Political Quotes

“I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we can bring forward the bipartisan effort to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. Now, again, I have a great deal of sympathy and respect for my colleagues who believe that these kinds of back-door subsidies have no place in a global trade regime. That is a reasonable and defensible viewpoint. The proper avenue to advocate for that is multilaterally. There are a lot of ways that companies have and will and governments have and do try to give themselves a nationalistic advantage in international trade. In the competition between Airbus and Boeing alone, books could be written about the efforts of both sides--whether it is our side through military contracts; whether it is their side, Europe--to give back-door allowable subsidies that put their own companies at an advantage. If we unilaterally fail to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, we are putting American exporters at a disadvantage because the dozens of other countries that engage in these allowable kinds of credit facilities will still do so to the detriment of American jobs and American businesses. We recently had a debate in these very Chambers about trade promotion authority. Soon there will be discussions about TPP and T-TIP. Where was that discussion around TPA in the instructions to the President about credit facilities and Export-Import Bank and what would and wouldn't be allowable?…”