Barack Obama Quotes

Worker and worker protections, figuring out how someone can have a better shot in a global marketplace, has always been the stepchild of trade.

I think that when it comes to issues of trade, I think it is important for us to be in favor of trade, but I also think it is important to make sure that we are putting in place the labor standards, the environmental standards, that are going to provide some of a fighting chance for American workers.

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.

While expanding market access for American industry, financial markets and farmers is critical, I believe it needs to be done responsibly, accounting for the treatment and protection of workers and the environment.

People have to be reminded that unions played a very historic role in our economy.

The Bush Administration and the Congress have to stop ignoring this crisis in international trade. The longer we ignore it, the more American jobs will move overseas. It's just that simple.

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

That foreign trade should be fair rather than free.

American workers won't be able to compete fairly for jobs until companies have to pay higher wages in countries like China and India.

President Obama said it best during his state of the Union Address this year when he declared: 'I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don't play by the rules.'

The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for—not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country.

We must draw ahead of Europe on the question of labor, and we must set the example.

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

With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.

Historically speaking, Socialism has already shown itself in England in the extension of State interference. It has produced the Factory Laws, and it is now beginning to advance further and interfere directly in the division of produce between the workmen and their employers.

I am all in favor of growing the American economy and engaging in trade with the world, but not at the expense of American workers. The North American Free Trade Agreement is a perfect example of this. Ask the textile workers of North Carolina how NAFTA worked out for them - if you can find any.

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 don't want to repeat the unintended consequences that surfaced following the NAFTA agreement.

We need a pro-worker trade approach that puts American jobs - not corporate profits - front and center.

We have a raising wages agenda. And that includes tax policy, trade policy. TPP is a very bad agreement. Covers 40 percent of the world's economy, and it will cost us jobs. It's not well-drafted. It's an agreement, an investment agreement that will benefit Wall Street a lot, but not working people.

America has hundreds of billions of dollars of losses on a yearly basis - hundreds of billions with China on trade and trade imbalance, with Japan, with Mexico, with just about everybody. We don't make good deals anymore.

Whatever the deal is with other countries, we want a better deal for America's workers.

I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers or that diminishes our freedom and our independence. We will never, ever sign bad trade deals. America first again. America first!

If Mr. Trump wants to work with us to make sure that trade works for the American worker, not just CEOs of corporate America, you have got a partner, partner.