Robert E. Rubin Quotes

I've supported the process of getting to a good Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.

I'm an optimist about NAFTA merely being updated.

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

I know something about trade agreements. I was proud to help President Clinton pass the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and create what is still the world's largest free-trade area, linking 426 million people and more than $12 trillion of goods and services.

I have never worshipped at the altar of free trade, but I've always been an advocate of free trade.

I'm not opposed to free trade if it's fair trade. But I am opposed to bad trade deals.

Let me say at the outset that I do not reflexively oppose international trade.

Now, given the experience that we have had thus far, with our subsequent trade agreements with NAFTA and others, you would think that with our experience of job loss that we have had there that when you find yourself in a hole that you might stop digging.

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.

It certainly was difficult to sell NAFTA because it's always difficult to sell open markets.

The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns.

Before the war the trade agreements program was an instrument for defense against the epidemic of destructive and demoralizing trade warfare. Today, with the end of the great holocaust finally within sight, this same instrument is transformed into a powerful device for shaping a better world.

I don't think we should sell out the American worker. That's why I am opposed to NAFTA.

I think TPP, as we knew it, is gone.

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.

Let's start getting some free trade agreements started as soon as we can. We need to get on with it; we need to get a grip and make progress.

Mexico believes in free trade.

We're absolutely open to making NAFTA better.

I opposed NAFTA in 1993 and '94.

I am not anti-trade. I am pro-trade. But I am pro-sensible trade.

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.

How can we have 'freer' free trade? Let's get real, for God's sake.

I don't know that free trade... is good for our country and good for Iowa and Iowa workers.

India's difficulties in negotiating an FTA with both the ASEAN and E.U. are a reminder of the importance of multilateralism.

It's very personal to me that we get these trade deals right.