Political Quotes

“I rise because the pending proposal to grant permanent normal trade relations with Russia must be done right. It was voted out of the Finance Committee today. There is discussion about further changes in the legislation on the Senate floor when it reaches here. People in my home State of Ohio know too well that we cannot afford to continue our normal, business-as-usual trade agreements that fail to hold our trading partners responsible. We know what happened in the early 1990s with the North American Free Trade Agreement. We know what happened in the late 1990s with the permanent normal trade relations with China. Look at the most recent events around the U.S. Olympic Committee and these American athletes, with hundreds and hundreds of them soon to parade down the streets in London, England, wearing clothes made in China. If that does not tell somebody about our trade relations with China. We need to do it right because we know what happened not too many years ago with the Central American Free Trade Agreement, so-called CAFTA. The American people recognize that. Too often we have allowed countries to violate their trade commitments with detrimental consequences to our own industries, especially our manufacturing. Between 2000 and 2010, we lost one-third of our manufacturing jobs in this country. More than 5 million manufacturing jobs disappeared. Madam President, 60,000 plants closed. That is not by accident. That globalization evolved that way.…”