Asa Hutchinson: “this amendment is simple and, again, it was noncontroversial when it was voted on in the House of Representatives. In…”

“this amendment is simple and, again, it was noncontroversial when it was voted on in the House of Representatives. In fact, the language in this amendment passed the House with almost unanimous support. Having served in the House 4 years, I know this happens rarely. It was a 419-to-2 vote. So, it had overwhelming bipartisan support. This amendment will simply do two things: First, it will express the sense of the Congress that the President should replace any memorandums of understanding on prison labor that lack effective monitoring procedures like the one negotiated with the People's Republic of China and replace the agreement with a stricter monitoring system. Second, the bill authorizes $2 million in additional funds for the U.S. Customs Service to monitor the importation of slave-labor-produced goods. As everyone in this body knows, the importation of goods made by convicts has been banned for more than a half a century. This law underscores Americans' firm conviction that such products produced by coerced and forced labor should not be sold in this country. I believe Americans are repulsed by the very thought of benefiting from cheap prices on products produced by the sweat and blood of foreign prisoners. Despite this ban, products made in Communist China's vast archipelago of slave labor camps, known as the laogai, continue to flow into this country unabated.”