Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you for all of your hard work and your leadership in this area. I'm a newcomer to the world of trade, and a fairly newcomer to Congress, having been here for 6 years. I want to talk a little bit about the frustration that I think a lot of us here in the House have been experiencing, and I think a lot of people, Mr. Speaker, across this country are feeling, and that is a lot of frustration, a lot of anger at this Congress, the fact that we can't work together. But the good news is that today, we're going to have that opportunity. The President has finally decided to send those trade agreements that we've all been waiting for for the past 4 years to Congress so that we can have a vote on the South Korean agreement, the Colombia agreement, and the Panama agreement. And these are all important. Why? Because they create jobs. We know they create jobs. In Washington State alone, one out of every three jobs is connected to trade--one out of every three jobs. South Korea is Washington's fourth-largest trading partner. It's important for the people of Washington State to have this partnership with Korea, with Colombia, and with Panama. Right now, we are falling behind. The European Union, as I think was mentioned earlier, signed their agreement and it became final on July 1 of this year. Since July 1, the European Union has increased their exports to Korea by 17 percent. We are losing market share. We are losing jobs. We must act now.…”