Jim Kolbe: “just to correct the record, and I am sure the gentlewoman misspoke, the United States does not have a free trade…”

“just to correct the record, and I am sure the gentlewoman misspoke, the United States does not have a free trade agreement with China. We have normal trade relations but no free trade agreement with China. Mr. Speaker, I do rise in support of this U.S.-Morocco free trade agreement and thank the gentleman from Illinois for his leadership on this. Today, I am not going to talk about the merits of the agreement. I think there are plenty of them; but instead, I want to point out what I think this agreement means in the context of U.S. policy for the broader Middle East. This agreement would be the second free trade agreement that we would have with a country in the Middle East, and it would be another cornerstone of U.S. free trade efforts in this region. Achieving free trade and integrating this region into the global economy is of critical concern to the United States. Economically, socially, this region faces enormous problems, enormous dilemmas. Inequality in many Middle Eastern countries has grown. It has not diminished in recent decades.”