Over the last four decades, I have had the opportunity to both visit and live in Africa, and after my first trip there, I knew that I loved the continent. Because of my extensive travel there, I feel that I have a better understanding of Africa and have worked to foster a more productive relationship with the region. I traveled to Ghana in 1961 with a program called Operation Crossroads Africa to help build a schoolhouse for disadvantaged African youth. Shortly after my stint there, the first Peace Corps volunteers arrived and were able to continue the same kind of work I did.

Then in 1987, I decided to leave politics and travel to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) to serve as a Foreign Service medical officer, providing psychiatric services to Foreign Service, Agency for International Development, and Peace Corps personnel in sub-Saharan Africa. While I was there, the AIDS epidemic was in full bloom, and I saw the devastation the diseased caused. Since becoming a member of Congress, I have worked to help educate my colleagues on the disease and how the U.S. can fight it at home and abroad and I founded and currently chair the Congressional Task Force on HIV/AIDS.

During my time as a member of Congress, I have been a staunch supporter of foreign assistance for humanitarian efforts and promotion of economic development, I believe the U.S. has a moral imperative to play a leading role in promoting development assistance in sub-Saharan Africa.

As a representative from Washington State, a state whose economy is more based on trade than any other, I have been a strong advocate for new initiatives in U.S. trade. I consider one of my biggest legislative achievements to be the passage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which benefits both the U.S. and Africa. AGOA eliminated the high tariffs on African-made goods and led to export-related job creation in sub-Saharan Africa and more consumers for American goods. But even with legislation like this, I know that much more needs to be done to assist the economic development of African countries, and I am pushing to improve AGOA.

One of the greatest challenges facing Africa right now is the vast number of conflicts that have kept the continent from realizing its potential. In particular, I am appalled by the ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the site of the world’s deadliest ongoing conflict. That is why I am pushing for the passage of the Conflict Minerals Trade Act, a bill I authored that is designed to empower American consumers to stop financing the conflict in the DRC. The legislation would hold accountable the companies that use conflict minerals—minerals whose sale benefits the people carrying out horrendous acts of violence—in the production of their products. 

I will continue to do all I can to help Africa. I’m proud that we’ve taken some positive steps, but I know that we still have much more work to do.