rest of the world. We need to be at peace with the rest of the world on trade, so that the rest of the world can go to China and demand that they start complying with the rules. The World Trade Organization — they violate those rules repeatedly. That is where we need to make the case, where we need to have a united front.”

On agreements with trading partners

“I think [our trading partners] fully realize that they need to conclude these trade deals. Part of the problem is our trading partners have been lulled into the belief that America will continue to be suckers, that we will allow them to abuse our generosity in terms of our access to markets. All the president is looking for is fair treatment, reciprocal treatment, and our trading partners apparently need to be awakened.”

On the USMCA trade agreement

“I'm glad that it sounds like the administration has come to an agreement to remove the steel and aluminum tariffs, which I think was a precondition as well. Hopefully, Democrats will join Republicans in ratifying that trade agreement. That would be a good first step. Let's come to terms with Europe, let’s come to terms with our other trading partners like Japan, and then go as a united front to China.” 

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