Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) delivered his maiden speech to the United States Senate Wednesday, touting President Donald Trump’s leadership in delivering America First trade policies and warning that we as a nation cannot pass on the American Dream if we let China dominate our country.
Banks first joined the United States Congress in 2017 as a representative in the aftermath of Trump’s historic election; now, he joins Congress’s upper chamber in the advent of Trump’s second term in office.
Now that the Hoosier senator has joined the Senate, he aims to fulfill Trump’s America First trade policies; he highlighted in a speech at the American Iron and Steel Institute how Trump saved the steel industry and wants to ensure that American steel can compete with any nation’s.
Senator Banks has sought to serve as a leader in the United States, offering 25 bills in just his few months in the chamber. These bills include his first bill to sanction Chinese officials who refuse to curb the flow of fentanyl precursors, legislation to authorize the Department of Defense to deport illegal aliens, a bill to eliminate so-called “chain migration,” another defunding National Public Radio (NPR), and many more bills. He also serves on the Commerce Committee, which conducts oversight of the Commerce Department, which promotes exports such as American-made steel.
This is not the first time Banks has discussed the need to fulfill the American Dream for the country’s working class; however, in his speech, he noted that his family’s humble origins and their work at a local factory helped them live the American Dream.
“You see, I grew up in a trailer park in Columbia City, Indiana—a small town of less than 10,000 people. I still live there today with my wife Amanda and our three daughters. Really, it’s the best hometown in America. But when I was a kid, we lived on the very south end of town on a dead-end street with about a dozen trailers on both sides,” the Hoosier conservative said.
Banks said his father worked at the local Dana factory making axles for cars and other vehicles, as did his uncle, grandfather, relatives, and friends, making the factory a core of his small-town Hoosier community.
“When I was growing up, that factory provided good pay and opportunities to so many families in our community. During all three shifts, the parking lot would be overflowing as workers earned a wage that was good enough to support their families. That was our American Dream,” he elaborated.
“Those were exactly the kinds of jobs that allowed my parents to put food on the table and raise their boys. To so many Americans like my parents, the American Dream isn’t just some concept that think-tank experts write papers about in Washington. It’s real. They lived it.”
However, Banks said that “good-paying factory jobs” have disappeared as the “result of bad policy choices that put corporate foreign interests ahead of everyday Americans.”
He said, “Decades of America Last policies have hollowed out our industries and crushed our workers. Wall Street shipped our factories overseas and stripped our companies for quick profits.”
Bethlehem Steel’s massive furnace remains closed on April 30, 2017, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The massive five-furnace industrial complex produced American steel for 120 years and employed tens of thousands of workers. It closed for good in 1995. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty)
Banks said that the country has lost six million manufacturing jobs since 1980. Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992, the country lost more than 90,000 factories, working-class wages have not risen when adjusted for inflation, and 600,000 jobs have gone to Mexico.
“In the 1980s, it took about 40 weeks of work for a factory worker to earn enough in a year to support a family of four. Today, it takes about 62 weeks to do that, which means they’re going into debt and falling further and further behind. For too long, empty lots, boarded-up buildings, and dead storefronts could be seen all over America because of the choices that our nation’s elites made. It was a tremendous failure of leadership,” Banks lamented.
“They opened up our borders, they cut wages for workers like my dad, and as a result, cheap labor flooded in,” Banks said.
Banks said that he was struck by President Donald Trump’s point during his Liberation Day speech that presidents on both sides of the aisle have ignored the deleterious effects of other countries taking advantage of American trade policies.
“He kept pointing back to the Oval Office and saying that we’re in this position today because many of the men who sat in that office did nothing while foreign countries took advantage of us and our workers,” he said, cheering that leaders from Steel Dynamics, which operates a steel mill in his hometown of Columbia City, Indiana, attended the Liberation Day speech.
“President Trump understands like we do that we can’t pass the American Dream on to the next generation if we let China dominate us. He’s the first President of my lifetime to call China a threat to the American way of life,” Banks said.
He said that letting China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was the “worst economic mistake in my lifetime,” citing that China has stolen American technology, copied American products, and built up their industries using unethical slave wages.
“During my time in the House, I made it my mission to stand up to China,” Banks said. “Only one President in my lifetime has understood this threat. In the United States Senate, I intend to help President Trump stand up to China and put America first.”
Banks said that Trump’s America First trade policies have already yielded results for American workers, noting that Honda will build their Civic in Indiana instead of Mexico, General Motors will bring truck production to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Eli Lilly will invest $27 billion in American manufacturing.
Banks said Republicans should rally together to fight for American workers.
“To my Republican colleagues and my colleagues across the aisle—we must stand together and fight for working families. It’s going to take everyone in this chamber working together. There’s so much in this fight that we can all agree on. And now is the time for the leadership of both parties to step up for American workers and families,” he said.
“We’re kicking off a new era of peace and prosperity like we have never seen before,” Banks concluded his speech. “Again, Indiana, thank you for allowing me to serve you in the United States Senate.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
