Adam Smith Quotes

If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.

We have little of no inflation in manufacturing goods because more and more we buy products from abroad at very cheap prices.

Offshoring is only the latest manifestation of the gains from trade that economists have talked about at least since Adam Smith… More things are tradable than were tradable in the past, and that’s a good thing.

The people who are banking on Oriental trade are bound to be disappointed. The United States cannot compete with foreign countries until we can manufacture products at a lower cost, which means cheaper labor

May our exports be so great, and our imports so small, that the balance of trade may be in our favor.

The ultimate benefit of trade is not the generating of economic surpluses but the more efficient allocation of economic resources.

Free trade is good for all countries but not necessarily good for all peoples in all countries.

But, we have had the debate in our country now for a number of years as to whether or not free trade agreements are good for economic growth and economic opportunity in creating jobs and lifting people out of poverty.

No nation was ever ruined by trade.

Don't make such a big deal out of this trade deficit…. In the United States you cannot find anybody to produce such labor-intensive products and it will be more expensive if you were to import such products from other countries and the regions than China. Only China is in the best position to produce such products, and this is also beneficial to China because this has provided job opportunities to China.

Countries trade with one another for the same reasons that individuals, businesses, and regions do: to exploit their comparative advantages.

The European conflict shall not be continued by economic war after the military operations have ceased. British policy shall be directed toward promoting free commercial intercourse between all nations …

The idea that free trade encourages global economic growth by enhancing productivity is taken as an article of faith by the three major schools of international political economy: liberalism, Marxism, and mercantilism

A liberal economy doesn’t mean opening wide the doors for imports.

Free trade is a two way street.

Trade agreements are what you make of them.

The people see the layoffs. We must also show them the payoffs of trade.

The popular notion is that imports are bad and exports are good.

In order to have the benefits of free trade, you must have full employment in the trading countries.

Economies that are open to trade grow faster.

We purchase goods from abroad because they are obviously better or cheaper than the goods we have at home …. It’s basically a choice of the American people of what we want to do with our purchasing power.

Trade never balances. It hasn’t since 1776.

Unfortunately, we have lost our manufacturing capacity.

If trade were completely free, production would only take place under the most suitable conditions.

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