Political Quotes

“Reclaiming my time, the Senator is absolutely right. The alternative is not to pass a trade promotion authority and to have continue to happen what has frankly been going on over the last 6 or 7 years, which is these other countries around the world are actively negotiating agreements, as the Senator from Montana says, using their own standards but also opening markets for their workers, their farmers, and their service providers, and cutting us out of market share. So what has happened is the European Union, the Chinese, the Canadians, and others have been actively pursuing agreements while we have been on the sidelines because we have not had trade promotion authority. So not only does this give us an opportunity, with this possible agreement with the European Union--which would be an agreement not like a free trade agreement but would be a partnership on investment, on standards, on being sure there is a harmonization that is more like the beneficial metrics that we use in this country that can help both in our economy and, as the Senator says, globally--none of this can happen without us being able to say we are going to have the possibility of taking trade agreements to the Congress for an up- or-down vote--a fair vote. Every one of these agreements will have to be voted on separately because in these other countries they will not put that last, best offer on the table until they know that.…”