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.
That means we get other countries to play by our rules. You add up all the countries that we have trade agreements with, we have a surplus with them. You add up the countries we do not have a trade agreement with, that`s where a massive trade deficit comes from. So our goal is to get free trade agreements, and that means we get other countries to play and live by our rules so we can level the playing field.
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.
We want trade agreements that aid development and increase prosperity, growth and productivity at home and in our trade partner countries.
Using the greatest business people in the world, which America has, I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great trade agreements.
Trump said we got snookered. That those agreements like NAFTA were the worst agreements ever and suggested that our trade negotiators were snookered by these smart negotiators from Mexico or Africa. It is laughable. I have watched these trade negotiations. We got what we wanted.
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.
Trade agreements are important because they open up new marketplaces to small businesses, which ultimately translates into more jobs and greater economic growth.
The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.
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.
I want to go get trade agreements because if America walls itself up, if we address sort of an economic fortress America, we will lose.
Most Republicans and the business community extol the virtues of trade, depicting it as an engine of economic progress, while most Democrats and unions attack the exportation of American jobs, claiming that trade agreements are destroying our economy.
In Illinois, we've seen job losses from agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA. Those agreements didn't help American workers - and they haven't brought improvements to the lives of workers in other countries, either.
While trade agreements are negotiated in secrecy, behind-closed doors, we have learned enough from leaks to know that the result of passing TPA to 'fast track' these trade agreements would affect everything from food safety to environmental protection to consumer financial protections.
Many still believe that conducting political and economic reforms at the same time is not an Asian way. But this is a fairy-tale. We broke that old stereotype by reforming our political, economic and social systems concurrently since 1990.
Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other