Michelle Wu: “Mr. Speaker, we have a broad-ranging trade bill before us which purports to deal with antiterrorism, with intellectual…”

“Mr. Speaker, we have a broad-ranging trade bill before us which purports to deal with antiterrorism, with intellectual property, with transparency, anticorruption, foreign investment, labor and the environment. A prior speaker asked, what would it take to get your support on a trade bill? I will tell you right now, to add one more item to this list; human rights, enforceable human rights. I know that I might be one lonely voice in the wilderness on this right now, but I think that ultimately we will prevail. And I will tell you, even being alone on this issue, it is a heck of a lot better place to be than those who are in prison or suffering under tyrannical regimes in other places, when we can do something about it, when we can use our trade leverage. Now, let me underscore, we are dealing with subjects as diverse as intellectual property and foreign investment, labor and the environment. But being a slow reader, Mr. Speaker, I only got to page 174, and I want to point out that it is with respect to labor and the environment that there is a terrific loophole built into this bill, and I want to point this out with specificity so that no one can say they did not know about it.”