Ben Cardin: “Mr. Speaker, it would be irresponsible for us to support this resolution and to withdraw from international trade…”

“Mr. Speaker, it would be irresponsible for us to support this resolution and to withdraw from international trade community, and I certainly oppose this resolution. But let me point out, I think we can do a better job in this body in monitoring our participation in the World Trade Organization. Let me just point out a couple points if I might. First, we could improve our antisurge provisions in our own trade laws, our antidumping and countervailing duty provisions in our section 201 relief. Last year, we had a surge of steel, cheap steel, subsidized steel into the United States which costs us many jobs around our country. We could have done a better job. In fact, we did a better job with the recently negotiated agreement with China. We have a better provision in our current law. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) was instrumental in incorporating that into statute in the legislation that we approved the permanent NTR. So we could do a better job with all of our trading partners in protecting our industries from illegally imported subsidized products.”