Eric Schmitt
Senator for Missouri · Republican · United States
“Recently Kedrick Green, a football player at Howard, shared his story about having the right guardrails around earning NIL compensation and how stability helps an athlete compete and grow.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“The student-athlete was made a promise, then was left high and dry. That athlete's experience is the human cost of a system without any guardrails. Real empowerment means more than telling a teenager he is free to sign a contract.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“Meanwhile, schools are being asked to do more to preserve the Olympic and nonrevenue sports that create opportunities for thousands of young men and women--500,000 student-athletes in this country. Our first answer cannot always be higher ticket prices, another donor check, or cutting another sport.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“Madam President, I rise today to speak about the future of college sports and the legislation before us to protect it. The Protect College Sports Act is built around a simple idea: athletes should be able to benefit from their talent, they should be protected from people who want to take advantage of them, and every school and every athle…”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“We are simply giving schools another tool to capture the full value of the product millions of Americans already love. Instead of always finding new ways to spend more, let's give schools a way to grow the pie. Before I close, I want to address a few claims about the bill. Some say it gives the NCAA a blank check. It does not.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“These are things that if you would have talked about back when I was playing or even 10 years ago, would have been sort of unthinkable, and we are protecting them. And some say Congress should simply stay out of college sports. Well, I understand that instinct.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
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“Democrats have decided that mass migration must continue and that no President chosen by the American people, who ran on this issue, by the way, will ever be permitted to end it. That is the real purpose of the bill. Its supporters will wrap this bill in language of compassion, but they never seem to have any compassion for the American worker, competing against an ever-expanding cheap labor supply. They have no compassion for families priced out of housing, workers whose wages are undercut, schools punished and pushed beyond capacity, or communities forced to absorb decisions Washington made for them that they voted against. Their compassion always flows outward, but the bill always arrives on your doorstep. America is not a global refugee camp. America is not a get-rich scheme for the Third World. America is our home.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“The designation was supposed to last for 18 months; it has now lasted 16 years. Yet, we are still being told that this is a temporary program. In Washington, temporary, apparently, means forever. A child born when Haitian TPS began is nearly old enough to vote or sponsor their family for green cards now. That is how long Washington has been calling this program temporary for the Haitians who are here. TPS was created for emergencies. Democrats turned it into a one-way racket towards permanent mass migration. Here is how the racket works: An emergency creates temporary status. Then the emergency passes, but the status stays. The deadline arrives, but Washington extends it. The voters demand enforcement; the Democrats refuse. Every click moves towards permanence; none moves back toward the law. That is the TPS racket.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I object to this legislation, which would once again extend Haitian temporary protected status. Washington has invented a new definition of temporary--it means permanent. Haitian TPS was supposed to be just 18 months when it began in 2010. Sixteen years later, 350,000 Haitians are still here. Today, after the Supreme Court cleared the way for President Trump to end TPS and send them home, Democrats are trying to change the law to keep the 350,000 Haitians here permanently. Not on my watch. I rise today to block the bill, and also do something else, to make clear that those supporting this bill have a message for the American people: Your vote doesn't matter. Your community doesn't matter. Your livelihood doesn't matter.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Louis Disabled Advisory Board, and the Governor's Mental Health Taskforce, just to name a few of her roles. This December, she will finally begin her well-earned retirement. She has gone above and beyond in supporting households with disabled family members, and as a fellow disability advocate, I am deeply grateful for her decades of service. She is truly one of the Gateway City's greatest and am proud to represent outstanding individuals such as herself in the U.S. Senate. ____________________”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Wendy Sullivan, one of the Show-Me-State's leading disability advocates. Since beginning her career, she has spearheaded the transformation of disability services across the Midwest and helped equip countless families with the resources needed to thrive.”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Despite the cold temperatures and dense fog that morning, Daniel and Jacob searched the area around the river until they located and rescued the woman from the frigid waters and ensured that she could receive the needed medical attention to survive. Daniel Newberry and many other park rangers across our great Republic go above and beyond every day to protect our fellow Americans from harm as they enjoy our Nation's natural beauty, but their work responding to crises such as this often go unnoticed. I sincerely appreciate Daniel's selfless work every single day. He is truly a Champion of Missouri, and I wish him all the best as he continues serving the people of Missouri. ____________________”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I rise today to honor Daniel Newberry, who serves as a park ranger with Ozark National Scenic Riverways. Earlier this spring, Daniel and his colleague Jacob were dispatched in part of a joint operation between the National Park Service, Carter County Sheriff's Office, Missouri State Highway Patrol, and West Carter Ambulance District. In the pre-dawn hours, a woman suffered a medical crisis and waded into Missouri's Current River, not resurfacing for several minutes.”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Before long, these two brave men were able to help find and rescue the woman in distress and safely deliver her to emergency medical staff. Jacob's bold and selfless efforts played a key role in saving her life. Park ranger Jacob Crowley is a shining example of what a public servant should be, going above and beyond to protect our fellow Americans. He exemplifies the very best of our Nation's first responders and has more than proven himself to be a Champion of Missouri. I deeply appreciate his lifesaving work and continued dedication to our great State and to our great Republic. May God bless Jacob and his family. ____________________”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, today I want to honor Jacob Crowley, a park ranger at Ozark National Scenic Riverways. On a bitterly cold spring morning earlier this year, Jacob and his coworker Daniel responded to a call where an individual suffered a medical emergency in Missouri's Current River. Working closely with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Carter County Sheriff's Office, and West Carter Ambulance District, these rangers braved near-freezing temperatures and dense fog in the pre-dawn hours to search the riverbank and waters for the person in crisis.”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“A lifelong advocate for BackStoppers and other first responder support networks, over the course of his life, Steve helped raise millions of dollars to support the families of fallen and injured officers. Steve was also a dedicated family man and was a proud husband, father, and grandfather. I am also proud to have been able to call him a personal friend. Although he tragically passed away this June, he leaves behind a legacy of selfless service that few can match, and his dedicated lifetime of work will continue to help countless families for years to come. Steve was truly one of the Gateway City's greatest, and he will be deeply missed. May God watch over his family in the coming months. ____________________”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, today I rise to recognize Steve Holley, an outstanding Missourian who over the course of his life went above and beyond to support the Show-Me-State's brave first responders. One of the founding members of St. Louis Guns `N Hoses, where firefighters and police officers square off in boxing, MMA, and other athletic matches for charity, Steve served for many years as the organization's executive director.”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Like the mortal men who shaped it, the Constitution made compromises that modern people may be critical of, but none should deny the revolutionary impact this great document has had in transforming the United States into the bastion of liberty we are blessed to live in today, spreading democratic ideals across the world, and making our country the envy of the free world. As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, I am happy to recognize Constitution Week this year, which runs from September 17 to 23. This celebration highlights the importance of the beating heart of our great Republic, which continues to guide our Nation forward today. May God bless the American people, and may God bless the United States of America. ____________________”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, this July, we celebrated the 250th year of the great American experiment. Yet 239 years ago this September, a similarly important moment in our Republic's history took place. Eleven years after our Nation's founding, 55 men met in Philadelphia to revise America's first governing charter. Recognizing that the Articles of Confederation were too deeply flawed to guarantee effective government and safeguard our homeland, the Convention crafted a new Constitution to guide our great Republic forward.”
Senate13 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I ask that the Senate proceed to executive session and the Chair execute the order with respect to the Holding nomination at 1:45 p.m. today.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“``We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and We have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as We hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“``He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. ``In every stage of these Oppressions, We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. ``Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“``He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. ``He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. ``He is, at this time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. ``He has constrained our fellow Citizens, taken Captive on the high Seas, to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“``He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: ``For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: ``For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: ``For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: ``For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: ``For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: ``For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: ``For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: ``For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: ``For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“``He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. ``He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. ``He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. ``He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance. ``He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our legislatures. ``He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“4828) to reaffirm the Declaration of Independence as an Organic Law of the United States. There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill. Mr. SCHMITT. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“We were asked to prove that the blood, labor, prayer, sacrifice, and courage of those who came before us were not wasted on a generation too timid to say what is true. Let Congress repass the Declaration of Independence. Let the American people hear it again. Let the children of this Republic learn that they are heirs to heroes. Let the enemies of this Republic learn that Americans still know who they are, and let this generation take its place in the long line of patriots who understood that freedom is inherited only when it is fought for. Mr. President, not withstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4828, which is at the desk.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“America is the country of Washington's army and Jefferson's pen, of Adams' fire and Franklin's wit, of Hancock's signature and Henry's thunder, of Lexington and Concord, of the Delaware crossing, of Valley Forge, of river towns and frontier trails, of farms and factories, of steeples and courthouses, of soldiers and sheriffs, of mothers and fathers, of sons and daughters who deserve a country of their own. America lives because real people--real people--carried a real inheritance across real farms, frontiers, battlefields, churches, courthouses, and graves. This is America: a nation, a people, a place, a bold declaration, a grand experiment, an inheritance, a duty, a country with a soul. That country is now in our hands.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“A nation cannot celebrate its birthday while forgetting why it was born in the first place. America 250 should tell the country one thing: The founding was good, the Declaration is true, and the American people still have the right to govern themselves. The American people are real. The American flag is not a symbol of shame. The American Nation is not an administrative unit. Our Republic is the greatest inheritance ever placed in the hands of a free people. We should act like it. We should speak like it. We should teach like it. We should govern like it. That is why Congress should act. That is why the Declaration should be spoken again from the center of American government.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“The modern regime says the people are a problem to be managed. That is the fight. A great nation needs men who can say what is true. The old founding is enough. The question is whether we are enough for it. Calvin Coolidge gave that truth its anniversary form 100 years ago. He said: If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are all endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. And that is final. No real progress moves beyond those truths. Every movement away from them leads us backwards. Coolidge said that in America's 150th. We stand at the threshold of her 250th. America 250 cannot become a fireworks show arranged by people embarrassed by their country.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“A fight over patriotism is a fight over memory. Memory matters. A people that forget its heroes will soon be ruled by men who despise them. A nation that sneers at its fathers will leave its children orphans. A republic that mocks sacrifice will produce citizens unworthy of freedom. The dead, the living, and the unborn are joined in one chain of obligation; we receive before we create, we owe before we choose, we hand down what we did not make. That is why citizenship is not just paperwork. That is why borders matter. That is why children matter. That is why memory matters. That is why the Declaration matters. Memory carries authority with it. A people that remembers its inheritance also remembers its right to govern. The Declaration says the people are sovereign; no king, no queen, the people.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“We are done being ashamed of America. We love our country. We honor the men that built it. We give thanks for the inheritance they placed in our hands, and we intend to keep it. America 250 is a time to remember that inheritance and renew national pride. We can see the damage in the numbers. A generation ago, American pride was nearly universal. After 9/11, more than 90 percent of Americans said they were proud to be an American. Today, Gallup puts that number at 58 percent. PRRI puts it at 51 percent. On the left, the collapse is even sharper. Gallup found that only 36 percent of Democrats are extremely or very proud to be an American. I take no pleasure in saying that. PRRI puts Democrat pride at 31 percent. Only 28 percent of Democrats say they are proud of America's 250-year history.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“It moved with Daniel Boone and the frontier families who cut homes out of the wilderness. It moved with farmers and soldiers and preachers, rivermen, mothers, fathers, shopkeepers, builders, and pioneers. It inspired the naming of Missouri towns like Liberty, Independence, and Defiance. Missouri is what the Declaration looks like when it walks west and builds a country. America was made by people like that, a nation that builds, a nation that discovers, a nation that dares, a nation that refuses to live on its knees. Our ancestors did not fight, bleed, freeze, build, plant, sail, preach, settle, invent, and die so their descendants could be taught to apologize for existing. That inheritance now rests in our hands, and too many powerful voices in this country teach the next generation to receive it with suspicion instead of gratitude.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Patrick Henry said it best when he gave his countrymen the choice every free people eventually faces: [G]ive me liberty, or give me death! The same fire moved beyond the army. It entered the life of the people. It traveled wherever Americans carried the sense and cause of liberty. It moved from hand to hand, from town to town, from father to son, from battlefield to courthouse, from pulpit to schoolhouse. Then it moved west. As the American people moved west, the Declaration moved with them. It moved into river towns, frontier trails, farms, churches, courthouses, and homes. I come from the great State of Missouri. In Missouri, we know the Declaration did not stay on the Atlantic coast. It moved through St. Louis and Jefferson City. It moved with Lewis and Clark.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“It is an oath of one people bound across generations, accountable to the Creator, responsible for the Republic, and charged to carry freedom forward. That oath still binds us. That errand has not expired. America's deepest crisis is a loss of memory. We do not lack experts; we lack fathers. We do not lack managers; we lack patriots. We do not need more people trained to administer decline. We need citizens formed to love and defend the good. The Constitution can divide power. It cannot supply virtue. That is why the declaration still matters. It tells every King, every court, every Agency, every President, every Congress, and every officeholder the same exact thing: Your power is borrowed. Your authority is limited. Your office exists to serve a people whose rights you did not create and cannot erase.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“America is a nation. Those truths made America possible, and every generation that inherits America must decide whether or not those truths still command it. That is why I rise today in support of repassing the Declaration of Independence. The declaration is America's birth certificate. It is the first great act of an American union. It is the character of a free people. It is the public oath by which 13 Colonies became one American nation. It presupposes America is one people, and that matters because a people is more than a population. A people has memory. A people has duties. A people receives an inheritance and decides whether to defend it. The declaration is the public oath of a people who knew it had received an inheritance and would have to defend it. It is an oath of liberty under God. It is an oath of self-government under law.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, on July 4, 1776, 56 men crossed a line from which there was no return. These men knew the King they defied. They knew the empire would come for them. They knew the prisons that could hold them and the gallows that could take them. They had wives, children, homes, names, property, and honor. They signed anyway. They made a bold declaration to the world that had never been made before. It was, in fact, revolutionary. Our rights come from God. Government rests on consent. Citizens are not subjects.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“The 77 million ``deplorables'' who cast their lot with Donald Trump last November were the forgotten Americans--the blue-collar patriots, the conservatives of the heart, miners, mechanics, tradesmen, and farmers; men and women who worked with their hands, grew our food, built our homes, and drilled our fuel, whose labor powered our country, whose taxes sustained our government, and whose children served and sacrificed in our wars. They stand with this President because he stood with them when no one else would. I yield the floor.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“I blame the people in cities like this one, who seem to have forgotten the men and women in towns like Boonville and New Madrid or their brothers and sisters, because ``American'' is not just a box you check on a tax form but a sacred responsibility that binds us to one another, an unbroken chain between our past and our future. I do not know what the future holds, but I do know what the past has meant. I know that something has to change and that President Trump is the first politician in a generation to even care enough to try.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“The twin horsemen of globalism--unprotected trade and unprotected borders--have been a catastrophe for our civilization. But, in many ways, I don't blame the illegal immigrant who wants to come here in search of work, but we do have a country of laws, and there are consequences. I don't blame the factory laborer in Vietnam who takes the job that once belonged to an American. Do you know who I blame? The people in power who allowed them to do it. I blame the corporate bosses, the special interests, and, yes, the politicians who sold our country out for a seat at the table of the globalist banquet. I blame the ideologues of the status quo, the international elites, the so-called citizens of the world who see our country as a global economic zone, a giant shopping mall with an airport attached.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“At the dawn of the 1990s, as America looked forward to the new millennium, the architects of globalism beamed about the promise of the open society--a world without barriers or borders where all nations and cultures and economies would meld into one global economic zone. Thirty years on, what do we have to show for it? At home, our factories and the towns that once sustained them lie in ruin, razed by the ruthless logic of the new global economy and cost-efficiency. The Americans who once worked there were replaced by foreign labor overseas. The Americans who once held on were now being replaced by foreign labor here at home. Their children will graduate into a workforce where nearly 1 in 10 workers doesn't even speak their own language.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“Now, some might argue that Americans don't want to make shoes anymore, but we did a generation ago. The American workers of that age knew that there was something meaningful in creating and producing. Today, we have been taken by the idea that our social status is not what we build or create but what we can afford to buy or consume. It is going to take generations to reverse this thinking. The post-war order has given birth to a shallow morality of materialism that measures values strictly in terms of consumption. This is a poisonous new idea, utterly alien to the traditional American way of life. Our trade policy, like our foreign policy, failed to adapt to the new reality of the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The consequences were nothing short of devastating.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“What did we do to our own people? This is not to say that Missourians don't want fair exchange, one where they can trade and grow with the rest of the world, but the ``free trade'' that transpired was not free trade at all. The double-edged tragedy of the system is that not all these companies wanted to leave. Some--perhaps many--wanted desperately to stay. These people were their neighbors, their friends, their family. But over the past three decades, we punished the companies that were loyal to America while rewarding the ones that weren't. The businesses that were eager to offshore got big bonuses at the American workers' expense. The businesses that wanted to stay here found themselves struggling to stay alive in conditions where they couldn't compete.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“These were good, decent, hard-working, salt-of-the-Earth folks. I visited with them. The smelter was the engine for their way of life, but in 2016, Noranda filed for bankruptcy and shut down. Why? Because China's cheap, state-subsidized aluminum had flooded the market, causing global aluminum prices to plunge. In New Madrid--a town of less than 3,000 people--about 1,000 people had gone to find new jobs, usually at much lower pay. The county government went in the red. Local police and ambulance budgets were cut. The local school district lost a $3.1 million tax payment, which forced their own layoffs and saw a 10-percent drop in enrollment as families left the area. People lost homes, the mayor of New Madrid said. People got divorced. An American town, filled with American families, left for dead by their own country.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“``From a moral standpoint, it was kicking somebody while they were already down,'' the head of the local chamber of commerce said as he talked to a local newspaper. This is not the distant past, folks. This is the reality that millions and millions of our fellow Americans in Missouri and across the country live this very day. Haldex, a brake manufacturer, packed up and left for Mexico in 2020, eliminating the last 154 jobs left at the facility in the suburbs of Kansas City. Layoffs began 2 weeks before Christmas. They will save millions of dollars a year paying Mexican workers a fraction of what they paid back home. I will tell you one more story from the Bootheel in Missouri. For decades, the Noranda Aluminum smelter there was a lifeline employer for the folks in New Madrid, Marston, and surrounding communities.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“More than half of them had held multiple jobs since being laid off, two-thirds of them with worse benefits. Even the workers who enrolled in job retraining programs fared no better than the ones who didn't. ``Those people had worked there for 20 or 25 years,'' one laid-off worker recalled. ``They were at the top end of the pay scales, and there weren't any more TV repairman jobs out there.'' Toastmaster is a household name. Well, they were headquartered in Missouri, and they made their stuff in Missouri, too, with factories in small towns all across our State; but as we welcomed China into the world economy, Toastmaster began to feel the squeeze of cheap Asian imports. By 2001, every Toastmaster plant in our State was gone, shipping hundreds of jobs from rural mid-Missouri to China.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“It had been in operation since just after World War II, and at one point, it employed 3,300 Missourians; but those jobs, too, had started moving to Mexico in the late 1990s. In October of 1991, Zenith shut down its plant and shipped its operation down to Mexico, taking out 1,500 Missouri jobs in one blow. In Springfield, the average worker made between 5 and 10 bucks an hour. Down in Mexico, it was just 83 cents. The high priests of the global economy tell us that this is merely creative destruction and that other, better industries will arise to take their place of the ones that were lost. It is true that some of the workers in Springfield went on to find new jobs, but they were often much worse than the ones that they had before. Five years after Zenith shut down, laid-off workers saw an average pay cut of more than 10 percent.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“Tri-Con Industries, which makes car seat parts, shuttered its factory in Cape Girardeau, too, and moved its production to Mexico. That was another 200 jobs gone. There are patriotic shoe companies that still want to build in America. Belleville Boots took over a factory in Carthage, MO, in 2020. There are businesses that still love America, and they want to build on the generations of skilled craftsman in places like southeast Missouri, but for decades, our political class has rigged the rules to punish rather than help companies that put America first. This pattern repeats again and again and in every industry. Up until the end of the 20th century, Missouri still had a major electronics assembly operation. Zenith Electronics--the last major American TV maker--had a large assembly plant in Springfield, MO.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“It had begun as a five-story, 92,000-foot international shoe plant in Cape Girardeau, nicknamed ``the Pride of Southeast Missouri.'' At one point, it employed 1,200 workers, but cheaper imports from low-wage countries began to flood the market, and by 1990, the old factory was razed and replaced with a one-story plant of, roughly, 300 to 500 workers. By 2001, that had dwindled down to just 50. Here is what one former employee told a local paper after the plant closed for good: Now I am working at the Lutheran Home, driving a van, and making a third of the amount of money I made before. My wife also has to work, and, together, we are making two-thirds of what I made alone at the shoe plant. It is very upsetting. You get mad, and then you get hurt, and you think about all the jobs leaving the country and all the people losing their jobs.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“By 2004, according to some estimates, Missouri had lost well over 31,000 jobs to foreign trade. By 2010, our trade deficit with Mexico had cost us 12,600 Missouri jobs. By 2013, we had shipped 44,200 Missouri jobs off to China. By 2018, Missouri had lost more than 90,000 jobs in manufacturing alone--over 25 percent of our industrial base. Until a few decades ago, southeast Missouri was a national hub for garment and shoe manufacturing. In the 1970s, southeast Missouri was home to as many as 90--90--shoe plants. The last shoe factory from that era closed for good in 2005.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“Think about that and what it means to those families. For the people who benefited, this was just an abstract externality. For the workers, the heartland Americans, it was everything. I know these people. These are my people--these are our people--and for too long, they have walked alone. There is no memorial for their sacrifice, no national outpouring of grief for their loss, no powerful interest group to represent them in the halls of power. Let me tell you what 30 years of so-called free and fair trade has meant for the folks where I am from. In the 1990s, our political class embraced a new line of thinking: that America could become more prosperous by opening all trade barriers regardless of how other countries treated us. The result was swift and devastating.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“That is why the crisis that confronts us today is not merely economic. It is about communism and slave labor versus freedom. It is about who will win the 21st century. The stakes are high. It is about the survival of our civilization. It is about the kind of Nation and people we are and will be: one that creates and builds or one that simply consumes. In this city, we tend to speak of big, sweeping abstractions--jobs, wages, deficits, growth. We talk as if these things are numbers and graphs. We forget that every job lost to China and every factory moved to Mexico belongs to a real, flesh-and-blood American, with a life and a family and a home. Each and every data point is a fellow citizen, a neighbor, a son or daughter of this great Republic. Since NAFTA, 90,000--90,000--factories in our country have closed.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“The economy of today is altogether different than the economy our ancestors knew, but that is no excuse for standing by as our home becomes a dumping ground for cheap Chinese goods. Are we really still a sovereign people today? Our independence and our sovereignty are not commodities to be sold on the global market. We can't and won't make everything here, but we must recover the will and the ability to make the vital necessities of our national life. Our country now depends on foreign imports for most of those necessities. By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, more Americans now work in government than in manufacturing. Nearly half of our cars, more than 60 percent of our machine tools, 80 percent of our pharmaceuticals, and nearly 90 percent of the semiconductor chips we need for everything from phones to fighter jets are foreign made.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“As our Founding Fathers understood, the art of self-government is about people's ability to rely on themselves. There was always trade, of course--this is a natural and good privilege of productive surplus economies--but in a republic, there was also trade between sovereign, self-sufficient communities. The citizen of the classical republic had no need for cheap trinkets, fashion, and sweatshops halfway across the globe. He and his neighbors were the ones building their homes, growing their own food, and when necessary, taking up arms to provide for their own defense. People who depend on others for essential things cannot rule themselves, and if they cannot rule themselves, they cannot keep a republic. Yes, times have changed.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“They sent our children and our wealth overseas to defend the borders of distant nations while throwing open our own borders to a tidal wave of mass migration here at home. They shipped the good- paying, middle-class American jobs that once were the backbone of our economy to places like Mexico and China, transforming once prosperous towns and cities into hollow shells of their former selves, often defined by addiction and death. All the while, in the forgotten corners of this land, the men and women who built this country have suffered in silence. They watch in quiet despair as their towns crumble into disrepair, their way of life disappears, and the country they love slips away from them. The political ideal of a republic is self-reliance.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗