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Duncan Hunter on Trade and Economics
"Right now our manufacturers are getting killed. We're seeing manufacturing move offshore because a dumb trade deal that we signed with the rest of the world allows all of our exports to be taxed twice while their exports to us are not taxed at all. The only way that we can even come close to leveling that playing field is to eliminate manufacturing taxes."
2007 GOP primary debate, at Reagan library, hosted by MSNBC May 3, 2007
He is pro-life, an expert on defense issues, a hawk on border security (he authored the legislation that mandates 854 miles of fences across the major southern border routes used by smugglers of narcotics and people) and a skeptic about free trade.
Q: With the reauthorization of Fast Track coming up will these issues play themselves out, and will you have a role in that debate? Hunter: I've always had a role in opposing what I consider to be bad deals. NAFTA and CAFTA were bad deals, so I opposed them. When we passed NAFTA, we had a $3-billion trade surplus with Mexico that a lot of people said we were going to build on. I predicted that we would go to a trade loss. We promptly went to a $15-billion loss the next year. These are bad deals. The most business-like thing in the world is to make good deals. That is what business is, but our trade negotiators are bad businessmen. They've been finessed into not enforcing the rules, and they have not put together good deals because the multinational corporations have an interest in a one-way street.
Hunter has opposed legislative efforts to extend normal trade relations to China - he voted in favor of House resolutions expressing disapproval of granting such status to China on several occasions.
Voted No on implementing CAFTA.
Bill HR 3045 ; vote number 2005-443 on Jul 28, 2005
Voted Yes on implementing US-Australia Free Trade Agreement
Bill H.R.4759 ; vote number 2004-375 on Jul 14, 2004
Voted no on implementing US-Singapore free trade agreement.
Bill HR 2739 ; vote number 2003-432 on Jul 24, 2003
Voted NO on implementing free trade agreement with Chile
Bill HR 2738 ; vote number 2003-436 on Jul 24, 2003
Hunter voted against both NAFTA and CAFTA, and has said that both trade agreements were "bad deals" that he would "junk" if elected president.
He voted against a minimum wage increase.
H.R. 4297, 5/10/06; H.R. 2, 1/10/07, Vote #118
Voted against raising the federal minium wage.
HR 2 ("First 100 hours") ; vote number 2007-018 on Jan 10, 2007
Voted yes to authorize $167 billion over ten years for farm price supports, food aid and rural development. Payments would be made on a countercyclical program, meaning they would increase as prices dropped. Conservation acreage payments would be retained
HR 2646 ; vote number 2001-371 on Oct 5, 2001
Rep. Hunter (R-CA) has long been one of the most vocal China critics in Congress. He voted against the U.S.-China Trade Relations Act of 2000, which normalized trade relations with China.
In 2001, Hunter sponsored a resolution to end those normalized trade relations, though that bill did not pass. Hunter has said that China is "cheating on trade and they're buying ships, planes, and missiles with our money, as well as taking millions of jobs."
Hunter cosponsored the Political Freedom in China Act of 1997
"China is cheating on trade. They devalue their currency by 40%, that undercuts the American markets, wipes American products off the shelf -- not only here but around the world. And the latest study I have seen shows we have lost 1.8 million jobs in the United States, high-paying manufacturing jobs to China. 27,000 jobs in South Carolina alone. I would enforce the law with China, the trade rules with China."