Byron Dorgan: “I am introducing some legislation today, along with Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina to construct. It deals…”

“I am introducing some legislation today, along with Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina to construct. It deals with the issue of piracy or counterfeiting of goods by China. It relates to the substantial loss of U.S. jobs, and $200 billion in harm to the U.S. economy as a result of the piracy and counterfeiting that is going on in China. What is our Government's reaction to this problem? Our government's reaction to date can be characterized as somewhere between looking worried, a deep frown, or thumb-sucking. Essentially, it is doing nothing to stand up for this country's economic interests. Let me describe the problem. The U.S. Trade Representative has concluded that: ``China has not resolved critical deficiencies in intellectual property rights protection and enforcement and, as a result, infringements remain at epidemic levels.'' In short, the Chinese are cheating, counterfeiting American goods and robbing jobs from our country. Chinese fake goods coming into the United States grew 47 percent last year. The Chinese government is not doing anything about it. Investigations of counterfeiting in China, as you see, have taken a nosedive. The vast majority of products in the United States that are counterfeits or pirated are Chinese; 67 percent of the counterfeit products in this country are Chinese counterfeit products. The question is, What are we going to do about it?…”