Political Quotes

“today the Senate is formally kicking off the trade debate here in the Senate. What I intend to do, starting today and in the days ahead, is to come back to what I think needs to be the central statement of this discussion; that is, the NAFTA playbook. The playbook for trade in the 1990s is gone. It is a new day in trade policy. So I have summarized why the trade promotion act is not the trade policy of the 1990s and is not the North American Free Trade Agreement. What we are going to do today is essentially start with the question of how vigorous trade enforcement ought to be at the forefront of America's trade policy in 2015 and beyond, and how our new approach on enforcement is different than the policy of the 1990s. The reality is, we can pass trade agreements full of lofty goals and principles. You can amass all of the enforcement ideas you might want, but it does not do any good if you do not have real enforcement tools and you make sure that they are not locked in a shed. In my view, that has been happening for way, way too long. The status quo on trade enforcement simply no longer does the job. As I have listened for many months to Senators on both sides of the aisle, I believe there is widespread recognition that our approach to trade, particularly trade enforcement, has to change, because without that change, we are not going to have the best possible path to creating more good-paying jobs for our people in a modern and globally competitive economy.…”