Stephen F. Lynch Quotes

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.

Unfettered free trade has been a disaster not only for Americans but for the working people of Mexico and Canada as well.

The effect of Bill Clinton's NAFTA and Hillary Clinton's Colombian Free Trade Agreement has been devastating to Michigan and most of the rest of the country, and accounts for the appeal of Donald Trump.

In Illinois, we've seen job losses from agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA. Those agreements didn't help American workers - and they haven't brought improvements to the lives of workers in other countries, either.

I concluded that the trade agreements weren't working as promised, and was depreciating the wages and the manufacturing base, and the jobs of Americans, and that both needed to change, and Donald Trump was out there. So I went to his rally.

That level of trade deficit throttles real growth in our country and continues the unfortunate path of selling out America. We are not winning the global trade war, we are losing it badly.

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

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.

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.

The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns.

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.

I don't think we should sell out the American worker. That's why I am opposed to NAFTA.

Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.

We could not get NAFTA passed today with the current Congress…. We’ve got to combine trade liberalization with a broad-based sharing of the fruits of our productivity.

Belief in the panacea-like qualities of free trade amounts to ‘collective insanity’.

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.

Unfettered free trade has led to a disaster.

Enforcing trade deals is spot on. Acting in the interest of American workers is correct. But large-scale tariffs are a terrible idea.

I would like to believe that TPP will lead to more exports and jobs for the American people. But history shows that big trade agreements - from NAFTA to the Korea Free Trade Agreement - have resulted in fewer American jobs, lower wages, and a bigger trade deficit.

People say free trade causes dislocation. In actual fact, it's the lowering of trade barriers that causes the dislocation.

Donald Trump spoke to the experience of ordinary working people when he dubbed Nafta the 'worst trade deal ever made.'

Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country or, frankly, any other country. Never, ever again.

Take a look at NAFTA, one of the worst deals ever made by any country having to do with economic development. It's economic un development as far as America is concerned.

When someone says, `Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports,' it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works - but only for a short time....over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.

I'm not for the sort of trade deals that hollow out our standards while they hollow out our middle class and middle class wages.