Barack Obama Quotes

Can trade help lift people out of poverty? It can, and it has.

It's well proved economics that if a country which is rich and a country that is poor come together in global trade, sooner or later the standard of living of the poor country will go up towards that of the rich country.

In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries - and poor people - are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer.

While I believe firmly in open markets and free trade, I also believe an open market needs a level playing field.

It's not enough to have economic growth. You have to distribute wealth throughout all of society.

Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.

If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.

When the developed grow fast, the developing grow fast, and when the developed slow down, the developing slow down.

The globalization of the economy has lifted more people out of poverty than anything else in the history of the world.

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.

It is enlightened selfishness to build up the ability of other nations to a higher standard of living. We thus produce wider markets for ourselves as well as the rest of the world

In a good society, those in the middle and at the bottom ought to benefit significantly from economic growth. When the country prospers, everybody should prosper.

America's role in the global economy inevitably was going to diminish; we're smaller relative to - as China, India, other emerging markets grow.

Worrying about the poor is one thing. To contend that equality is necessary for growth is an altogether different and more radical idea.

Trade has helped the economy grow. Simultaneously, a sizable number of Americans haven't shared in that bounty, and if we don't pay attention to their concerns, all the political favor for open markets will dry up.

The prerequisite for more economic equality in the world is industrialization. And this is possible only through increased capital investment, increased capital accumulation.

Progress is not striving for economic justice or fairness, but economic growth.

I was the one that brought it in, but not only for the north-east, for every area so we can develop all the regional economies, lift up the national productivity, get greater wealth and share it more evenly.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

Haiti's economy cannot be built by and benefit just a privileged few. It must be built by and benefit all Haitians.

My mission is to eradicate poverty.

I don't think the western world is questioning capitalism. Capitalism as a concept is not something that society has written off. But today, there is degree of caution around capitalism. We believe in compassionate capitalism. Growth for growth's sake can never be an end in itself.

We can pretend that China is not there. But China is there, and unless we put our economy on the right track, it is going to overwhelm us completely.

There's no conflict between the social-welfare state and open markets.

Everybody can't have the life of a normal, average American person in India - they can't. So, it's about egalitarianism. It's about sharing things more equally. It's about access to natural resources.