Andean Trade Preference Extension Act of 2008
Floor Speech
Andean Trade Preference Extension Act of 2008
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Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I too rise in support of this bill, H.R. 5264, to extend the Andean Trade Preference Act for another 10 months to our friends and allies in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
At some point, we are going to find that this Congress will move closer to a bipartisan trade agenda because for many years, it was absent, but I think you see in the seeds of this legislation and in previous actions on the Peru Free Trade Agreement the opportunities for us to not only move towards a bipartisan trade agenda, but quite honestly a nonpartisan trade agenda where what we are talking about is an American trade agenda that promotes the interests of our workers and of our industries and so that when we reach a hand out to our neighbors whether in our hemisphere or otherwise, we are doing this in a way that promotes not just competition, healthy competition among our friends, but it also makes it possible for us to move forward the thing that will keep the engine of American ingenuity going.
And so as we try to figure out how to open the doors to the markets of the world, to our interests, so that our American workers can continue to produce more goods and goods of excellent quality, we will be able to open our door to the goods of other countries where, based on a fair trade agenda, we can do so and feel comfortable that we are bringing in quality goods that are safe and reliable here in the U.S. for its use.
Now whether you are with the labor movement, and the AFL-CIO has come out and supported this extension, or whether you are with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has also come out in support of this, I think what we are finding is that the seeds can be planted for us to move forward on trade in a way that leaves out the words ``party affiliation'' completely and lets us talk about how the trade agenda for this country, for America, will be not only advanced but benefit so many people in this country who work.
I believe that this is a chance for us to show our friends in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru that we want to strengthen our friendship with them, that we want to increase our ties with our hemispheric neighbors and make this into something that leads towards an American agenda on trade that we can all feel very comfortable with and get resounding support in this House.
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