Political Quotes

“returning to the conversation about trade policy and its impact on American workers and businesses, President Kennedy once said, ``The trade of a nation expresses, in a very concrete way, its aim and its aspirations.'' Well, what are our aims and aspirations in crafting a new trade structure? The President says that his aim and aspiration is to be the writer of rules for trade in Asia. I have a different aspiration. My aspiration is that we create trade that creates living-wage jobs in America, that puts people to work making things in America. If we don't make things in America, we will not have a middle class in America. So as we contemplate a massive new trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the bill before us to fast-track consideration of that Trans-Pacific Partnership, we should ask ourselves this question: Is this about our geostrategic goal of being the leader in writing the rules or is it about writing rules that actually work for working Americans? Because, you see, working America has done very poorly under this goal of geostrategic influence. Oh, yeah, we had NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. We had CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. What was the result of that? Well, we lost 5 million jobs in America. We lost 5 million jobs. We lost 50,000 factories. If you go around Oregon, you can see those factory sites. I recently visited the Blue Heron site.…”