Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I want to emphasize one final time, as we get closer to votes on these amendments, the importance of getting the free-trade agreements passed and put into force, but also the importance of understanding that, as we move into the future, we not make the mistakes we have made with respect to these agreements, and that is to let them languish literally years, and at the same time be losing market share, be losing jobs for Americans, and be losing market opportunities for American businesses. Again, I wish to point out just a couple things I think personalize this; one, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, we have a company such as Caterpillar, which makes large mining trucks and exports 92 percent of them. They pay a $300,000-per-truck tariff to get into the Colombian market. Think of a country such as South Korea, with the 13th largest economy in the world. They are a big importer of American agricultural goods, with 54 percent right now being the average tariff on goods that are exported from the United States--agricultural products exported from here to Korea, but 9 percent is the average tariff on their goods coming into this country. That 54-to-9 ratio is an incredible disadvantage, putting American businesses at a tremendous disadvantage relative to the countries around the world with whom they have to compete.…”