Quotes & Sayings About Trade Agreements

I concluded that the trade agreements weren't working as promised, and was depreciating the wages and the manufacturing base, and the jobs of Americans, and that both needed to change, and Donald Trump was out there. So I went to his rally. — Jeff Sessions

If we are to garner sustained U.S. domestic support for future trade agreements, we have to make sure those Americans who have suffered as a consequence of past agreements have an effective social safety net, adjustment assistance, opportunities for retraining and new job creation that enables all Americans to thrive. — Susan Rice

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

In 1853, American warships bullied Japan out of centuries of virtual isolation and into the modern world. The threat of force compelled Japan, like India and China before it, to accept trade agreements that were economically ruinous and eroded national sovereignty. — Pankaj Mishra

Donald Trump believed that the whole history of trade agreements, most of which I've supported over the years, have not been effective, and I've come to believe he's right. — Jeff Sessions

My advice is to listen and accept the will of the American people, the Republican voters. The Republican Party is the Republican voters, and Republican voters oppose these trade agreements more than Democrat voters do. — Jeff Sessions

Let's start getting some free trade agreements started as soon as we can. We need to get on with it; we need to get a grip and make progress. — Theresa May

I understood that these trade agreements were going to destroy the middle class of this country. I led the fight against us. That is one of the major differences that we have. — Bernie Sanders

Because countries often have differing political and economic systems, agreements are needed to protect those invested in trade. — David Suzuki

You do not export democracy through the Defense Department or the Defense Secretary. You do it through trade agreements, through the Department of Commerce and favorable agreements with our friends and neighbors across the globe. — Stephen F. Lynch

Negotiating sugar trade in bilateral free trade agreements is a recipe for disaster for the U.S. sugar industry, and it is unnecessary. — Kent Conrad

I am a firm believer in free but fair trade. However the United States should not be on the losing end of trade agreements that are not enforced. It is time that we make China play fairly. — Elizabeth Dole

Over the years, we have lost millions of decent paying jobs. These trade agreements have forced wages down in America so the average worker in America today is working longer hours for lower wages. — Hillary Clinton

Unfair trade agreements, passed by both Republicans and Democrats, have sent millions of jobs to other countries. We need to stop this hemorrhaging and find ways for American workers to compete in the new market. — Russ Feingold

Why should we believe people who constantly try to push these trade agreements and won't even admit when one has gone wrong? It makes working people feel like the process is rigged. The reason is, it is rigged. — Russ Feingold

We must work to repeal trade agreements that impede access to affordable generic drugs. We must work to cause the IMF and the World Bank to reduce and eventually eliminate the debt that takes poor nations' resources away from crises like AIDS. We must focus America's leadership on addressing and ending this epidemic. — Dennis Kucinich

During the past quarter of a century, most developing countries have liberalized trade to a huge degree. They were first pushed by the IMF and the World Bank in the aftermath of the Third World debt crisis of 1982. There was a further decisive impetus towards trade liberalization following the launch of the WTO in 1995. During the last decade or so, bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) have also proliferated.Unfortunately, during this period, developing countries have not done well at all, despite (or because of, in my view) massive trade liberalization, — Ha-Joon Chang

Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements. — Maureen Dowd

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

To open up new markets and create American jobs, we need to make global bilateral free trade agreements a priority as they were under the Clinton administration. — Mark McKinnon

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

By perfecting this legislative machinery and by participating in the various international agreements we intend to contribute to the wholesome development of world trade. — Shigeru Yoshida

Trade agreements are a net benefit for the world, and a net benefit for our foreign policy, and in the long run, given the dislocations, are a net benefit for us, too. — David Brooks

The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist. — Danny Glover

People feel these job-killing trade agreements have really squeezed the middle class and caused lots of people to lose their middle-class status. — Sherrod Brown

I think that the important point is we've got to have a president who understands the benefits of free trade but also is going to enforce unfair trade agreements and is going to stand up to other countries. — Barack Obama

Beneficial in theory, so-called free trade agreements far too often have been detrimental to the United States economy and the manufacturing sector that forms its central pillar. — Dan Kildee

We have to develop a strong economic message which says every American is entitled to health care through a national health care program. And we're not going to allow these large corporations to push through trade agreements which allow them to throw Americans out on the street and run to China. — Bernie Sanders

Ohioans, I think, in large numbers, have felt that the government has not been on their side in all of these issues: on pensions, on the cost of prescription drugs, on the health-care system generally, on jobs, on trade agreements. — Sherrod Brown

The establishment of free trade agreements can be a critical and progressive step towards greater economic integration, and continues to become more valuable in an increasingly global world. — Dan Kildee

We are on pace this year to have a trade deficit that is larger than $800 billion. We have never faced that before, but we continue to put forward trade agreements like these that leave us naked to competition that is neither free nor fair. — Xavier Becerra

I have seen businesses and government come together to provide women entrepreneurs with the training they need to better access markets, take advantage of trade agreements, and in the process grow businesses, jobs, and GDP. These are partnerships that transform lives. — Melanne Verveer

Unfortunately, the United States has entered into several free trade agreements that do not sufficiently protect and support our manufacturing industries and the millions of American workers they employ. — Dan Kildee

China has not lived up to any other trade agreements over the last decade ... They don't have any compliance or enforcement. — David Bonior

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 No. 1 source in the State Department was Alger Hiss, who was then an assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State, Francis Sayre, the son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson. The No. 2 source in the same Department was Henry Julian Wadleigh, an expert in the Trade Agreements Division, to which he had managed to have himself transferred from the Agriculture Department. He had done so at the request of the Communist Party — Whittaker Chambers

Not only must we fight to end disastrous unfettered free trade agreements with China, Mexico, and other low wage countries, we must fight to fundamentally rewrite our trade agreements so that American products, not jobs, are our number one export. — Bernie Sanders

Armed with the new right to sell their products back to host societies, they can bleed both producing and buying populations at the same time. That is why under new international "free trade" agreements private corporations and businesses have increasingly demanded that governments deregulate and lower taxes so that they are not obliged to pay the cost of sustaining the life of host-societies or their environments. — John McMurtry

Over the following years, the concept of "person" was changed by the courts in two ways. One way was to broaden it to include corporations, legal fictions established and sustained by the state. In fact, these "persons" later became the management of corporations, according to the court decisions. So the management of corporations became "persons." It was also narrowed to exclude undocumented immigrants. They had to be excluded from the category of "persons." And that's happening right now. So the legislations that you're talking about, they go two ways. They broaden the category of persons to include corporate entities, which now have rights way beyond human beings, given by the trade agreements and others, and they exclude the people who flee from Central America where the U.S. devastated their homelands, and flee from Mexico because they can't compete with the highly-subsidized U.S. agribusiness. — Noam Chomsky

A strong argument can be made that Democrats are actually the greater evil, not the lesser one. Black Agenda Report (which provides "news, information and analysis from the black left") uses the phrase "the more effective evil" to describe Barack Obama. While their analysis has focused on non-environmental issues, it holds true for Obama's environmental record as well. Obama appears to be much more effective at advancing anti-environmental policies and programs than Republicans would be. One of the main reasons for this is Demophilia. If Mitt Romney had expanded offshore and onshore oil drilling, promoted nuclear power and fracking, attacked EPA rules, and pushed through trade agreements written by private corporations there would have been huge protests. Yet Obama does all these things with impunity while environmental organizations barely object. Demophilia enables the Democratic Party to get away with it, virtually unchallenged. Regardless — Carol Dansereau

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

If we want more trade in the world, we should establish bilateral trade agreements with other democratic countries. That way we can control the decision-making process. The major economic countries of the world will enter into those agreements. — Dana Rohrabacher

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

I hate to say it but I think it has become very obvious that our system for devising trade agreements, so very important to this country's functioning around the world, has not only broken, but it has broken completely. — Xavier Becerra

In May 2007, congressional Democrats and the Bush administration agreed to a plan to include environmental and international labor standards in upcoming trade agreements. — Nina Easton

I am very glad, Anderson, that secretary Clinton discovered religion on this issue but it's a little bit too late. Secretary Clinton supported virtually every one of the disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America. — Bernie Sanders

But, we have had the debate in our country now for a number of years as to whether or not free trade agreements are good for economic growth and economic opportunity in creating jobs and lifting people out of poverty. — Donald Evans

Engineers in the developed world should be arguing not for protectionism but for trade agreements that seek to establish rules that result in a real rise in living standards. This will ensure that outsourcing is a positive force in the developing nation's economy and not an exploitative one. — Brian Behlendorf

Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements. And when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences. — Mitt Romney

To centralize power in the name of freedom is akin to putting a crime syndicate in charge of rooting out corruption. It is the normal state of politics that the more centralized it is, the more damage it does. Fast-track authority [for government-to-government trade agreements] centralizes power and is therefore part of the problem. — Llewellyn Rockwell