Passing Asia Reassurance Initiative Act: Ensuring Trade Partners that Support Human Rights & Rule of Law

***Press Release***

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Passing Asia Reassurance Initiative Act: Ensuring Trade Partners that Support Human Rights & Rule of Law

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, spoke on the floor of the House today before passage of the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, and in support of amending the Section 302 of the bill. Rep. Doggett gave a speech which you can watch here, and provided these comments:

"As approved by the Senate, this resolution responds appropriately to the vacillation and confusion over the Trump Administration's foreign policy. But in today's amendment to Section 302 of the bill, we commit not only to support continued engagement and friendship in the Asia Pacific region, but to advance through our trade negotiations the values for which America has long been recognized as a beacon of hope.That beacon should leave no corner of the globe in the dark, and it must reach Asia.

Our economic relations must be rooted in shared respect for human rights and adherence to the rule of law. It takes more than simply an opportunity to increase exports to justify a new agreement with a trading partner. With this new Section 302, Congress doesn't support just any trade agreement, but only those agreements with partners that actually respect, promote, and adhere to the rule of law. By its very terms, when considered together with Title IV, this amended resolution does not, for example, justify trade agreements with Myanmar (formerly Burma) after its murderous ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya residents, nor does it offer any support to the Trump Administration's July 26 declared intent to reward the tyrant of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.

This country, under this government, is simply an unacceptable choice as a potential trading partner. Though Trump's Hug-a-Thug approach has repeatedly preferred foreign tyrants over committed allies, I believe that human rights is not a luxury. It is central to American values and the security of American families."

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