Xavier Becerra: “I call it a missed opportunity. To be honest, and we should all be honest, we had a chance to meaningfully promote the…”

“I call it a missed opportunity. To be honest, and we should all be honest, we had a chance to meaningfully promote the elimination of abusive child labor practices by our trading partners. We had a chance to protect our domestic laws on the environment and on consumer protection. We had a chance to advance progressive trading practices by eliminating barriers and tariffs to productive trade among our international friends. But, instead, this conference report favors foreign investors over U.S. citizens and businesses in this country. It extracts the teeth from the enforcement provisions meant to prevent unscrupulous foreign businesses willing to violate their country's laws and our laws, and this conference report sidesteps our responsibility to the displaced workers and impacted communities that we know will result from this legislation. Instead of doing something meaningful, we have punted. Instead of doing something right, we have walked through the back door to trade. Instead of doing what America believes we should, we dared not to lead. At a time when we find abuse by predators of children in this country to be offensive, we could have told the world we will lead and make sure that nowhere in the world will children be abused, whether by a predator or by any unscrupulous employer.”