Suzan DelBene Quotes

In May 2007, congressional Democrats and the Bush administration agreed to a plan to include environmental and international labor standards in upcoming trade agreements.

I do think we need to hold countries accountable who violate trade agreements that are already in place. We need to get stronger about enforcement, that in the future if we strike a trade agreement, toughening up labor standards and environmental standards and enforcement standards is something we absolutely need to do.

There are lots of things where NAFTA can be updated and upgraded.

We're absolutely open to making NAFTA better.

President Obama has been admirably pro-trade in public remarks, but there has been no progress in moving any new free trade agreements to expand exports abroad and create jobs at home.

The USMCA ushers in a new era for trade policy. Between labor protections and support for the American automobile industry, it places our manufacturers at the center of a blue collar comeback.

Ah, the first NAFTA was really, had a lot of disastrous elements for Canada's environment.

I urge Congress to quickly take up and pass trade promotion authority so we can conclude a TPP agreement. Our position in the world depends on it.

The TPP will be good for the American economy, the Vietnamese economy, and the labor and environmental standards that make life better for our people.

The trade agreement itself does have labor and environmental protections, but we have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights.

The experience of our unions and our members with past trade agreements has led us to question critically the extravagant claims often made on their behalf. While these agreements are inevitably touted as market-opening agreements that will significantly expand U.S. export opportunities and therefore create export-related U.S. jobs

I think TPP, as we knew it, is gone.

For TPP to get my vote, it must benefit America's middle class, raise wages, and safeguard the consumer and environmental protections that we rely upon.

Any bilateral trade and investment agreement must be comprehensive and address the full range of barriers to U.S. goods and services if it is to receive broad, bipartisan congressional support.

We have to bake labor provisions into the core of an agreement. TPP would do that. Under NAFTA, countries had to simply promise to uphold the laws of their own nations.

I worked diligently alongside our labor community to ensure that the priorities of our community were reflected in the USMCA, helping to secure strong enforcement mechanisms, protections for workers and the environment, and provisions to lower the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs.

There is no one trade agreement in the world that has country-specific content. It doesn't exist. Content has to be measured regionally.

We have quit discussing the tariff, and have turned our attention to getting trade wherever it can be found.

We always saw TPP as something that we want to be part of. In the beginning, we were not part of TPP, neither Canada or Mexico. So when we finally joined the negotiations, to us it was an opportunity.

Everybody talks about tariffs as the first thing. Tariffs are the last thing. Tariffs are part of the negotiation. The real trick is going to be increase American exports. Get rid of some of the tariff and non-tariff barriers to American exports.

The reason CAFTA should be enacted is not economic benefits: it is national security.

We will see a different trade policy coming out of here, and I'm convinced of it. I wouldn't be supporting Hillary Clinton if I didn't believe that.

We have very strong environmental laws in the United States and elsewhere around the world. The problem is that they're seldom enforced.

If we want an international trade deal that advances the interests of our own people, then perhaps we don't need a 'fast-track' but a regular track: where the president sends us any proposal he deems worthy, and we review it on its own merits.

Obama and Kuczynski each promised to do all they could to enact the Trans-Pacific Partnership.