Political Quotes

“Unfortunately, I think some of these countries--all three of which are great allies of the United States: Panama, Colombia, and South Korea--feel as though the United States has let them down. We are going to move forward here, I believe. I am more optimistic than the Senator from Kansas. I believe the President will finally send these forward. He has to. The logic is difficult to escape. Why wouldn't you? And that is good. We will be able to move forward, I hope, with not just opening more markets but helping on our relationships with these incredibly important allies. But in the meantime, there has been damage done. The Senator is absolutely right. I think they believe in some respects that the rug has been pulled out from under them. They made huge concessions and commitments to the United States and politically took great risks. Frankly, in Colombia and Panama, where they moved forward immediately to ratify these agreements in their legislature, it wasn't just the administration, it was the elected representatives of the people, as we are, who took risks to say: Yes, we want to be a partner with the United States of America, the greatest economy on the face of the Earth and this beacon of hope and opportunity, and here we are in America letting them down. So in both its commercial impacts on the United States--we have lost market share, we have lost jobs because of it, but it also has had an impact, as Senator Roberts says, in terms of our standing in the world.…”