At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) questioned Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
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00:00Mr. Secretary, it's wonderful to have you here today.
00:03Great to see you.
00:03Thrilled to have you in front of this committee.
00:05And just to kind of build off of what my colleague just said,
00:09obviously, I wanted to highlight the good work that's done by Southern Research
00:12and their Birmingham biotech hub.
00:16The Birmingham-based experts and scientists are national leaders in oncology,
00:20precision medicine, population health, and infectious disease,
00:24and are well-positioned to make sure that any groundbreaking advancements
00:28that are made can be done there.
00:30And my only question to you, and I really appreciate your commitment
00:33to making sure the process is fair and thoughtful moving forward,
00:37is that if there are some senators from both sides of the aisle
00:39that would love an opportunity to just sit down with you,
00:42and would you just commit to giving us a few minutes of your time to talk about it?
00:45Sounds great.
00:46Excellent.
00:46Happy to commit to it.
00:47Thank you so much.
00:48I appreciate it.
00:49So I want to highlight a success story of the automotive industry
00:52in the great state of Alabama.
00:54Auto manufacturing has truly transformed our economy,
00:57and it has literally driven us into the 21st century.
01:00It started in the late 1990s with our very first OEM right outside of Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
01:06and since then we've added more than three, along with countless suppliers,
01:10150 Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers throughout our great state.
01:15So in a little over 25 years, Alabama has become the premier host for the automotive industry.
01:20We are also the number one auto exporting state in the country.
01:24Alabama auto exports are sent to 78 different countries,
01:28and actually one of our OEMs exports more than two-thirds of its product.
01:33I wanted to work with you to make sure that Alabama continues to be the premier,
01:39and the work that we're doing, I think, is exactly what President Trump wants to see more of,
01:44on-shoring jobs and providing life-changing opportunities for the citizens that I serve.
01:50And so I want to know, how are you going to work to replicate the great work that's being done
01:55in places like Alabama and other states?
01:57Our objective, especially in auto, is to reshore.
02:02I think we have $250 billion of committed reshoring in auto alone,
02:09and I know that Alabama, they love, for whatever reason, you've done a great job,
02:14because they love Alabama.
02:15And I think you're going to be a, your state's going to be a great beneficiary.
02:20As Senator Graham knows, they love South Carolina, just the same.
02:24That's right.
02:24So auto is coming back to America, and the president is on it, and he's driving it,
02:32and we feel it every day.
02:33Good.
02:34Right?
02:34You had an announcement the other day by General Motors,
02:37saying they were bringing their engine manufacturing back into America.
02:41These are the things we need to employ our people, and it's coming.
02:45And I know you considered an export credit.
02:48Is that something that's still on the table?
02:50The idea of the export credit comes with a trade deal.
02:54If you're a country and you're willing to open Japan, Korea, who export to us, right?
03:01If you're not willing to open your market, why are we giving you anything?
03:06But if you're going to open your market, now let's talk.
03:10And that's exactly the president's view.
03:12If you don't want to open it, you can pay a tariff.
03:15If you want to open it, then we're here to talk.
03:18Well, we hope to continue to grow the automotive industry in the great state of Alabama
03:23and just want to set the record straight, and I appreciate you saying it as well.
03:27But these are jobs that change what is possible for the people in those communities.
03:32And they have been able to achieve the American dream as a result of these opportunities,
03:37and we want to make sure that they keep coming.
03:38So thank you so much.
03:40Last month, you launched an investigation into the effects of the U.S. national security
03:44of imports of commercial aircraft, jet engines, and their parts.
03:50Mobile, Alabama is home to the fourth largest manufacturing location for commercial aviation
03:54in the world.
03:56Will you consider the production needs of both Airbus and Boeing to meet the extreme commercial
04:02backlog that we've seen?
04:03And I think it's now over 14,000 aircrafts in order to make sure that we are doing what
04:09we need to to meet the needs of our country.
04:12Can I say exactly?
04:14Yes.
04:15Exactly the way you've said it.
04:16This is a lot easier than I thought.
04:17Excellent.
04:18Thank you so much.
04:19Okay.
04:20Can you help us understand how the administration might address companies that are actively
04:24investing and on-shoring today so that they can supply domestic customers with their U.S.
04:31operations?
04:31And when I'm looking at this, I'm talking about aluminum, and we're looking at kind of the
04:36president's tariff policy as it continues to work to rebalance the U.S. economy through
04:41the on-shoring of manufacturing activities and the fortifying of domestic supply chains.
04:45So when you're looking at stuff like aluminum and other things, kind of how are you approaching
04:50that from your perspective?
04:52The steel and aluminum industry are huge.
04:56To produce steel and aluminum, you have huge, the biggest import, the biggest input is power.
05:02Imagine melting that iron ore, that power.
05:06And so what happens is the foreign government subsidize their utilities and they provide the
05:11electricity just too darn cheaply.
05:14And so what happens is the Chinese and these foreign governments, they just dump steel on
05:18us.
05:18They crush, we've had 40 steel mills, and now we have 10.
05:24And as the president says, you don't make steel, you can't fight a war.
05:27So he's protecting that industry, bringing it back.
05:31You're going to see more steel and aluminum furnaces and mills in the history of this country
05:39be built over the next three years.
05:40And they're all committed to it, and they're coming.
05:42Yeah, and we're proud to do that in the great state of Alabama as well.
05:48Senator Peters.
05:50Thank you, Chairman Moran.
05:51Secretary Lutnik, good to see you here.
05:53Thank you for being here today.