Angie Craig: “I have listened intently to my colleague, the senior Senator from Texas. The reason I do that and I have done that for a…”

“I have listened intently to my colleague, the senior Senator from Texas. The reason I do that and I have done that for a good many years, I always learn a great deal. I am always extremely cautious to get on the floor and debate in opposition to a position held by my colleague from Texas, with his skill but, most importantly, his knowledge in this area. It is very important. I hope all listen. I was taking notes as if I were a student at Texas A&M and he were the economics professor. In fact, that is what we heard today, a rather professorial statement about the ideals of trade in an ideal environment. I disagree not with that statement. I also agree with the historical perspective that he offered from the 1960s through the 1970s and the Kennedy Round and the circumstances the world found itself in and the need for us to change from being the exclusive holder in a constitutional Republic of the right to determine international commerce flows to one where we delegated that thought by law to the executive, in a great more detail. That, of course, is what we did with fast track. That was the 1960s and the 1970s. Through that period of the 1970s and the 1980s and the 1990s, the world changed a great deal--really all for our betterment in the broad sense. As economies changed and we invested in world economies, there is no question that the economic engine of the United States drove the world and took a lot of poor countries and made them more prosperous.”