Chris Van Hollen

If we want an economy that creates jobs and improves infrastructure in all our communities and allows our businesses and our workers to compete around the world, then instead of running from these opportunities, we have to seize them.

People are not stupid. They see what is happening; they know it threatens not only their air and their water, but it threatens their homes and their livelihoods.

We show those workers no respect if we do not plan now for how we are going to protect their communities from flooding and drought and economic upheaval.

We have seen another explosion in terms of the gaps between CEO compensation and the compensation that they provide to their workers.

I think that is the way that we actually counter China.

I do want to salute the Biden administration for their action today in sanctioning 24 officials from China and Hong Kong for their crackdown on democracy and human rights in Hong Kong.

We need to work together to flood expert committees in the technical standards areas where China has been doing that and taking control of these committees.

I agree with Senator Young and others who have said we need a major sort of Apollo program when it comes to our investment in these cutting-edge technologies, given China's very expressly stated goals around the China 2025 agenda.

I do believe we have a dangerous misalignment between the nature of our foreign policy challenges today and our current strategy and resources for meeting them.

This is an ideal time for the Senate to pass the No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act since countries are working in concert through the OECD to address tax avoidance of multinational entities.

We are urging the Biden administration now to take similar steps with respect to the further crackdown on Hong Kong.

I joined with Senator Toomey, and last year we passed the Hong Kong Accountability Act, which provided additional authorities for the President of the United States to sanction officials responsible for the crackdown and taking away…

I was pleased to see the Biden administration issue some sanctions against those in Russia who have been very instrumental in the crackdown on Navalny.

Thank you. Right that is the idea is that those financial institutions that are enabling those individuals also recognize that they could be penalized through the sanctions.

The Biden administration has been talking more and more about looking at the frame of techno-democracies versus techno-autocracies

I want to thank all three of our witnesses today for their powerful testimony and their courageous actions in support of freedom and democracy.

History has proven that democracies are more peaceful when their people are more prosperous and more secure.

I say we must. It is simply in our interest.

Our institutions withstood the challenges that were presented to it.

Well, thank you. I look forward to following up with you and others on the panel as we shape this and have the debate.

Well, I appreciate that. As you say, it really would create a disincentive, a financial disincentive for that high-risk conduct that puts other people in the market at risk.

Congress and regulators should act to ensure that those who deliberately distort prices may be subject to regulatory or prosecutorial discipline.

Congress and regulators should review whether and how investors should access complex leveraged products, such as call options.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Congress and regulators should address the incentives and market structures that have created the modern trading markets.