Political Quotes

“The fact is if we do not wake up and smell the coffee in a few years, and I am talking about a handful of years, we are going to find that China is going to eat our lunch economically. They have billions of people. They do not have the same kind of requirements that we have here in terms of environmental requirements, labor standards. Their wages are pathetic. We are talking about pennies a day. And they use slave labor; they use child labor. They are an authoritarian government. I have been told that when a Chinese worker is injured on the job, they are just shuttled aside and they bring on someone else. So there are all kinds of reasons why the playing field is not level when it comes to China and dealing with China and this trade issue. We made a mistake, in my judgment; this Congress, this administration made a mistake in granting to China most-favored-nation trading status. We gave them the advantages that come with that designation. We supported their entry into the World Trade Organization, although they are authoritarian, although they are oppressive, although they routinely abuse their own citizens in terms of human rights and civil rights; and yet now we are allowing them to engage in a trade relationship with us which is out of balance, unfair, unequal.”