On the recordMarch 27, 2012
I agree with the Senator from Illinois. We trade not only goods and services, but we trade ideas. That is so important as we go on. Certainly, Africa is developing a very healthy middle class. This is certainly something new that they have not seen before. Again, they are hungry for American products. I appreciate the way the legislation was crafted in the sense it is revenue neutral so there is no cost to the taxpayer. What we are trying to do is get a plan together to make it such, particularly our small businesses, so they can compete in this huge continent that has so much going for it. Again, it could be such a great help to a State such as mine. In Arkansas, we are talking about we already export $5.6 billion in merchandise. I think one of the ways we are going to climb out of the economic doldrums we are in and create jobs is going to be through exports, and certainly this gives us an opportunity. We are almost--we could almost say, using the statistics from the Senator from Illinois; he talked about 7 of the 10 top emerging economies coming out of Africa--we are almost doing a disservice to our small businesses by not going forward with this legislation.
