Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I appreciate the words of the Senator from Nebraska about these trade agreements. I take them at face value. I know he means well. I know he believes these trade agreements help the American people. I also know every time there is a major trade agreement in front of this Congress--the Presiding Officer's first one, I believe, and mine, was something called the North American Free Trade Agreement. They promised and promised, saying there would be all kinds of jobs and our trade surplus would grow; that it would be not just more jobs but better paying jobs. It did not quite work out that way with NAFTA. Then they did the same kind of promise and overpromise with PNTR, normal trade relations with China. In Mexico with NAFTA we had a trade surplus not too many years before NAFTA was signed, and it turned into a multibillion-dollar trade deficit. With China we had a small trade deficit. A deficit in trade means we buy more from that country than we sell to that country. President Bush said a $1 billion trade surplus or deficit turns into--he had different estimates, but between 13,000 and 19,000 jobs is what he used to say. Whether or not that is precise is a bit beside the point. The point is, if we are selling a lot more than we are buying, it is going to create jobs in our country. If we are buying a lot more than we are selling, we are going to lose manufacturing jobs. We went to literally hundreds of billions of dollars in trade deficit with China after PNTR.…”