Thank you very much, Chair.
I'd like to thank our guests for being here today. Mr. Stephenson, it's great to have you back to our committee.
It's rather interesting when I think about Jordan. I think since I've been on this trade committee, for the last three years, we've had some seven committee meetings on Jordan, and we were almost there, quite frankly. The agreement was signed, it came to committee and then it went back to the House, and regrettably, it was stalled. What I find interesting about its being stalled is that I thought around the table in the last session there was general thought that if you can't do a Jordan deal--I think at some point we called it a no-brainer, in the sense that it was so clear and so advantageous to do something like Jordan--if you can't do that kind of trade deal, how can you do any deal. It seems to me--and I say it respectfully to all of my colleagues as we go through this process again--that it is clear that this makes some sense.
Mr. Keddy talked about why it's important to put rules in place with companies around the world. Clearly, we already trade with every country around the world. It does two more things, though, and I'd like to expand on Mr. Keddy's comment. One is that beyond putting rules in place, it increases trade both ways. And secondly, from a competitive standpoint it reduces tariffs so that it makes it easier for us to engage in business both ways. From our standpoint--certainly from my standpoint--it certainly made a tremendous amount of sense.
Ms. Martin, if I could ask you, please, you mention in your comments the global economic slowdown challenging Jordan's gross domestic product, that export-oriented sectors such as manufacturing and so on and the transport of re-exports had been hit hardest. Just clarify for me what you mean by re-exports. Can you clarify what exactly that means?