Byron Dorgan Quotes

The arguments for protection are more easily made attractive than those for free trade.

I think that the level playing field is so unlevel - it is tilted so much in favor of Chinese companies - that it's time for the United States to do a little bit more, see.

The failure so far of the governments of so many of the worlds most powerful countries in the face of such egregious unfairness ... to make the slightest progress on the issue of fair trade is hard to explain.

We have countries where, if we make a product and we send it to that country, they charge us 100 percent tax. If they make the same product and send it to us, we charge them nothing. You think that's smart? It's not.

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.

You can’t have free trade of others don’t play by the same set of rules that our guys play by…. Free trade works if we open our markets and they open theirs.

The countries we are defending are stealing our markets.

Unfair foreign trade practices are not isolated acts.

We're going to bring a lot of money in on trade. We're going to bring a lot of money on reciprocal. You know, as an example, when you have countries with a big tax and we get nothing for the same product and we're paying - our companies are paying 100 percent tax in some countries and if they send their product to us we pay nothing. Doesn't make sense.

I worry about protectionists, which is another way of saying less competition, less trade around the world. And I view those as twins of negativity.

I'm not a free trader, but I am a free trader, but I'm also a fare trader and a smart trader. I want to make sure that the United States gains something. So I think you would probably agree.

We've been the foolish country for so long with this free trade, but it's not free trade because it's - you know, just doesn't work. I mean, it's not working. You look at the deficits we have.

[Social legislation] raised the cost of production; and what can be more illogical than to raise the cost of production in the country and then to allow the products of other countries which are not surrounded by any similar legislation, which are free from any similar cost and expenditure freely to enter our country in competition with our own goods...If these foreign goods come in cheaper, one of two things must follow...either you will take lower wages or you will lose your work.

I'm a big free trader. But it has to be fair.

When China got into the WTO, that allowed it to sell into any other country within the WTO - not just the United States - at the lowest tariffs that country offered. And the other countries could sell into China at the lowest tariffs that China offered. The problem, right off the bat, was that China had much higher tariffs than everywhere else, so the U.S. and Europe in particular got the short end of that stick.

Trade justice for the developing world and for this generation is a truly significant way for the developed countries to show commitment to bringing about an end to global poverty.

The message from history is so blatantly obvious - that free trade causes mutual prosperity while protectionism causes poverty - that it seems incredible that anybody ever thinks otherwise. There is not a single example of a country opening its borders to trade and ending up poorer.

The far more likely Trump scenario is this: Chinese leaders realize they no longer have a weak leader in the White House; China ceases its unfair trade practices. America's massive trade deficit with China comes peacefully and prosperously back into balance, and both the U.S. and Chinese economies benefit from trade.

Nationalism makes us poor because its Siamese twin, protectionism, will destroy the internal market and disrupt international trade.

Most states, for all their rhetoric in favour of free trade, are adept at trying to manipulate markets to protect and advantage their own producers.

What you do is you say, fine, you want to go to Mexico or some other country, good luck. We wish you a lot of luck. But if you think you're going to make your air conditioners or your cars or your cookies or whatever you make and bring them into our country without a tax, you're wrong.

It is disgusting to note the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. Everybody is using coffee. If possible, this must be prevented. My people must drink beer.

Our jobs are fleeing the country. They're going to Mexico. They're going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing to our country in terms of making our product. They're devaluing their currency, and there's nobody in our government to fight them. And we have a very good fight. And we have a winning fight. Because they're using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing.

The American people want to make sure that the rules of the game are fair. And what that means is that if you look at surveys around Americans' attitudes on trade, the majority of the American people still support trade. But they're concerned about whether or not trade is fair, and whether we get the same access to other countries' markets that they have with us. Is there just a race to the bottom when it comes to wages, and so forth.

That's not free market when companies go out and move and sell back into America. No, that's the dumb market, O.K.? That's the dumb market.