Political Quotes

“Thank you so much. I want to thank the gentleman from New York. It is always fun to be here with you in the later evening hours. As I am listening to you talk about fair trade versus free trade and about some of these agreements, you have just got to go to the communities. I mean, this is not rocket science. Go to the communities that have been impacted over the last 20 or 30 years, going back to NAFTA and CAFTA and all of these other agreements, and look at them. Look at what has happened in places like Youngstown, Ohio, or in upstate New York or in Connecticut or up and down the east coast. Mr. Speaker, we have, in Ohio, several companies that, after the NAFTA agreement, started moving, wholesale, their manufacturing facilities from Warren, Ohio, or Youngstown, Ohio, to just over the border in Mexico--to just over the border with cheaper labor and no environmental or labor standards to be seen--and shipping the products right back over, decimating communities across Ohio, like the ones that we represent. There is a State route in Ohio, State Route 7. It goes from the lake all the way down the Ohio River. If you want to see what these trade agreements have done in the heartland, go take a ride down Route 7, especially the southern part. Go through Steubenville and East Liverpool, Ohio; go down to Portsmouth; go through Athens County, and you will see the erosion of what used to be the industrial might of the United States of America. They have eroded communities.…”