Political Quotes

“Colleagues, this bill is about coming down hard on the trade cheats who are ripping off American jobs. The truth is, past trade policies were often too old, too slow, or too weak for our country to fight back. This legislation says those days are over. The legislation ushers in a new day and a fresh, modern approach--a tougher approach--to enforcing trade laws that start moving our Nation to a policy that I call getting trade done right. It is about creating tough trade enforcement policies, seeing them through, and standing up to anybody who tries to get around them. No matter how a Senator chooses to vote on a particular new trade agreement, I hope that stronger trade enforcement and fighting back against the trade cheats would be a priority for every Senator. The reality is, the amount of cheating that is going on is staggering. It takes your breath away. We saw it a couple of years ago when we set up a sting operation and in effect invited the cheaters to have at it. We were deluged with those who wanted to skirt the laws, use shell games, sophisticated schemes, and fraudulent records to evade duties. You would smile at some of the inventiveness involved if we didn't see how painful it was for the American companies getting ripped off this way. One of the most common schemes--one of the biggest loopholes involves something called merchandise laundering.…”