We must always be thinking of ways to increase economic growth, to increase economic prosperity to provide those jobs. I think that is one of those basic and fundamental services that I think of myself providing for the people I represent in the 9th District of the State of Washington, is to try to help do what we can to encourage a strong economy, and one of the cornerstones of a strong economy is exports. 

In order to create a possibility for economic growth, we have to have a strong export market, and a few basic facts make this point clear. Ninety-six percent of the world's population lives outside of the United States. But despite the fact we only make up 4 percent of the world's population, we consume 20 percent of the world's goods and services and products. 

So we can basically look at those figures and realize that if we are going to have economic growth, it is probably going to have to occur outside of the United States. We are going to have to do something to get access to that 96 percent of the world that does not live here. 

There is massive potential for growth in those markets for all of our products. Technology products, goods, services, you name it, exports are an incredible possibility for growth. Currently we have a number of policies in the U.S. that restrict the ability of those exports to grow, and that is what I want to address the House about today. 

Now, there are some very good reasons for why these restrictions on exports exist. Unfortunately, as times have changed, those reasons are no longer valid, so it is very important that we reexamine our policy of restricting exports. And there are two that I want to touch on today. One is unilateral economic sanctions, and the second is restrictions that we police on the exportation of certain technologies, certain software and certain computers. 

When we look at the issue of unilateral economic sanctions, it is important to first look at why we do it. We do it because we want to change the policies of other countries, policies that we are absolutely right in condemning and wanting to change, policies such as restrictions on religious freedoms, restrictions on democratic freedoms, restrictions on economic freedoms, and basic human rights concerns. 

Unilateral economic sanctions are perceived as one way to get other countries to change those policies. But the problem is we live in a global economy, and in a global economy a unilateral, which means only us, the U.S., placing export restrictions on our companies doing business with other countries, does not get us there because those other countries have dozens of other options. They can go to other countries and get their goods and services elsewhere, and all that happens is that we lose market share and those policies that we are concerned about do not change. 

Economic sanctions, in order for them to work, must be multilateral in order for them to have full impact. I brought a chart with me today to show my colleagues, in red, the countries that we have placed some sort of economic restriction on. In other words, these are countries that there are some sort of restrictions on U.S. companies exporting to them. These are markets that we are shutting off or reducing access to for U.S. companies.    

Mr. Speaker, the important point here is it just does not work. If it worked, if we could actually change human rights policy, change democracy policy, change economic repression through a policy of unilateral economic sanctions, certainly it would be worth doing it, but it does not work. We need to reexamine that policy. 

Mr. Speaker, we have a bill in the House to do that sponsored by the gentleman from California (Mr. DOOLEY), who spoke earlier on this issue. I think it is critical that we support that. 

On technology, we restrict it for a slightly different reason. We restrict it for national security concerns. Perfectly valid concerns, but the question is: Do our restrictions on encryption software and computers actually help national security? I would argue, first, that they do not and, second, that they actually hurt our national security interests. 

This technology is not something we can put our arms around. It is growing so fast and in so many countries other than the U.S. We are not the only ones making encryption software in computers. Other countries are doing it. Therefore, these countries that we want to restrict access to will get access to it anyway. All we will do is hurt our own companies and hurt their ability to grow. 

This is not a choice between commerce and national security. In fact, I would argue that our national security could be best enhanced by opening up these markets to our U.S. technology companies so that U.S. technology companies can continue to be the leaders in technology and, therefore, share that technology with our national security interests. We are not going to be able to get the sort of interplay back and forth between the private sector and our defense companies if Germany or Canada or any number of other countries suddenly is out in front of us in technology. We will lose our national security edge. 

So, paradoxically, the policy of restricting the ability of our technology companies to have access to other markets for goods like computers and encryption software winds up harming our national security policies. 

The world has changed. It is global, and technology is very accessible. We need to reexamine old policies that no longer accomplish what they set out to do.