Political Quotes

“I rise today reluctantly in support of H.J. Res. 121. I served in the Bush administration and 5 years on the staff of U.S. Senator Trent Lott. During that time, I always supported the extension of Most-Favored Nation status, because I believed it was the right way to achieve our trade objectives. But, sadly, I have come to the conclusion that the current policy is failing. It is flawed, fundamentally flawed, and it needs to be changed and replaced. At a time where we are taking bold leadership in other areas of our policy with China, taking a stand with the passage of the Religious Persecution Act, trying to find ways to limit technology transfer and to limit the proliferation that we are seeing, we are sticking and staying in the rut of the status quo of the MFN debate. Mr. Speaker, year after year we have done that for the past 10 years, and no change. The deficit gets worse every year. Our objective of getting them into the World Trade Organization seems to be slowing and lessening. What incentives do they have now to join the international community, to play by the rule of law, to open their markets, to reform their state-owned entities? The truth is the incentives today all work against our trade objectives. This policy, the current policy, works against our objective of opening their markets. Let me be clear, my opposition is not one of closing our market.…”