Christopher Coons

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to bring the attention of this body to a broken promise by our President. Our President promised, in the campaign and recently in an address to all of us here in Congress, to make America affordable again; to deal with the high prices of groceries, of fruits and vegetables, of housing, of housing supplies, of energy--to deal with high prices. Millions of Americans who voted for President Trump said they did so out of frustration about high prices. Well, today, President Trump has announced he is going to impose tariffs on virtually every trading partner we have, and I rise in support of a piece of legislation we are about to vote on here in the Senate that gives us the chance to do something. So to my colleagues, if you have heard, as I have, from your constituents, calling with concern and alarm about how much prices have not gone down but have gone up, I recommend you think about one country, one of our most trusted and loyal allies--some of the nicest people on the planet. Who doesn't like Canadians? Canadians have served alongside us in virtually every war we have ever fought. They are a NATO ally and partner, and for my small-but- mighty State of Delaware, our major export destination and the nation from which we import the most. And yet, because of an emergency at our border, which I think is wholly unjustified by the data of how little fentanyl actually comes into our country across the northern border, President Trump is moving ahead with slapping tariffs on Canada. Tonight, you have a chance, I say to my colleagues, to vote to undo the declaration of an emergency on our northern border. You can vote to undo the harm to businesses, to small families, to retirement accounts. Don't look at your 401(k) if you don't want to know tomorrow the consequences of indiscriminately slapping tariffs on every one of our major trading partners. This is not ``Liberation Day'' but ``Tax Day''--a new national sales tax that will harm the imports we buy from virtually every country and, because of the countervailing tariffs, harm our exports. A tariff is a tax, and tonight we will take a vote. And I hope some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join Senator Kaine and many of us in recognizing it is ludicrous to use the special emergency powers that Congress gave to the President assuming he would only do so in a case of war or active open hostility, not in the case of one of our trusted and loyal partners and allies, the great and kind people of Canada. In recent meetings with Canadian leaders, they have said: Don't make us do it. Don't make us impose tariffs on you. But, tonight, the Trump administration has imposed tariffs on dozens and dozens of our trading partners. To my friends and colleagues, let's vote to undo this phony crisis and vote to undo the tariffs on U.S.-Canada trade. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. COONS. I ask my friend and colleague from New Jersey if he is familiar with Psalm 30:5.

Mr. COONS. And if not, I offer to repeat it because I think it speaks to this moment. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Now, this is a holy month. It is the month of Lent. It is the month of Ramadan. It is the period of reflection preceding Passover. And my question to my colleague is rooted in a scripture in the Psalms known to both of us, one widely engaged in, in these days: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. This is a reminder both of the possibility of redemption, of the urgency of hope, and of your nightlong sacrifice on this floor. Let me ask, if I might, two more questions of my friend and colleague. To my colleague from New Jersey: Are you familiar with a front-page story on the Washington Post entitled ``Trump's USAID cuts cripple American response to Myanmar earthquake,'' an article running today in the Washington Post?

Mr. COONS. I had suspected that that might be the case, given that my colleague from New Jersey has dedicated his night to standing tall and fighting hard to make sure that the people of the United States know what is going on. I will share with you, just for a moment, that it hurt my heart to watch the national evening news last night and see a Chinese humanitarian emergency response team celebrated as they pulled survivors out of the earthquake rubble in Myanmar. It did not hurt my heart that there are Chinese nationals providing emergency relief, but it hurt my heart that exactly those people who are the very best in the world at responding to humanitarian crisis, exactly those people had just received termination letters and their work with USAID had just been suspended. Normally, in every humanitarian crisis I have known in my lifetime, the first in are the men and women of USAID and the U.S. Armed Forces. Whether a tsunami, a tornado, wildfires, or an earthquake, we had world-leading humanitarian response capabilities. And I think it is a tragedy--and it is reflected in both this article that I have asked my colleague about and in the response of the world-- that we have created an enormous opening for the PRC to come in and do what we previously did so well. Let me ask another question, if I might, of my colleague: Are you familiar with what has just happened to food banks all over our Nation in terms of an announcement about impending deliveries of badly needed surplus food? This, I suspect, will be the focus of your future comments on agriculture, but I mention it as something that has impacted my State and, I suspect, yours as well.

Mr. COONS. I will simply, then, ask my colleague a question.

Mr. COONS. To my colleague, I ask the question: Are you familiar with the cuts that have been imposed on the U.S. Department of Agriculture, suspending hundreds of millions of meals to Americans in need and the justification for that being offered?

Mr. COONS. Last question.

Mr. COONS. To my colleague from New Jersey, I ask the question: Are you familiar with when, whether, and why NATO has invoked article 4 and how the service and the sacrifice that followed reinforces exactly the point I believe my colleague was beginning to speak to, which is the common cause and the common purpose shown by all of our NATO allies in America's greatest moment of need in recent decades after the attacks of 9/11?

Mr. COONS. To my colleague, are you aware which of our European NATO allies lost per capita the highest number of their soldiers in combat serving alongside American servicemembers, a nation I visited, a nation whose servicemembers I visited, a nation that is today aggrieved by comments made recently? Are you familiar with our trusted ally Denmark?

Mr. COONS. Denmark.

Mr. COONS. Denmark lost per capita, I believe--excuse me. Let me simply ask of my colleague one more question.

Mr. COONS. Is my colleague aware that broadly distributed across our NATO allies is service and sacrifice, including the loss of their troops in combat and that every single loss in combat was a loss of great service and sacrifice by our NATO allies?

Mr. COONS. Will my colleague yield for another question?

Mr. COONS. Is my colleague familiar with the testimony of Gen. Jim Mattis, a decorated four-star Marine Corps general who served as Secretary of Defense in the previous Trump administration who testified about what the consequences would be if we were to defund development and diplomacy?

Mr. COONS. Will my colleague yield for a final question?

Mr. COONS. Does my colleague have an opinion about whether it strengthens or harms America in our national security to have an earned reputation as a nation of compassion, a nation that comes to the aid of those suffering through humanitarian disasters, a nation of compassion that provides healthcare and access for retirement in decency, a nation that cares for the least of these on the margins of the world and that has a just and inclusive society at home? Does my colleague have an opinion about whether it strengthens or weakens our Nation at home and abroad to earn a reputation for compassion and reliability or instead to deserve a reputation for unreliability and cruelty?

Mr. COONS. Mnangagwa.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. COONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. COONS. Is the Senator familiar with Rory Badger of Delaware? Is the Senator familiar with my guest to the speech to a joint session of Congress delivered by President Trump just a few weeks ago?

Mr. COONS. If I might, I simply want to ask my colleague--

Mr. COONS. To my colleague and friend from the great State of New Jersey, I simply am asking the question: Are you familiar with a marine from Seaford, DE? His name is Rory Badger. He is not a man of politics. He is not a partisan. And he only came to my attention when he called my office for assistance. Rory Badger volunteered to serve our Nation, was deployed to Afghanistan, and is a decorated combat veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. Working through the impact of his service, he has returned to the United States and was engaged by Fish and Wildlife in Delaware and doing great work to promote conservation. With a young wife and a young son, Marine Badger reached for what was his dream job: to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. All Rory wanted to do, he conveyed to me in a letter and then in person when he came to visit here--all he wanted to do--was to help farmers on the Delmarva Peninsula conserve their land, create wildlife habitat, protect the environment, and be in places both beautiful and still. As you, my friend and colleague, have documented in long discussion and debate in the last hour, he is one of thousands of veterans who woke to receive an unjust and unwarranted termination email that said it was for cause, without citing any cause, and that threw him into the chaos and hurt of having been summarily fired by the American Government. He has ultimately been rehired, thankfully, but that period of chaos and of loss made him question our Nation and its commitment to our veterans. I also--I will share with my colleague--had the opportunity to visit with our friend Senator McCain the prison where he was imprisoned for 5\1/2\ years, tortured repeatedly, and lived through the experiences you have just shared of fellow veterans risking their lives to do the most simple thing that we take for granted at the beginning of every day here: to pledge allegiance to our flag. I had a chance, on visiting the ``Hanoi Hilton'' with our friend and former colleague Senator McCain, to ask him a simple question, which was at the end of his describing the period when friends were beaten horribly, when some were killed, and when his Vietnamese captors told him: We found out who your father is, a four-star admiral, and so we will release you any day. I simply asked him: Knowing that you could at any moment, on any day, raise your hand and say, ``I will accept your offer,'' and go home, how did you endure another 5 years of torture and imprisonment? His answer simply: To do so would not have been honorable. My question to you, my friend and colleague: Was the firing of Rory Badger honorable? Is the leadership of our current administration and its treatment of our veterans honorable? Are the values shown by the decisions being made by Elon Musk and his team at DOGE honorable? Are we putting at risk the very honor of our Nation in the mistreatment of the veterans of this country? This question I put to my friend and colleague.

Mr. COONS. Two thousand.

Mr. COONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?