Bill Pascrell: “I hold up an ad that was in The Hill today, which cost $3,885 for the record. It is a part of the democracy we live in.…”

“I hold up an ad that was in The Hill today, which cost $3,885 for the record. It is a part of the democracy we live in. I will not name the firm, but the firm writes this: ``This firm is committed to helping China develop sustainable economic growth.'' And I find that to be very, very laudable. But what about us in this country? That is what this is all about. And to answer the last speaker who spoke eloquently here, we are all for freedom. The question is, what does that freedom mean? We have seen what has happened to the textile industry in this Nation over the last 30 years. If that was not bad enough, China is currently the third largest source of U.S. textile and apparel imports. Chinese textile and apparel exports to the United States are limited by U.S. quotas established under a bilateral agreement with China. The most current agreement was reached in February of 1997. The U.S. Customs Service, that is us, has found evidence that China has attempted to circumvent the U.S. textile quotas by transshipping Chinese products through other countries to the United States using false country-of-origin labels. This is a very common problem. I ask the opposition to this resolution to respond to this illegal trafficking of goods into this country. We talk about the sliding Asian economy. As it gets worse, there will be a propensity to produce more cheap goods to flood our markets. That is what this is all about.…”