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Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to be very brief, and I want to echo what the majority leader said, particularly with respect to revoking permanent normal trade relations with Russia.
The Senate, and those who are following this, should understand that in just a few minutes, the Senate is going to take another crucial step in bringing every tool of economic pressure to bear on Vladimir Putin and his oligarch allies. Ending normal trade relations hammers home that Putin has made Russia into a full-fledged pariah state.
As the leader noted, Americans have been watching these atrocities-- these brutal acts perpetrated by Vladimir Putin--day after day--on TV, phones, and the like--and now the Senate is saying ``there is going to be clear, clear, clear evidence that what he has done has forfeited the right to normal trade relations.''
And I will just wrap up by way of saying that when we get done, on the Senate Finance Committee, we are going to continue to work in a bipartisan way to send Putin additional messages that are going to rein in his economic power.
In particular, I think it is high time to take away the subsidies he gets from American taxpayers for his war machine. That happens when you have American companies doing business in Russia. They pay taxes to the Russian Government, and they get foreign tax credits. I don't believe the people of Michigan or Oregon or anywhere else believe that their tax dollars--their hard-earned tax dollars--should be used to subsidize Putin's war machine.
So this is a very important step today towards making sure, as I indicated, we are putting in place every single economic tool to hammer Putin and his oligarchs.
I urge my colleagues, as Senator Schumer has just done, to vote yes, and I also want to thank the ranking member of the Finance Committee. I talked to him a few minutes ago. He continues to do everything he can, every step of the way, to make this a bipartisan effort.
That is the message we ought to send. I urge colleagues to vote yes when we take away normal trade relations from Russia here in a few minutes.
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