Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and his leadership. It was my intention to engage in a colloquy with the chairman in a few minutes, but I wanted to make a couple of observations, if I could, about the subject at hand. As Mr. Rangel knows from his years of effort, one of our responsibilities in terms of promoting free and fair trade is to be able to focus attention on some of the poorest countries around the world. {time} 1300 I appreciate your work, what the committee is doing--in the past and moving forward--to be able to deal with some of the anomalies where some of the worst, heaviest tariff burdens are on some of the poorest of countries, and our being able to extend to less-developed countries opportunities to earn their own way, to have some modicum of tariff relief, to be able to promote their indigenous activities. Trade is cheaper than aid, and it helps them strengthen their economies, strengthen their societies, and I really appreciate tireless efforts to extend those opportunities to others. I think we have got a long way to go in terms of being able to deal with some of the poorest of countries. We have got trade promotion authority we may be talking about with a dozen countries. But there are other poor countries around the world that we need to work with to be able to pull into opportunities for them to grow their economies, for them to be able to trade with us, to be able to strengthen civil society, and partnerships.…”