Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President. In just a few minutes, we will be holding a vote on whether to invoke cloture to cut off debate and move to the trade promotion authority bill, granting trade promotion authority to the President--a very important conversation this country needs to have in terms of what we are going to do to expand our opportunities in a region of the world that represents 50 percent of the population of this world and that represents 40 percent of our trade opportunities. It is a great opportunity for this Congress, this Senate, to show how serious we are about truly rebalancing our efforts with Asian nations. In Colorado alone, we exported nearly $8.4 billion in goods in 2014. In Colorado, 48 percent of all goods were exported in 2014. Over 260,000 jobs are derived from trade with nations represented by the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiating group. The TPP represents an opportunity for Colorado to create nearly 4,000 new jobs, and that is just a start. So today's conversation is not just a vote on whether we will have more delay on an important bill; this is about something that represents far greater opportunity than that. The fact is, over the past several years we have focused our time on the Middle East, and rightfully so, but as our day-to-day attention gets grabbed by the Middle East, our long-term interests lie in Asia and the Trans-Pacific Partnership region.…”