Greg Ganske: “shortly after the last election in November of last year, I traveled to Hanoi. I spent about a week there on a volunteer…”

“shortly after the last election in November of last year, I traveled to Hanoi. I spent about a week there on a volunteer surgical mission. I found the people to be friendly and courteous. Make no mistake, though: the Communist government is not friendly to freedom. There is very little freedom of speech. There was a lot of soccer on TV, but there was not much discussion, and as the gentleman from Virginia just pointed out, the government has done bad things. The question is, how do we affect a change in that? I oppose this resolution because I think the communication between Americans doing business in Vietnam brings a fresh perspective and information to the people of Vietnam. I think that trade will actually help bring down that Communist government and that the communications between Americans doing business in Vietnam will actually end it. And the opening up of the communication that is necessary for that shows the Vietnamese what a true democracy is like. There were lots and lots of questions that we all fielded on that surgical mission about what it is like to live in a democracy, and that is very useful. So cultural interchanges, professional interchanges, and, I think, business interchanges will actually help promote the type of democratic changes that we all want to see. For that reason, I oppose this resolution. I think we should continue trade with Vietnam just like we are doing with China.”