Unanimous Consent Request --H.R. 1905

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOZMAN. I thank the Senator from Illinois. Again, I was making the point that as we go to these African countries that want American products, whether it is the newest country in Africa, South Sudan, or the older countries, and we need to have the ability to supply them. Both Senators have mentioned China. China is certainly lurking out there. Again, it is not only China; it is India and a number of other countries. The Senator might want to comment on that. Senator Coons.

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Mr. BOOZMAN. I agree with the Senator from Illinois. We trade not only goods and services, but we trade ideas. That is so important as we go on. Certainly, Africa is developing a very healthy middle class. This is certainly something new that they have not seen before. Again, they are hungry for American products.

I appreciate the way the legislation was crafted in the sense it is revenue neutral so there is no cost to the taxpayer. What we are trying to do is get a plan together to make it such, particularly our small businesses, so they can compete in this huge continent that has so much going for it. Again, it could be such a great help to a State such as mine. In Arkansas, we are talking about we already export $5.6 billion in merchandise. I think one of the ways we are going to climb out of the economic doldrums we are in and create jobs is going to be through exports, and certainly this gives us an opportunity.

We are almost--we could almost say, using the statistics from the Senator from Illinois; he talked about 7 of the 10 top emerging economies coming out of Africa--we are almost doing a disservice to our small businesses by not going forward with this legislation.

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Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, I agree with the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from Delaware. The bottom line is there is a tremendous opportunity for our country. I think that our country, as we do start the trade process, trading ideas along with goods, that, again, we are givers. We can be very proud of the work we have done in Africa. Nobody has done more when we are talking about food. I was one of the cochairs of the malaria caucus. We can be very proud of the work the Congress has done in the last several years. These are things that the Western world can get together and eliminate.

As the continent settles down and develops a middle class, 60 percent of the businesses that do exports are small businesses and certainly we need to get in there. This bill challenges us to increase that by 200 percent and gives us the incentive and a template for how we do that so we can stop this erosion by the Chinese where they are outdoing us by about 3 to 1.

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Mr. BOOZMAN. I thank the Senator. We appreciate his leadership. Perhaps the three of us, and maybe others, can write a note to the Secretary of Commerce and ask him to make a much-needed trip to Africa, to look at this bill and not only do this, but use other ways as a strategy to implement so we can get our small businesses trading more with the continent, again, keeping up with the likes of China, India, and all of the places we mentioned.

I think once it is all over, we will be very proud of our efforts, just as I am very proud, as was mentioned, of the efforts we have made in feeding the hungry, helping those with HIV, those with malaria, and diseases such as that. It is interesting that it is the place in the world where we have the highest acceptability. The people are very pleased with what the Americans have done there. Our State Department is doing a great job. We are teaching people how to fish rather than feeding them, and that has been very successful.

I appreciate everybody's efforts and hopefully we can get our colleagues together and get this thing passed.

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