Political Quotes

“3\1/2\ years or so ago, I live in Cleveland, and I was in my State watching the Presidential campaign. I heard Candidate Trump repeatedly talking about renegotiating NAFTA or getting rid of the North America Free Trade Agreement. While I did not support his candidacy and have generally disagreed with most of what he has said and done, it was a bit of music to my ears to hear Candidate Trump talk about renegotiating or getting rid of NAFTA. I have voted, in my time in the Senate and before this, every single trade agreement starting with the North America Free Trade Agreement of two-plus decades ago, I have voted no in these trade agreements. I never voted for a trade agreement because, frankly, every trade agreement coming in front of the House or Senate has been a corporate trade agreement. It has been written by corporate lobbyists to serve corporate executives to serve their biggest stockholders. That is what these trade agreements are about. In every case, it was an attack on the middle class. In every case, it undermined worker protections. It depressed wages. It meant loss of jobs. I know what these corporate trade agreements did to my hometown of Mansfield. I know what it did in Mansfield, OH. I know what they have done to my adoptive city of Cleveland, OH, and I know what they have done to the entire industrial Midwest--well beyond that, too, in places like Arizona and elsewhere. I have seen what these corporate trade deals do.…”