Video of Bennet’s Full Remarks Available HERE
Washington, D.C. — Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet delivered a speech at the Washington International Trade Association (WITA) / Washington International Trade Foundation’s (WITF) Annual Dinner to receive the 2025 Congressional Leadership Award.
“Well, no one ever wants to follow Chris Coons. I didn’t want to follow Chris Coons this morning when I was at the Senate gym. and I saw him, and I was trying to get to where I needed to be in the morning. And there was Chris Coons on the television set, speaking in paragraphs, as he always does, in perfect sentences, perfect syntax – inspiring a call from my mother saying, ‘Don’t you have roughly the same education?’
“It’s a great pleasure to be here tonight with Chairman Crapo, who has done an amazing job at a difficult time as Chair of the Finance Committee. One of the great privileges of being on that committee is serving under his leadership, so I want to congratulate him and thank him for that.
“I also want to say, while Chris is here, that we have worked together, as he said, on a whole range of different issues. Colorado and Delaware are not often linked together, although Chris is doing his best. He was out there last weekend, as he said. I saw him. His son, Michael, now goes to the medical school there.
“But in terms of the states, Delaware and Colorado are not all that similar. We have rodeos, and they have Rehoboth. We have skiing in Steamboat, and they have salt water taffy.
“And while, as I know Chris emphasized in his remarks last year, Delaware has ‘chickens, chickens, chickens’, Colorado has wolves and wild sheep.
“But our work on international trade issues, from fighting to reauthorize AGOA to advancing our Medical Supply Chain Resiliency Act, testifies the importance of a common sense trade policy, whether you’re in Denver or whether you’re in Dover.
“But in truth, it is Chris Coons who has provided moral leadership for this generation of political leaders by championing America’s vital role in the world, especially in these turbulent times. Whether that’s leading bipartisan efforts to reauthorize AGOA, championing the need to bolster Taiwan’s self defense, pushing back against China and Russia, supporting the Ukrainian people’s heroic fight against Russia’s unprovoked aggression, or serving as a body double to the former German Chancellor – I have seen them in this same room, by the way, it’s two different people – Chris has always been the first to take on the hardest tasks and to be generous enough to ask his colleagues to follow. Thank you, Chris, for your partnership, for your leadership, and for your kind words. They mean a lot coming from you, and we should give him a round of applause.
“I’d also like to thank Ken Levinson, CEO of WITA, and the whole WITA board and all the staff and volunteers who helped us put this event together. I’m going to be talking about a bill, the Americas Act, that I wrote in the Senate, but the real credit goes to my former staffer, Santiago Gonzalez, who may or may not be here tonight. And as I thank him, I’d like to thank all the former Senate and House staff that are here in the room. We owe you a debt of gratitude.
“I don’t often say this in D.C., but as Chris mentioned on the western theme, the cowboy hats in the audience makes me feel quite at home. And it’s especially appropriate tonight, since we are in a building named after one of America’s most famous cowboys, Carla Hill’s old boss, Ronald Reagan.
“By the way, it is true. As Chris said, my dad ran USAID for two years in the Carter administration before Ronald Reagan was elected president, and the two years before that, he was Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations, when Jimmy Carter sold the Senate on the Panama Canal Treaty. So my poor expired father seems to have done something that Donald Trump does not appreciate. It’s wonderful to remember him and his legacy tonight. Then he went and became president of National Public Radio. So do the math.
“WITA was founded during Reagan’s first term, when the United States led the global trading order, and our principal adversary was beginning to collapse under its own contradiction.
“That is when, notwithstanding my party affiliation, I had a Reagan-era ‘Bedtime for Brezhnev’ poster on the wall of my room – a poster on which Ronald Reagan, a cowboy hat donned and a pistol holstered, had Brezhnev by the collar testifying to America’s strength in the Cold War.
“And while I don’t find myself aligning with many of Reagan’s policies or his intellectual heirs, the poster captured the optimism of that era, the belief that we would defeat the Soviet Union and the American century would roll out into the next millennium.
“This, along with a dose of nostalgia, is why that same poster still hangs in my hideaway in the Capitol today, which happens to be right next door to Chris Coons’s. It serves as a backdrop for the crab boils we wish we were having during especially long votes on the Senate floor.
“But this era was not a perfect era – the one represented by that poster. No era is, but within the better part of a decade and into the 1990s, we worked with our allies and many of our former adversaries to open up the world, not only to goods, but to fundamental ideas and values like democracy and freedom.
“In 1991, the Soviet Union fell and the Cold War ended. In 1992, Europe founded the European Union, creating the political framework for the common market. In 1994, we, Canada, and Mexico signed NAFTA. In 1995, the World Trade Organization was established, a culmination of almost fifty years of trade cooperation.
“We are a long way from that world today, as the President demonstrated by liberating us from the comforts of a predictable economic environment.
“I can tell you that the universal reaction from small and large businesses in Colorado to President Trump’s Liberation Day was simple: ‘Does anyone in Washington have an economic plan other than more turmoil?’
“Back in Colorado, the pain is very real. Because of the President’s global tariff war, businesses are delaying capital investments, stockpiling inventory, and cutting payroll.
“From the tiny inventor of river surfboards in Salida to the nation’s leading miller of wheat to iconic global brands of clothing, of shoes, and backpacks in Cortez and Denver to the front ranges, aerospace, construction and manufacturing industries, no business seems immune to this uncertainty.
“For these and other businesses across Colorado, and for people they employ, Colorado’s consumers, trade is fundamental. But it won’t shock anyone in this room to know that the politics of trade have changed.
“As Mike Crapo was saying, when I was growing up, when Reagan had Brezhnev in his grip, we took for granted that trade would always benefit the American people, that more openness would always lead to more prosperity, for everyone. That story was not true.
“As Mike said, we’ve seen what happens when unfair trading practices become normal, when we de-politicize trade and assume its benefits are inherent. When we wrongly think about trade as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. As everyone in this room knows, in this moment, our global commitments, including to democracy and freedom, to say nothing of trade, look different than they did from earlier vantage points.
“Yet for enduring reasons that are far more significant than the current tumult, I have never believed more strongly that, in the end, our principles of democracy and liberalism and freedom will win over principles that are much more at war with human nature. I have no doubt about that. I know Chris Coons has no doubt about that, and I know Mike Crapo doesn’t either. And I also think that our current protectionist impulses are going to be temporary as well.
“But I think it’s important to come to grips with the fact that President Trump has identified a real set of issues with respect to globalization and China’s entry into the WTO.
“I was in Aspen this weekend with Chris for the Aspen Security Forum. By the way, I got him to take me. So that’s how we ended up, in my own state, being invited to something.
“This was a gathering of some of America’s smartest foreign policy practitioners, and while there, I thought about all the times that I had heard panels in Aspen and in Washington where experts on the left and right promised that there’d be nothing but benefits from global trade, and bringing China into an international trading system would only be good, and that holding trade back would be, as the saying went, ‘would be like holding back the ocean’.
“Like most ideas immediately agreed to by everyone in the room, that one had its faults.
“Those decisions made by politicians from both parties did a lot of damage, and we’ve seen the wreckage pile up. As Mike said, here in Washington and across the country, there’s been a convulsion in our politics, an expression of this country’s crippling lack of economic mobility and pernicious economic inequality. This sense that no matter how hard people try, they can’t get ahead, and their kids can’t get ahead. That parents in Colorado feel like their kids can’t afford to live in Colorado.
“And some of this political discontent – by no means all of it – is a result of adopting an unstrategic and perhaps even utopian approach to trade. But we cannot go backward in some reactionary haze. The American people deserve better than that.
“Instead, we need a trade policy that is strategic and thoughtful and doesn’t undermine small businesses around the country or undermine the social contract that we have, if you work hard, that you’re going to be able to live a dignified life. When we approach trade from this vantage point, it becomes clear that working with our neighbors is how we forge a better future here at home, how we can bring critical industries and jobs back to our hemisphere.
“So a few years ago, I sat with my friend, Senator Cassidy. And I thought, there is a better and more bipartisan way. We have to offer a positive vision of trade that creates opportunities for economic mobility, secures critical supply chains, and invests in the American people, and that is the Americas Act.
“This bill, which we introduced last Congress and which we will introduce again soon, will bolster mutually beneficial trade, job creation, and regional stability. It is the only major economic plan in Washington to counter China’s growing geopolitical and economic power in the Western Hemisphere. And it’s a bill that Coloradans embrace.
“They understand that Americans share more than a hemisphere, that we share a common history, economy, and a destiny that we all have to write together. They understand that to compete in the 21st century with China’s 1.4 billion people, the United States can’t go it alone with 340 million.
“We have a lot going for us, to be sure, but we can’t simply build walls and tariff our way to prosperity.
“The Americas Act is our opportunity for Washington to renew our partnerships across Latin America and the Caribbean, to create shared growth while embracing our values and our shared struggle for democracy and prosperity.
“The American people do not want to send high quality jobs abroad, but they do want to trade with our partners. Improved trade with our neighbors makes more intrinsic sense than trade with far-off partners, which is why the Americas Act is so easy to talk about at home. We have no closer partners than those in our own neighborhood.
“I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Neither does Mike or Chris, and on international trade, even within this agreeable Western saloon, I know there are plenty of disagreements. But I think the Americas Act would be a pretty good place to start.
“Reinvesting in our hemisphere, bolstering the economic and national security of our allies and our partners, and ensuring we no longer rely on our principled adversary for essential goods, building a brighter future for our kids and for our grandkids.
“I want to thank the WITA board for this award very much, and I look forward to working with all of you as we pursue a comprehensive vision for 21st century trade that leaves no one behind.
“Thank you for having me tonight.”
This transcript has been lightly modified for length and clarity.
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