Max Baucus Quotes

I'm not opposed to free trade if it's fair trade. But I am opposed to bad trade deals.

While I believe firmly in open markets and free trade, I also believe an open market needs a level playing field.

Before we move forward with new efforts to lower the barriers to international free trade, we must review the consequences of the policies of the past and address the problems of the present.

We are on pace this year to have a trade deficit that is larger than $800 billion. We have never faced that before, but we continue to put forward trade agreements like these that leave us naked to competition that is neither free nor fair.

We cannot open our markets to countries that do not open their markets to us.

You can’t have free trade of others don’t play by the same set of rules that our guys play by…. Free trade works if we open our markets and they open theirs.

China must voluntarily cut back on exports to America otherwise American politics will become unmanageable.

When trade legislation seeks to protect one industry at the expense of another, then the economic well-being of everyone in this country is adversely affected.

The arguments for protection are more easily made attractive than those for free trade.

Demanding freedom of access to other markets isn't protectionism, it's free trade.

There is nothing inconsistent between standing up for free trade and standing up for American workers.

Free trade ideas often look great in prospect but less in retrospect.

U.S. trade policy has been a disaster for American workers.

The United States is the least protectionist country in the world but has the largest trade deficit, while other countries are highly protectionist and have huge trade surpluses. This cannot continue.

When it is fair, American workers can compete and win. I cannot support the TPP in its current form because it doesn't provide that level playing field.

We want more of our products going overseas, but the trick is to have a level playing field.

How does allowing China to constantly rig trade in its favor advance the core conservative goal of making markets more efficient?

I think it's really important that we have a level playing field for global trade.

There's a natural antipathy on the part of the voters to a continuation of globalization as we know it. It's simply a code word today for bad trade deals that disadvantage the American people.

We have to be vigilant against protectionism and be constantly making the argument for free trade.

This country lacks the backbone and the spine and the will to demand fair trade and stand up for our products. If our producers can't compete, shame on us. Then we lose. But requiring our producers to compete when the game is rigged, saying our producers ought to compete, when foreign markets are closed to us, is fundamentally wrong.

I'm a big free trader. But it has to be fair.

We're putting ourselves - we're basically double taxing made in America products. And so what we're saying is let's equalize this so that we're on a level playing field, so that American-made goods and services are on a level playing field with the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, the United States has entered into several free trade agreements that do not sufficiently protect and support our manufacturing industries and the millions of American workers they employ.

China is crippling our manufacturing economy and eliminating our jobs by illegally flooding our markets.