Political Quotes

“with the votes that have been cast today in the Senate, the Senate has begun to develop a powerful and bipartisan message that the trade policy of the 1990s will be unacceptable in 2015. The Customs and Enforcement package passed this morning goes a long way toward breaking new ground. We will be talking about the final two elements of the overall trade package, trade promotion authority, and trade adjustment assistance. But until we are done with this debate, I will be referring to the chart next to me because what we will be outlining are all of the specific areas that demonstrate that this legislation is going to finally put the 1990s and NAFTA in the rearview mirror and fix many of its flaws. For example, in the NAFTA era, American priorities, like rights for working families and environmental protection, were an afterthought, and they were stuck in unenforceable side agreements. With this legislation, they will be bedrock elements of future trade agreements. Back in those NAFTA days, the United States pretty much just asked our trading partners to enforce their own labor and environmental laws, and then we sort of hoped for the best. The trade promotion act says that if a trading partner's laws fall short, they are going to be required to pass new laws to fix the problem, and for the first time, these labor and environmental protections will be fully enforceable, enforceable because they are backed by the threat of trade sanctions.…”