Dana Rohrabacher: “I am not suggesting, and this amendment is not suggesting, that American businesses cannot go any place in the world…”

“I am not suggesting, and this amendment is not suggesting, that American businesses cannot go any place in the world, whether it is dictatorships or nondictatorships, developing world or developed world, and do business. They are welcome to do so. The major question is whether or not the taxpayers of this country should be subsidizing these enterprisers who go overseas, should be subsidizing them and offering them loan guarantees, et cetera, and direct loans, through the Export-Import Bank. These people still can go to the private sector and get their loans, they can still participate in whatever project they want, but they cannot expect the American taxpayer to subsidize ongoing socialist projects overseas or ongoing projects in these dictatorships where they own the enterprises, and so it becomes a bolstering of the regime rather than just a business enterprise. This amendment would exclude no one from doing business overseas; it would end the taxpayer subsidy of this type of business.”