Two letters make two points: Buy American, and live up to trade promises.
A pair of letters from Congress have floated up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House today.
In one, a bunch of Democratic senators have written to the chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, urging them not to allow the big ol' annual defense spending bill to advance without first removing language that would strip out some important Buy America requirements.
Politico (from behind a paywall, unfortunately) reports:
In a letter to the leaders of a joint House-Senate conference committee, 16 Democratic senators argue repealing domestic sourcing requirements for certain goods — including chemical weapons antidotes, photovoltaic devices, passenger buses and Navy ship components such as propellers and anchor chains — would place the defense industrial base at risk.
In the other letter, Politico (again!) is reporting that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a handful of other Democrats in that chamber urged President Trump to return to the delayed Section 232 investigations into steel and aluminum imports. You’ll recall that Trump, who campaigned hard on promises to fight for the beleaguered American steel industry, is now slow-walking the imports investigation he announced in the spring because he’s afraid it will derail a tax reform effort.
That excuse made as much sense as when Trump slow-walked the investigation because he thought it would get in the way of repealing Obamacare (yes, that happened too; you can hear it here, from Sen. Sherrod Brown starting at 6:10).
Anyway: These are good letters. We like them as much as the more than 64,000 messages Americans have sent to the Trump administration that urge them to complete the Section 232 investigation and safeguard the U.S. steel industry.
Do you think our national defense should be American-made? You can send a message to the administration too by clicking here.