Susan C. Schwab Quotes

Trade agreements are what you make of them.

There must of course always be separate interests of different nations which their governments are bound to maintain, but there are also common interests in which all civilized nations share. These common interests arise from the interdependence of civilized peoples and they are a product of developing civilization.

Trade agreements have always been greased about deception of who benefits. Now they are failing because leaders have come to believe their own lies.

The developing countries are scared out of their wits now, because they don’t understand what they’re being forced to sign. The agreements are going way outside the trade issues and involve a helluva lot of things like your access to oil, your access to intellectual property and capital controls…. When I looked through the investment agreements, it was worse than reading my insurance policy for the fine print. I couldn’t make anything out of it, and I’m a reasonably informed person, a pretty smart economist as they go.

When diplomats meet, they are, of necessity, ambiguous, in order to get an agreement.

Success of negotiations cannot be guaranteed. If there is no attempt, then failure is guaranteed.

The formation of a treaty often requires secrecy and dispatch …

Treaties of commerce have been found by experience to be among the most effective instruments for promoting peace and harmony between nations whose interests, exclusively considered on either side, are brought into frequent collisions by competition. In framing such treaties it is the duty of each party not simply to urge with unyielding pertinacity that which suits its own interest, but to concede liberally to that which is adapted to the interest of the other. To accomplish this, little more is generally required than a simple observance of the rule of reciprocity, and were it possible for the states- men of 1 nation by stratagem and management to obtain from the weakness or ignorance of another an over-reaching treaty, such a compact would prove an incentive to war rather than a bond of peace.

In any negotiation you have a wish list but then you proceed from where you can be.

Anyone who has ever negotiated an agreement knows that in order to get it, you have to be willing to walk away from the table..

What I learned from clerking for Judge Guido Calabresi and for Justice Steven Breyer was that there is no position, regardless of how wrong you think it is, that does not have some arguments in its favor, and you have to find them. And then, no matter how right your own position is, you must look for the weaknesses in that they are always there. You must be willing to find them and possibly change your approach or your mind on the subject.

The length of time during which you must play your fish depends on his choice, not on yours.

Too often ... in statecraft the object is to reach an agreement, which is only sometime—not always—the way to reach a result.

Negotiating is a little like jazz. You improvise on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you’re not always sure how to get there.

Boundary and peace treaties are not inspired documents.

We must not allow expectations to outdistance negotiations.

I would say to every nation on earth, by treaty, your people shall trade freely with us, and ours with you ...

Can you have a free trade agreement with a country that isn't free?

When you make a proposal [to your allies], you've got to make it stick.

Do not worry about the side agreements on labor. They are too full of loopholes to pose any threat.

Conflicts have to be resolved. That is the responsibility of leadership. And globalization is the biggest conflict today.

There can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare. There must be a battle, a brave boisterous battle, with pennants waving and cannon roaring, before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands.

If there were women negotiating at Camp David, we would have signed a treaty.

He who cannot agree with his enemies is controlled by them.

Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.