Paul Ryan: “Mr. Speaker, if you're not going to vote for this trade agreement, you're probably not going to vote for any trade…”

“Mr. Speaker, if you're not going to vote for this trade agreement, you're probably not going to vote for any trade agreement that's before us. This trade agreement is a no-brainer. This trade agreement is a bipartisan agreement. This trade agreement shows what you can get accomplished when we all work together. This trade agreement recognizes the fact that we have one-way trade right now with Peru, and with this agreement we have two-way trade. Ninety-seven percent of all of Peru's exports come into the U.S. duty free; only 2.8 percent of our goods go to Peru duty free. This lets us send our stuff there duty free. This gives us the same opportunity to send our exports as we already give the Peruvians. Now, what we hear often on the floor about why trade agreements are so bad, it's usually the trade deficit. Well, here is one interesting statistic, Mr. Speaker; 85 percent of the trade deficit comes from countries we don't have trade agreements with. You see, when we get trade agreements, we get good agreements for our country. We get the rule of law. We get enforceable contracts. We get access to their markets. Why is that important? It's important to get access to other markets because 97 percent of the world's consumers are not here in America; they're overseas. Ninety-seven percent of the world's consumers are elsewhere outside of this country.”