Today, U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. (NJ-09), Ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, announced the introduction of the Jobs & Trade Competitiveness Act. Cosponsors include Reps. Sander Levin (D-MI), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Brian Higgins (D-NY), Terri Sewell (D-AL), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), and Judy Chu (D-CA), all members of the Ways and Means Committee.

"Our nation’s trade policy needs fundamental reform to create jobs in the United States and level the playing field for American workers and consumers. This legislation would encourage job creation in American manufacturing, crack down on cheating by our trading partners, and give workers and small businesses a seat at the table," Rep. Pascrell said.

The bill amps up U.S. trade enforcement by providing new tools to support U.S. workers and businesses and ensuring that a priority of this Administration is to ensure that trade is fair across the world. The bill also includes provisions that would encourage domestic insourcing and discourage foreign outsourcing.

"The Jobs & Trade Competitiveness Act of 2017 would take a number of steps to toughen U.S. trade laws and require the Administration to significantly enhance its enforcement efforts to address cheating abroad. Too often in the past, U.S. trade officials have been primarily focused on negotiating new trade agreements while existing agreements were neglected or abused. In addition to cracking down on cheating in trade, this bill would further increase U.S. competitiveness by amending our tax code to reward insourcing to the United States," Rep. Pascrell said.

The bill is supported by AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers (USW), Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).

"The legislation contains twelve comprehensive policy proposals; all are common sense trade enforcement tools with broad support," USW Legislative Director Holly Hart wrote in a letter of support.

"The American people have waited too long for fairer trade policies that benefit all workers, not just those at the top. Recent rhetoric from the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans leads me to believe they’ve had a change of heart and may be interested in pursuing these reforms. I hope they will immediately support this bill," Rep. Pascrell said.

For more information about the Jobs & Trade Competitiveness Act, click here.