[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12737-12738]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FREE TRADE WITH EGYPT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Dreier) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, nearly three decades ago, one of my great 
heroes, Ronald Reagan, famously said:

       In all of the arsenals of the world, no weapon is so 
     powerful as the will and moral courage of free men and women.

  For the last year and a half, no development on the world stage has 
drawn greater interest or sparked more passionate debate than the 
upheaval in the Arab world. What started in Tunisia in December of 2010 
has spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East, leaving 
virtually no Arab nation untouched.
  Tunisia ousted a dictator and elected a constituent assembly, which 
is drafting a new constitution. Libya fought a civil war, rid itself of 
its dictator, and held elections. In both cases, particularly in Libya, 
blood was shed, but it has so far not been in vain, as real hope for 
democracy and an improved quality of life prevails.
  Other countries, such as Morocco and Jordan, have seen more modest 
changes, but in the same direction--toward greater openness. Elsewhere 
in the Arab world, this unprecedented chain of events has thus far 
taken a far more tragic path. The Syrian people are suffering 
immeasurably for their efforts to unseat a regime that has proven 
itself eager to take innocent lives in brutal fashion.
  In countries like Bahrain, the violence has been more limited, but no 
less tragic. Even in those nations where regimes stifle public 
discourse, we know that the autocrats are watching. They are mindful of 
Reagan's lesson that the will of the people cannot be suppressed 
indefinitely.
  Of all the nations where this movement has unfolded, none holds 
greater sway over the future of the region than Egypt. Since the 
stunning fall of Mubarak in February of last year, Egypt has held 
parliamentary and presidential elections. Both sets of elections swept 
the Muslim Brotherhood to office, setting up a power struggle between 
the Brotherhood's leadership, the secularists, and the military 
council. Knowing of the harsh and deeply troubling rhetoric the 
Brotherhood has used over the years, many Americans rightly ask the 
question, can we work with the newly elected leadership in Egypt?
  Should we continue to provide support to this government and the 
Egyptian people? What exactly does the Brotherhood stand for, and how 
will they lead? Mr. Speaker, these are important questions. To answer 
them, we have to go beyond the reactionary and reductionist assumptions 
that are often made. I've spent a great deal of time in Egypt, meeting 
with staunch secularists to Salafists and everyone in between, 
including leaders and members of the Muslim Brotherhood. What I have 
found is a vast movement that is far from monolithic. It is made up of 
moderates and hard-liners, reformers and the old guard, and great 
internal differences exist.
  One thing, however, that has unified them is their public statements 
of support for the Camp David peace accords for human rights, including 
women's rights, as well as religious freedom, all of which are 
prerequisites to meet their quest to get their economy back on track 
through tourism and international investment. I've joined with a 
Democratic colleague in introducing a resolution calling for a free 
trade agreement with Egypt to help achieve just that.
  Ultimately, we will judge them not by their words, as Secretary 
Clinton has just said in a piece, but by their actions. But the mere 
fact that these public statements have been made says a great deal 
about the stark difference between the nature of an underground 
movement, which the Muslim Brotherhood was, and an elected government. 
Now that the Brotherhood has at least taken some of the responsibility 
of righting the economy and providing opportunity for 85 million 
Egyptians, it will face enormous pressure to pursue a reform agenda, 
engage appropriately with the West and eschew regional conflict.
  In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we as Americans have a responsibility 
to live up to our own ideals. How can we preach democracy, yet shun the 
free and fair choices of Egyptians? Of course, we cannot be naive. We 
have to recognize that democracy is about more than just elections, but 
also about protecting minority rights and building institutions that 
outlast the individuals who occupy them.
  But we also have to recognize that supporting only democracies around 
the world that produce our own preferred results is the height of 
hypocrisy. On a more practical level, compromising our own values would 
only strengthen the hands of anti-Western fundamentalists. Refusing to 
engage with the Muslim Brotherhood would simply achieve a self-
fulfilling prophecy by giving rise to extremists over reformists and 
moderates.
  No country following decades of authoritarian rule can make a full 
transition to a thriving, stable, peaceful and prosperous democracy 
quickly and painlessly. Even with the most optimistic of outlooks, the 
Egyptian people will struggle for years to come to

[[Page 12738]]

throw off the shackles of the past and create the kind of future for 
which we all strive. We have been working at this for 236 years, Mr. 
Speaker, and we still haven't gotten it exactly right.
  We have a responsibility, as longtime Egyptian allies and as 
champions of democracy around the globe, to stand with them in this 
process, encouraging continued reform and providing our support for the 
development of real democracy in the Arab world's most populous nation.

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