TRANSCRIPT

                        February 16, 2025

                           NEWS EVENT

                                

                    REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AR)	

                                

                                

                                

    REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AR) IS INTERVIEWED ON FOX NEWS` SUNDAY
                          NIGHT IN AMERICA

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     REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AR) IS INTERVIEWED ON FOX NEWS` SUNDAY
     NIGHT IN AMERICA

     FEBRUARY 16, 2025

     SPEAKERS:
     REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AR)

     TREY GOWDY, FOX NEWS HOST

TREY GOWDY, FOX NEWS HOST: Inflation has ticked up. The Fed is evaluating interest rates, so how do you level the trade playing field while taming inflation? French Hill chairs, House Financial Services, and joins us now.

Welcome, Mr. Chairman.

The president wants things made here, moved here. How long do you think he'll give companies who are trying to get here over time, but can't do it overnight?

REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AR): Well, Trey, it's good to be with you.

I think President Trump has at his heart the idea of reciprocity in trade. This was something that was used greatly by President Reagan and President Bush 41 in the 1980s and 1990s in order to get our trading partners to conform and open their markets to our services and our products. And one way you do that is to point out the trade disparity in tariff rates.

About two-thirds of American products face higher tariffs around the world than we have on imports here in this country and that's what's driving, I think, the president's point, and if he does that in the right way, we should see open markets for American agriculture, American manufacturing goods, and we should also see non-tariff barriers fall as well.

GOWDY: Chairman, are there mechanisms currently in place to collect tariffs without delays in the products reaching the ultimate consumer? I mean, if we're going to start ramping up tariffs, are you confident that there won't be a delay in getting those products to your constituents, my former constituents, our fellow citizens?

HILL: I don't have that confidence, and I don't support across the board, tariffs like steel and aluminum tariffs across the board, I think that's too general. I think the best way to do this, Trey is to target the countries, target the product category, and then use our threat of tariffs to bring those countries and those product categories to the negotiating table and produce a better outcome, both for the United States and our consumers. I think that's the best way to go, and President Trump's delivered on that in his first term, both with China, with Japan, and in renegotiating the NAFTA and creating the USMCA.

GOWDY: If you were Chair of the Fed, and you may be one day, how would you handle interest rates? What if anything would you do if you were chairing the Fed right now?

HILL: Well, first, I believe the most important mandate of the Fed is price stability. You know, things like full employment or other goals like fighting climate change or something like that, those are best left to the elected officials in the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch.

I believe the core mission, in my view, the sole mission of the Fed, should be price stability. They didn't do a very good job coming out of the pandemic. We made that very clear to Chairman Powell when he appeared before the House this week.

And so if they focus on price stability, that's where their mission should be, and that's to the benefit of all consumers. Our consumers have 21 percent higher prices than four years ago, and that's why real wages are down, and that's why I think it's so important for us to prohibit a tax increase in the budget reconciliation work that you just talked about, get our energy unleashed and deregulate the economy that will produce economic growth and increase real wages and that's very important.

And the Fed's role should be, as I say, focused on price stability and not let inflation get out of hand like they did in 2021.

GOWDY: Chairman, before I let you go, I want to ask you about something that I'm confident you understand and confident I do not, which is cryptocurrency? The president seems friendly towards it. What's your take on where it's headed? And I assume your committee has jurisdiction. Will there be any legislative action as it broadly relates to what people call cryptocurrency?

HILL: You bet, Trey. What's very important, the future of American business and a lot of operating system is going to be on a blockchain, which is going to facilitate self-executing contracts and peer to peer transactions for people. This is going to lower costs, lower fraud, create a more efficient government, a more efficient financial services industry, and part of that is using tokenized payments, and that's what people call crypto.

And what we're doing in the House and Senate is we're working with President Trump to create a regulatory framework that will protect consumers in the crypto arena, but create a real incentive for innovators in this country to grow technology here built around FinTech and financial services, and I think we can do both, both protect consumers and inspire investors to bring that technology to the United States and use a blockchain future to lower costs and serve consumers in a much better way in the years ahead.

GOWDY: Chairman, I will come to Arkansas, and I am going to let you explain all of it to me, because right now I struggle to remember my debit card PIN, so I'm going to get you to explain this to me at some point. In the meantime, thank you for joining us on a Sunday night.

HILL: You bet. Great to be with you, Trey.

GOWDY: You too, French. Thank you.

END