Warren G. Harding Quotes

I believe in the protective tariff and the protective tariff policy of our country.

We cannot open our markets to countries that do not open their markets to us.

There has always been a temptation, at times of economic difficulty, to turn inward and put up the shutters. That is when we need free trade most.

I have long been a vocal advocate of reciprocal free trade though that position did not endear me to my own political party. And I continue to strongly believe in free and fair international trade.

These agreements should be free trade. They aren’t free trade.

China must voluntarily cut back on exports to America otherwise American politics will become unmanageable.

Demanding freedom of access to other markets isn't protectionism, it's free trade.

Demanding reciprocity from our trade partners, and retaliating if we don't get it, doesn't undermine free trade, it defends free trade.

Tariff policy is no longer a question of raising revenue or protecting domestic manufacturing. It is the executive's instrument of foreign policy.

I am a tariff man standing on a tariff platform.

A protective tariff would be collected only from those whose pride, whose abundance of means, prompts them to spurn manufacturers of our own country ...

Free tariff or no tariff would close up our manufactories by the scores.

It has been proved again and again that we cannot, while throwing our markets open to the world, maintain American standards of living and opportunity, and hold our industrial eminence in such unequal competition. There is a luring fallacy in the theory of banished barriers of trade, but preserved American standards require our higher production costs to be reflected in our tariffs on imports.

It must become a nation of free traders, which would throw open its ports to the world, and prove to European nations that the colonial system of restriction and monopoly was founded on delusion

Nothing has ever been made plainer at a general election than that the controlling principle in the raising of revenue from duties on imports is zealous care for American interests and American labor. The people have declared that such legislation should be had as will give ample protection and encouragement to the industries and the development of our country.

Free trade: certainly the interest of nations, but by no means the interest of certain towns and districts, which tariff feeds fat; and the eager interest of the few overpowers the apathetic general conviction of the many.

Trade is injured when it is not allowed to follow its natural course, and when it is either hampered or diverted by artificial obstacles. ...We believe in free trade because we believe in the capacity of our countrymen. That at least is why I oppose protection root and branch, veiled and unveiled, one-sided or reciprocal. I oppose it in any form

The prosperity created at home and overseas by free expansion [of foreign trade] was infinitely greater than could be coaxed by restrictive mercantilism.

China is the world's biggest exporter, but they're also the people with one of the highest tariffs on imports in the whole world. That seems a little bit oxymoronic.

Leaving the E.U. will enable the U.K. to undertake a major campaign for import substitution.

China is the most protectionist country of the very large countries. They talk more about free trade than they actually practice.

Paul Ryan whipped the votes to get fast track Trade Promotion Authority to sell our jobs to foreign countries. He absolutely worked on that. Paul Ryan owns it. He can't say he doesn't agree with it, because when he did that, that contract was already written. It was already set up - that treaty was already set up.

Ask anybody on Main Street whether it makes any sense to allow foreign countries to charge higher tariffs than we charge them, and the answer will surely be a resounding 'heck no!'

Manufacturing value chains are global. Many U.S.-made goods have foreign components. Slapping on tariffs will raise prices and slow imports, but it will make us poorer and impede growth.

The USRTA recognizes that the United States is the largest importer of goods even as it maintains, on average, the lowest combination of tariffs and nontariff barriers of any of its major trading partners.