Political Quotes

“more than almost any other debate in this Senate this year, this one seems to me to pit hope versus fear, to pit the lessons of history against the blindness to those lessons. One Senator, who will remain nameless, this morning made the statement that free-trade arrangements arising out of fast-track proposals like this would harm not only the people of the United States, but the people of the other nations entering into such a free-trade proposition. Mr. President, that exhibits a blindness to what history has shown us for more than half a century. Without exception, each liberalization of trade policies on the part of the United States that had been met by a liberalization on the part of our trading partners has benefited the people of both countries. We are in an extended and significant period of economic gains today, as we speak here, in the aftermath of a series of policies carried out by administrations, both Republican and Democratic, to free trade across the entire world. The North American Free-Trade Agreement and the most recent General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade all reflect the increasing dependence of all of the nations of the world on trade and the fact that all can prosper from a greater degree of free trade.”