Extension of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I thank Ms. Sewell and Dr. Wenstrup for taking this on.

My reason for being here behind the microphone is more than Arizona grows an amazingly high-quality cotton and this is one of our markets. I think, actually, it is part of a vision a number of us have, and I thank Chairman Blumenauer for hopefully sharing this vision, and that is thinking of the world post the change of NAFTA, USMCA.

How do we start to become more hemispheric-centric? Our neighbors, particularly our neighbors who do truly still have overwhelming poverty, how do we engage in pieces of legislation that make it so we can trade with our neighbors, trade with those who are right around us? That is what is so powerful about what is being done here.

Being someone who has spent, not a lot of time but a little time in Haiti, you see things that are optimistic, hopeful, and heartbreaking at the same time. But these are parts of the building blocks of how we build an economic circle of virtue in our region.

So I am hopeful that we move this forward and the Senate takes it up quickly, but I am also hopeful that we start to see this in a more holistic vision of we now have a change in our trade agreement with Mexico, Canada.

Now, if we can update our trade agreements with the Caribbean Basin, what else can we do to make our region economically prosperous, economically fair, economically something that the rest of the world will look forward to and say: This is what trade, when it is done properly, can bring to people who have actually had really rough times, when you think of earthquakes and of hurricanes in the region.

These are some of the good things, as a country, we can do to our brothers and sisters who are our neighbors.

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