Political Quotes

“I appreciate the opportunity to share some remarks and show my support for the Portman-Stabenow currency amendment. I think we are at a point in world history and world trade where our mercantilist trading partners have gotten to be very clever. On occasion, they use a variety of tools, some of which are used all of the time. Among these, we are seeing that we are unfairly subjecting American manufacturing to currency manipulation, and this is not free trade. It is not free trade. Currency manipulation and other trade barriers are just as much of an obstacle to free and fair trade as are tariffs. That is one of the things that we have to get a handle on if we are going to protect our workers here in America. After the Korea trade agreement, which I voted for, the numbers did not materialize that were promised. In 2010, before the trade agreement passed, President Obama's Web site said: . . . the U.S.-Korea trade agreement . . . [would] add an estimated 70,000 jobs from increased goods exports alone, with additional job potential from the further opening of Korea's large services market to American firms, and other measures. Well, that is what I had hoped would happen. He said it was an advancement of the idea of free and fair trade and so forth. His own Web site said that the U.S.-Korea trade agreement would increase exports of American goods by $10 billion to $11 billion and that the agreement would help create 70,000.…”