Quotes & Sayings About Nafta

The economic insecurity of the past ten to 15 years, the 2008 Wall Street crash, NAFTA, and the loss of millions of good jobs - these directly grow out of Democratic Party neo-liberal policies. — Jill Stein

During the boom years of the 1990s, globalization emerged as the most significant development in our national life. With NAFTA and the Internet and big-box stores selling cheap goods from China, the line between national and international began to blur. — Noah Feldman

One can see the results of those policies in hundreds of communities around my State. As one might expect, our largest communities
places like Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay
lost thousands of jobs as a result of those trade policies, most notably NAFTA and permanent most-favored-nation status for China. — Russ Feingold

Critics of NAFTA and CAFTA warned at the time that the agreements were actually a move toward ... an eventual merging of North America into a border-free area. Proponents of these agreements dismissed this as preposterous and conspiratorial. Now we see that the criticisms appear to be justified. — Ron Paul

In the 1992 presidential debate, third-party candidate Ross Perot famously warned about a 'giant sucking sound' of American jobs going south of the border to low-wage nations once trade protections were dropped.

Perot was right, but no one in our government listened to him.

Tariffs were ditched, and then Bill Clinton moved into the White House...He continued Reagan's trade policies and committed the United States to so-called free-trade agreements such as GATT, NAFTA, and the WTO, thus removing all the protections that had kept our domestic manufacturing industries safe from foreign corporate predators for two centuries. — Thom Hartmann

Specifically, the U.S. holds strength. Its own context makes it a very competitive country, but I believe that if we recognize how interdependent the U.S. with its neighbors from the North and the South, we are part of NAFTA, a trade agreement. — Enrique Pena Nieto

Is the NAFTA a stepping stone toward the New World Order? Absolutely! — Kent Hovind

If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs NAFTA is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do - let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work. — Rush Limbaugh

We have to bake labor provisions into the core of an agreement. TPP would do that. Under NAFTA, countries had to simply promise to uphold the laws of their own nations. — Thomas Perez

NAFTA represents the single most creative step towards a New World Order. — Henry A. Kissinger

Every time we sign a treaty with another country, the treaty (should) include prisoner transfer provisions ... Under these provisions, the country in which the crimes were committed could demand that the convicts' country of origin incarcerate the prisoners for the terms to which they were sentenced ... Foreign felons in U.S. prisons are exacerbating out budget and law enforcement problems ... We will never get countries to take back their prisoners unless we have some leverage. NAFTA gives us that opportunity. — Kathleen Brown

If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have: no federal meddling in our schools; no Federal Reserve; no U.S. membership in the UN; no gun control; and no foreign aid. We would have no welfare for big corporations, or the "poor"; no American troops in 100 foreign countries; no NAFTA, GAT, or "fast-track"; no arrogant federal judges usurping states rights; no attacks on private property; no income tax. We could get rid of most of the agencies, and most of the budget. The government would be small, frugal, and limited. — Ron Paul

The real end winner of NAFTA is going to be Mexico because we have the human capital. We have that resource that is vital to the success of the U.S. economy. — Vicente Fox

In a 91-part series of sob stories from the laid off and the disgruntled, The NY Times is in the midst of bemoaning 'the downsizing of America' - better known as 'the whining of America.' The cause of all the heartache, in the esteemed newspaper of record's view, appears to be heartless corporate chieftains - as well as capitalism itself. Americans are moving forward, despite shackles. The shackles I am referring to are not NAFTA, not corporations. They are, instead, the barriers imposed by our own government. — Rush Limbaugh

Governments have been ceding power to big multinational corporations in the market. We see the manifest in a variety of ways. Where governments are giving up power to big international institutions like the World Trade Organization or NAFTA, which are disabling governments' ability to protect the rights of their own people. — Noreena Hertz

NAFTA is a major stepping stone to the New World Order. — Henry A. Kissinger

The idea is the least labor and capital and resources you put together and the more you accumulate the better capitalist you are. So the suggestion I will make to you is that the idea of constant accumulation, which is what America is about, what consumerism, NAFTA are about, means that you always take more than you need and you don't leave the rest. So I suggest that it is possible from an indigenous world view that capitalism is inherently out of order with natural law. — Winona LaDuke

During the debate over NAFTA President Clinton said, 'I believe that NAFTA will create a million jobs in the first five years of its impact.' WRONG. According to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA has led to the loss of more than 680,000 U.S. jobs. I voted against NAFTA and other bad trade agreements and am fighting to stop the TPP. — Bernie Sanders

I do think there would be a receptivity to somebody who campaigned in a straightforward, cohesive way, supporting an increase in the minimum wage, being for universal health care for all Americans, and opposing trade agreements like NAFTA. — Russ Feingold

I have visited the cities and towns across America and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton's disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization. — Donald Trump

Today, the U.S. has lost one out of every four manufacturing jobs that existed before NAFTA - over 5 million, with 42,000 factories closed. A modest trade surplus with Mexico was replaced with a large, persistent deficit. . . . NAFTA's new investor protections dramatically increased the ability of corporations to outsource entire factories to Mexico" - resulting in the "giant sucking sound" presidential candidate Ross Perot warned us about. — Bill Press

The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns. — Nina Easton

Everything is in place - after 500 years - to build a true 'new world' in the Western Hemisphere ... And what happens if we don't pass NAFTA? I truly don't think that 'criminal' would be too strong a word for rejecting NAFTA. — David Rockefeller

I didn't know how we were going to get jobs out of NAFTA, but I tend to be suspicious of these things, like NAFTAs and WTOs and so on. — Barbara Mikulski

Now, given the experience that we have had thus far, with our subsequent trade agreements with NAFTA and others, you would think that with our experience of job loss that we have had there that when you find yourself in a hole that you might stop digging. — Stephen F. Lynch

To the extent that our workers compete with low-paid Mexicans, it is as much through undocumented immigration as trade. This pattern threatens low-paid, low-skill U.S. workers. The combination of domestic reforms and NAFTA-related growth in Mexico will keep more Mexicans at home. It is likely that a reduction in immigration will increase the real wages of low-skilled urban and rural workers in the United States. — William J. Clinton

Since NAFTA was put in place, Mexico has lost 1.9 million jobs and most Mexicans' real wages have fallen. — Stephen F. Lynch

I share the skepticism that my friends have about NAFTA. It was woefully weak in protecting workers and on the enforcement side. The question is can we meaningfully build a trade regime that has as its North Star protecting American workers and American jobs through meaningful enforcement? I think we can. — Thomas Perez

NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good paying American jobs. If I
didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement. — William J. Clinton

NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty. — Michael Badnarik

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is a continuation of other disastrous trade agreements, like NAFTA, CAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China. — Bernie Sanders

The message is NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) is there. NAFTA has helped both our countries enormously. We live up to the terms of NAFTA. We ask you, our best friend and most important trading partner to do the same thing. — Anne McLellan

Bill Clinton was for NAFTA. I heard him over in Tokyo he came out all said it was a great bill. Secretary Clinton was for it. She called it the gold standard when she was secretary of state. — Chris Matthews

NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity. — John F. Kerry

It certainly was difficult to sell NAFTA because it's always difficult to sell open markets. — Lawrence Summers

I am always an optimist. The pessimists are the liars who refuse to admit what is happening. And I'll give you three things we could do this instant to help Mexico: legalize drugs, renegotiate NAFTA so that it pays a living wage, protects unions and protects the environment and stop Plan Merida which gives $500 million a year to the Mexican army, the largest single criminal organization in Mexico. — Charles Bowden

When it comes to acid rain or oil spills or depleted fisheries or tainted groundwater or fluorocarbon propellants or radiation leaks or sexually transmitted diseases, national frontiers are simple irrelevant. Toxins don't stop for customs inspections and microbes don't carry passports. North America became a water and free-trade zone long before NAFTA loosened up the market in goods. — Benjamin Barber

It is interesting that the rhetoric and some state initiatives of multiculturalism in the West are accompanied by the gathering strength of right wing politics....Everywhere in the West 'immigration,' a euphemistic expression for racist labor and citizenship policies, has become a major election platform....The media and some members of the Canadian intelligentsia speak in terms of the end of 'Canadian culture,' displaying signs of feeling threatened by these 'others,' who are portrayed as an invasive force. In the meantime, Western capital roves in a world without borders, with trade agreements such as GATT and NAFTA ensuring their legal predations, while labour from third world countries is both locked in their national spaces and locked out from Western countries, marked by a discourse of illegality and alienness. — Himani Bannerji

Under NAFTA, businesses, their property and their money can travel back and forth across national borders with relative ease, while workers who try to do the same are dubbed illegal, and are snatched off the streets and off factory floors, and are carted back over the borders they crossed. In the "free market" of NAFTA, the freedom is for the wealth and personnel of the capitalists- the thieves- there is no corresponding freedom for the refugees of land theft and conquest whose only capital is their daily toil.

Capitalism is the immense and widely celebrated ideological package used to rewrap theft as freedom, to recast imperialism as democracy. (273) Mexico Unconquered — John Gibler

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada. — Jerome Corsi

As for the expected boon to the Mexican economy, we have seen none of these gains, and instead we have seen NAFTA's detrimental impact on the Mexican workers. — Stephen F. Lynch

NAFTA, supported by the Secretary cost, us 800,000 jobs nationwide, tens of thousands of jobs in the Midwest. Permanent normal trade relations with China cost us millions of jobs. Look, I was on a picket line in early 1990's against NFATA because you didn't need a PhD in economics to understand that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour. — Bernie Sanders

In my state [ Maryland] we've lost jobs to NAFTA, we did not gain jobs from NAFTA. But I think it's very difficult when your state is right up against the northern border, you do see things differently. — Barbara Mikulski