James Traficant: “every Member in this body wants to help Africa and African workers. So do I. But I do not want to help Africa and…”

“every Member in this body wants to help Africa and African workers. So do I. But I do not want to help Africa and African workers at the expense of America and American workers. Now, I support the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), his philosophy and ideology all the way through, and I believe him when he says that we will minimize that transshipment opportunity that exists in the bill. But quite frankly, I believe the gentleman, but the law says something else. I say to my colleagues, this is not the African Growth and Opportunity Act, this is the Chinese-Japanese Growth and Opportunity Act for the following reason. I would like to explain it. The bill defines an African product as one that contains at least 35 percent local value, African local value. Now, that is the standard minimum for the GSP program, which is the Generalized System of Preference. And understand that this bill does not specifically address that, but by God, we should, with record trade deficits year in and year out. And the silence is deafening.”