Kenneth Rogoff Quotes

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.

Likewise, free trade does not, as evidenced in CAFTA, mean fair trade.

Free trade should not mean free labor.

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 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.

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

We have quit discussing the tariff, and have turned our attention to getting trade wherever it can be found.

Under the guise of trade deals and trade agreements, its [free trade] really been used to keep workers in the world suppressed in terms of their wages or qualities of life.

The benefits of trade diffuse across the economy, but the cost of trade are concentrated.

Unfettered free trade has led to a disaster.

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.

We had much freer trade in the 19th century. We have much less globalization now than we did then.

Trade has suddenly become massively unpopular. I think that's massively unjust. I think free trade has been wonderful for America on balance.

There are legitimate concerns and anxieties that the forces of globalisation are leaving too many people behind - and we have to take those concerns seriously and address them. But the answer isn't to turn inward and embrace protectionism. We can't just walk away from trade.

It is the system now called free trade that tends to the destruction of commerce, as is shown wherever it obtains.

[N]o real leader can aspire to champion both the logic and the morality of free trade without confronting the practice that undermines both: currency manipulation.

The people are rejecting so-called free trade and globalization that the elites presented as a positive thing.

Most Republicans and the business community extol the virtues of trade, depicting it as an engine of economic progress, while most Democrats and unions attack the exportation of American jobs, claiming that trade agreements are destroying our economy.

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.

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.

The reason CAFTA should be enacted is not economic benefits: it is national security.

The biggest single thing that has lifted people out of poverty is free trade.

We have to work towards free trade because otherwise we will miss out on many opportunities for cooperation, and relations amongst countries will become much more difficult.

I believe that trade is essential for economic growth and development around the world, but I also believe that trade is imperfect.

The rules of origin in NAFTA need some tightening. Rules of origin are what let material outside of NAFTA to come in and benefit from all the taxes and tariff reductions within NAFTA.