Byron Dorgan: “I want to speak about an issue that is of great importance to my State and to all agricultural producers around the…”

“I want to speak about an issue that is of great importance to my State and to all agricultural producers around the country. That is the issue of the sanctions on food and medicine that now exist in our relationships with some countries around the world. Our country has been in the habit of saying: We don't like certain countries, we don't like the way they behave, so we are going to slap economic sanctions on these countries and we have included sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine. So countries such as Libya, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and others, are in a circumstance of having economic sanctions enacted against them to punish them, and we have included in those sanctions food and medicine. A group of us are trying to change that. We do not think it is the moral thing to do. What is this country doing, saying to others that we will not allow them to have access to food and medicine? Taking aim at dictators and hurting poor people, sick people, and hungry people is hardly something about which we ought to be proud. This is not a moral policy.”