Chris Smith

We need the whole of government. We need the entire administration. We need the Senate, too.

If that is, indeed, the choice and if the Congress cares about U.S. companies as well as human rights, it ought to be thinking well, what does this mean for our giving access to Vietnam on a whole.

Vietnam is an oppressed state.

I am wondering if maybe even that joint communique--Reuters suggested in an article that they had--lobbyists had had an impact on that joint communique.

It was my bill. We worked very hard on it--totally bipartisan, everybody was here today.

They can pass all the policies for international consumption that they want, but we want it on the ground to help people and to protect their fundamental rights.

The forced renunciations of faith by the Hmong and others--the Highland people, who are being told they can't practice their Christian beliefs.

I went to Hue, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi and met with probably upwards of 60 different people, all the different religions.

We insist that there be political reform and social reform there and that the gangster regime gives up the power to the people of Vietnam.

We need to hold accountable YouTube and Facebook and other American companies, who collude... with this tyrannical gangster regime in Vietnam.

The victims of tyranny in Vietnam are not alone. We are with them.

Putting human rights and the rule of law at the center of bilateral relations is the goal of H.R. 5621, the Vietnam Human Rights Act, bipartisan legislation that I introduced last month.

I commend President Trump in his meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc... which stressed the importance of protecting and promoting human rights in Vietnam.

The passage of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights and Accountability Act... now enables this House to bring justice to the victims of Con Dau Parish.

The Vietnamese Government, in 2017, committed what is regarded as an outright assault on freedom and universal human rights.

We have demanded of ourselves that these freedoms must be preserved at all costs and we demand the same from those nations with whom we associate.

The principles of religious freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom to organize, and the freedom to own property have served as the bedrock of our great nation for over two centuries.

Severe human rights abuses continue in Vietnam and data suggests these abuses are mounting.

But if we are who we aspire to be as a nation, we will not, until you recognize basic human liberties.

We want to work with you. We want to trade with you. We want to be friends with you.

I supported and support the idea of holding accountable those people who are committing human rights violations--those individuals and those specific offices overseas.

The deepening of this relationship, however, is going to depend on how much progress the Government of Vietnam makes on critical human rights...

It always gets over to the Senate and holds are placed on it, and those holds are to the detriment of the Vietnamese people.

Robust championing of individual rights will meet with some success, if recent history is our guide.

No government that represses its own people or restricts fundamental freedoms can be a trusted ally of the United States.