[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 4, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H9227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CONTRIBUTIONS OF HARDWORKING PORTUGUESE IMMIGRANTS ARE AN IMPORTANT 
                     PART OF OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Costa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the passage of 
legislation this week called the AMIGOS Act. It is a bill that will 
spur Portuguese investment in our economy and help create jobs here in 
America.
  As a proud Portuguese American and a co-chair of the Congressional 
Portuguese Caucus and a member of the Hispanic Caucus, I joined with 
Congressmembers Cicilline, Nunes, and others, in being the original 
cosponsors of the AMIGOS Act. I want to thank my colleagues this week 
for their support in the passage on a bipartisan basis.
  Our friendship with Portugal and the contributions of hardworking 
Portuguese American immigrants are an important part of our country's 
history and our heritage, as well as our economy.
  The United States is Portugal's largest trading partner outside the 
European Union. In 2018 alone, trading between our two countries 
reached in excess of $5 billion. This will only increase that economic 
activity, because this bill will make it easier for Portuguese 
investors, business people, to increase their operations in the United 
States, growing both our economies, drawing our nations even closer 
together, and creating more jobs.

  More than 100 Portuguese companies today already have operations in 
the United States. What do those operations do? They create jobs. They 
create opportunities. And they build additional prosperity on both 
sides of the Atlantic.
  We have done our part. Now it is time, we hope, that the United 
States Senate will do their part so that we can send this bill to the 
President that has, again, strong bipartisan support. It will obviously 
be good to get this measure passed, hopefully, before the end of the 
year.
  Senators Whitehouse and Toomey, again bipartisan, have already 
introduced their version of the legislation, the AMIGOS Act, in the 
United States Senate. We thank them for their strong efforts and their 
partnership.
  Sharing prosperity in this instance can only benefit both the United 
States and Portugal, and it is this kind of commonsense trade policy 
that we need to be advocating for, along with continuing to build on 
our partnerships both within the European Union as well as within South 
America and with Asia, and, of course, with our closest neighbors, 
Canada and Mexico.
  Trade obviously done properly can create good-paying jobs in America 
and benefit our relationships and our economic activity with those 
countries who we value the most.

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