Political Quotes

“I include for the record an op-ed piece which I published in the Birmingham News and the Tuscaloosa paper. Mr. Speaker, in this article the first thing I said is that this crisis is not a crisis brought on by our steelworkers or our steel communities. This is a crisis brought on by their government. It is not of their own doing. Tragically, their government has failed to do two things. First of all, it has subsidized and spent billions of their money and our taxpayer dollars, much of that paid in by steelworkers, into the IMF. The IMF has sent billions of those dollars to prop up the foreign competition, which is now dumping steel on our steel industry. Secondly, our government has contributed to this crisis and caused it, by not taking action under our own trade laws to stop these illegal, unlawful dumping of foreign steel. It is against the law. Can that not sink in? It is against the law. How do we ask our steelworkers, our law-abiding steelworkers in steel communities who are law-abiding, how do we ask them to follow the law when we turned a blind eye to that law and allowed their jobs to be taken from them? Second of all, it is a matter of sovereignty. We must send a message to the world, and that message is, we will not allow our trade laws to be broken, to be trampled. What is happening is illegal. It cannot be tolerated. Mr. Speaker, this is not about fair trade; many people have said that. It is not about fair trade; it is about fairness.”