Liz Saville Roberts: “I rise today to applaud and thank my colleagues for finally taking decisive action that will provide full funding for…”

“I rise today to applaud and thank my colleagues for finally taking decisive action that will provide full funding for the International Monetary Fund while requiring strict conditions on receiving IMF assistance. In particular, I am pleased that this agreement insists that efforts to remove illegal trade barriers to American products be a required item in any IMF program. It is entirely appropriate that we are doing that. I am especially pleased that this body has rejected efforts to include requirements and conditions that would have gone too far. While the recipient countries should be required to comply with tough, fundamental changes in their economies in order to receive the assistance, the bar must not be raised so high that any hope for reaching the conditions is lost. If excessive conditions had been included--and some Members in this body had been promoting those conditions--why, the United States would have no leverage to insist on reforms that would lower trade barriers to American goods and end unfair subsidies for foreign businesses. That would hurt both the country in trouble and the United States as well. In this regard, Mr. President, I wish to thank the distinguished Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Stevens, for his outstanding leadership in assuring a common-sense and bipartisan approach to this challenge.”