Jeb Bush Quotes
The fact that the U.S. is superior to all others allows for free commerce to take place.
Bush, Jeb. Address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. C-SPAN, 18 Feb. 2015.
In England at the time, the liberals were for free trade and the conservatives against. In both England and America both liberals and conservatives have flip flopped their roles in foreign trade several times. Free trade is a two edged sword; it aids domestic growth, employment and prosperity in some cases and hurts them on others. And there are always winners and losers for each example of free trade within any country. The result is no long term commitment and much flip flopping.
He was opposing the view of President Donald Trump that the United States needs trade protectionism in order to preserve and grow manufacturing jobs. Flake and the majority of the Contgress maintained that protectionism at best would lose more jobs and growth possiblities than it would save, and at worst could start a trade war that throws teh United States into a recession or even a depression.
Democratic politicians of that era mostly opposed free trade because the experience ever since NAFTA showed that many manufacturing jobs were lost in the United States although many new jobs were created but few of these were good paying jobs that Americans with limited educations could perform as they were able to with manufacturing jobs. And during that period, the requirements for fair trade and foreign workers rights have been very poorly enforced. The Democrats split between those who thought that new trade treaties could be negotiated and enforced, correcting the problems of the past, and those who did not believe that such proper free trade was very likely.
The United States had been running a large trade deficit with China.
Referring to NAFTA and free trade with Mexico:
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, is the second son of the late former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush, and a younger brother of former President George W. Bush. He graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a degree in Latin American affairs. In 1980, he moved to Florida and pursued a career in real estate development, and in 1986 became Florida's Secretary of Commerce until 1988. At that time, he joined his father's successful campaign for the Presidency.
