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Royce Backs Critical AGOA Legislation
"We need to act now," says senior Foreign Affairs Committee member
Washington,
Jun 21 -
Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, became an original co-sponsor of Ways & Means Committee legislation introduced today to extend the "third country fabric" provision of the African Growth and Opportunity Act until 2015. Yesterday, Royce chaired a joint hearing profiling the need to take this action. Royce made the following statement upon introduction:
"Action on third country fabric is needed now if the hundreds of thousands of African jobs AGOA made possible aren't shifted to Asia. We have a widely supported bill. But legislation should have gone to the President’s desk yesterday.
"At stake is a decade of development efforts in Africa and the great good will that AGOA has won for the U.S.
"It's great to see bipartisan support for this bill. It brings back the spirit of cooperation that existed when AGOA was passed twelve years ago."
Royce chaired the Subcommittee on Africa for eight years and was a key member of the bipartisan coalition that passed AGOA in 2000.
The legislation also includes technical corrections to the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement and an extension of sanctions on Burma.
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