ABC "Good Morning America" Interview With Representative Chris Smith - Brazil Child Abduction - Transcript
Interview
ABC "Good Morning America" Interview With Representative Chris Smith - Brazil Child Abduction
Interviewer: Chris Cuomo
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MR. CUOMO: We just spoke with New Jersey Representative Chris Smith. He's introduced a bill that would do away with the trade agreement that gives Brazil $2.75 billion in duty benefits. He wants to suspend it unless Sean Goldman is returned to his father.
Here's what he had to say.
(To Rep. Smith.) Good morning, Congressman Smith. Thanks for joining us.
REP. SMITH: Chris, thanks for having me on.
MR. CUOMO: Brazil is an ally of the United States. How do you explain this?
REP. SMITH: We have a bilateral agreement with them which calls for reciprocity. We return their children who are kidnapped, and they return ours.
And David has gone through agony trying to bring his son home and be reunited with him.
MR. CUOMO: This is not new law. We signed into this six years ago.
REP. SMITH: Yes.
MR. CUOMO: This was 2003, the Hague Convention.
So what happens if the Supreme Court goes against Goldman?
REP. SMITH: You know, it's probably the quintessential case of child kidnapping, and even Judge Pinto, the federal judge who wrote an 82-page opinion just last week, said there were two abductions.
The first occurred when David's wife took off with Sean. She, sadly, has passed away. And the second abduction was when this man who's not the father just took control and took custody of a child who is not adoptable and just made him his own.
You can't do that. It's against every canon of family law on the planet.
MR. CUOMO: So now, just as odd as the situation seems, so comes a very unique solution from you, House Resolution 125.
You're basically trying to pass a law to take away subsidies to Brazil, trade subsidies, hitting them in the pocket. Do you think you can pass it?
REP. SMITH: If you don't have some penalty for the government that's offending, moral suasion only goes so far. What else is left?
We have to say that preferential trade that the GSP, the generalized system of preferences, provides will be suspended for Brazil unless they resolve the Goldman case and then get on the right path towards resolving these outstanding cases.
MR. CUOMO: You remember the Janet Greer case in Egypt --
REP. SMITH: (Inaudible.)
MR. CUOMO: -- the law very clear there as well. She won custody in Egypt. So sometimes this comes down to the foreign state just wanting to do the good thing.
REP. SMITH: Well, I watched that interview, and I thought it was outstanding, to see her daughter after 12 years and all of those miscues by the government.
Again, it takes pressure at the highest levels to say whether you're a Hague Convention signer or not, this is a matter of fundamental human rights and justice.
Children should not be separated from their parents.
MR. CUOMO: Sean Goldman has also been somewhat now the face of a situation: 65 other kids in Brazil, 1,900 open cases around the world.
Do you think this is a wake-up call about action that needs to be taken?
REP. SMITH: He has helped so many other people by his bravery and tenacity in trying to get Sean back, because he has really highlighted the issue, made it visible, where before it had been largely invisible.
MR. CUOMO: Well, Congressman Smith, thank you for giving this the attention it demands.
REP. SMITH: I appreciate it, Chris.
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