At a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) questioned Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about EU regulations for American tech companies in the EU.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you being here.
00:04As you've highlighted concerns about the potential for unfair treatment of American tech companies
00:08in the EU, which could potentially force them to make costly operational changes, can you
00:13share with us some of the steps the U.S. government is taking to promote a level playing field
00:18and prevent discriminatory practices like excessive fines and forced business model
00:22changes under regulations like their Digital Markets Act?
00:26This is a key topic for us in our trade negotiations with the European Union.
00:35We have a huge trade deficit in goods with the European Union, $235 billion.
00:41So they are just getting great advantage of us.
00:45And so part of our reciprocity is they also attack our great technology companies because
00:51they don't have them.
00:52So they write these bills, but basically they could just write America in the bill because
00:58they're only attacking great American companies.
01:00And it is the Trump administration's view that that is unacceptable, that if you want to have
01:07a trade deal with us, you're going to take your foot off of the necks of the great American
01:12companies and treat them with respect, especially if you're taking this much advantage from us.
01:17So we are looking at that as a one combined way of thinking.
01:23And that's why we get calls from American companies that say, thank God someone is finally
01:28looking out for us.
01:30Can you elaborate on what steps the U.S. would take if the EU tries to regulate American AI
01:34through DMA or other regulatory means?
01:37I think the president has made it clear that he views trade and that they have a $235 billion
01:46trade surplus with us.
01:49And he will say, well, if you're going to treat us poorly, we're going to treat you poorly.
01:54And if you want to treat us well, we'll treat you well.
01:58Let's be reciprocal in how we treat each other.
02:01You're taking advantage of us.
02:03And I think the president will make sure, since we are the inventor of all of the leading
02:08AI chips of the world, we, America, are the inventors.
02:13We create it all.
02:14We make them in Taiwan.
02:16That's another topic.
02:17But we invent it all.
02:19We need to protect our intellectual property.
02:22And we need to make sure our compute power is here in America.
02:26Mr. Secretary, in your testimony, you mentioned the removal of more than 50,000 fraudulent
02:31goods and services from the trademark register.
02:34Can you expound upon your efforts to counter trademark fraudsters, especially those that are
02:39foreign entities?
02:41What is common is that a great American company puts a trademark out, or even a young American
02:47company.
02:48And these other companies, and generally China is the leader in it, but they're not exclusively.
02:54They then file thousands of trademarks, modifying it slightly, all around it, and sort of circle
03:01you and circle you, and use our laws against us.
03:04And so the idea is for us to bring technology to the patent office, find them all, and get
03:10rid of them so that we can protect our American company's trademarks and make it proper instead
03:16of being sort of surrounded by these AI-created trademarks.
03:20And that's the technology.
03:21We'll bring it to the patent office.
03:23Because the Commerce Department is going to be so much more technologically capable when
03:28we are done with this administration.
03:30You won't be able to recognize it as compared to what was there before.
03:34Let me ask you about the BEAD program.
03:36Yesterday, you told our Senate colleagues that states must choose the cheapest option under
03:40the BEAD program.
03:42Under the previous administration, we know mismanagement and misguided attempts at policy outcomes like
03:46rate regulation significantly slowed the implementation of that program.
03:49Can you comment as to what steps you're taking to deliver on what the previous president was
03:55unable to do?
03:56And can you clarify how you define cheapest option?
04:00Sure.
04:00The Congress authorized broadband access to cross-American.
04:06And I want to make sure we get the benefit of the bargain, which means there's three ways you can do it.
04:11You can do it by fiber.
04:13You can do it by what's called fixed wireless, like Wi-Fi, we all understand.
04:17And, of course, there's satellite.
04:19Whichever is the most efficient option to get somebody broadband, that should be the only rule.
04:27Let's have the outcome be the determiner.
04:30And if it's a tie, then, of course, we don't care at all which one you pick.
04:35But don't run fiber.
04:36They had proposals where they were running $100,000 fiber to a house that was appraised at $100,000.
04:46That's silly.
04:47So whichever is reasonable.
04:49So what we've asked all the states to do is rebid just with reasonable technology.
04:57And then we'll get the money out the door.
04:59In the calendar year, 2025, the Biden administration had 30 months, and they got zero out the door.
05:06So that's the difference between the Trump administration and the Biden administration.
05:09We will get the money out the door.
05:10Thank you for keeping the taxpayers in mind.
05:12Appreciate it.
05:12Yield back.