Tom Perez Quotes

Do not worry about the side agreements on labor. They are too full of loopholes to pose any threat.

Worker and worker protections, figuring out how someone can have a better shot in a global marketplace, has always been the stepchild of trade.

I do think we need to hold countries accountable who violate trade agreements that are already in place. We need to get stronger about enforcement, that in the future if we strike a trade agreement, toughening up labor standards and environmental standards and enforcement standards is something we absolutely need to do.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is a continuation of other disastrous trade agreements, like NAFTA, CAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China.

The trade agreement itself does have labor and environmental protections, but we have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights.

Going on and getting good bilateral agreement is a better way [than Trans-Pacific Partnership agreements], and I'm fine with that strategy. I think that strategy can work as well.

This rhetoric that Donald Trump is used is very consistent with rhetoric he's used on the campaign trail for a long time now. He'll always say - and you look - you can look at the past transcripts of his old speeches. He'll always say, I'm in favor of trade; trade is great, but these deals - NAFTA, TPP, the South Korean Free Trade Agreement - are all terrible.

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

All we want the Labor Secretary to do is enforce the law and protect workers’ rights.

Under the guise of trade deals and trade agreements, its [free trade] really been used to keep workers in the world suppressed in terms of their wages or qualities of life.

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.

When it is fair, American workers can compete and win. I cannot support the TPP in its current form because it doesn't provide that level playing field.

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.

In Connecticut, we have a vibrant history of advocating to ensure our workers are treated fairly and given the rights and protections they deserve. Still, we need to do more to protect all American workers.

President Trump was determined to replace NAFTA from the day he took office. It reflected the old way of trade deals in which our partners shirked labor protections while American companies shipped operations and jobs to cheaper foreign locations. Our factories shuttered, our manufacturing shrank, and we grew more dependent on foreign suppliers.

If we have an agreement with a country like Mexico, that doesn't support or protect the rights of workers, that doesn't have the same environmental regulations, how can Canadians ever compete with that jurisdiction?

As I have said all along, for any trade promotion authority bill to gain my support, it must require strong, enforceable environmental and labor protections.

Using the greatest business people in the world, which America has, I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great trade agreements.

Jobs is the one area where I think Donald Trump is striking a chord that really resonates and should resonate. Both parties need to do a better job of rejecting poorly negotiated trade agreements. And I would put the president's TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, in that category. We have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs just in the state of Maine alone, and that resonates with people, and understandably so.

I've said this when I pass the trade promotion authority law, which allows us to get trade agreements. If we write the rules of the global economy, we will succeed in the 21st century. But we have to write those rules, we have to engage, and I think the president [Donald Trump] said Trans-Pacific Partnership is not the way to do it.

We have the most incompetently worked trade deals ever negotiated probably in the history of the world, and that starts with NAFTA. And now they want to go TPP, one of the great disasters.

NAFTA is a horrible agreement, one of the worst trade deals ever. It's just one of the worst. Although TPP, which I terminated before it got signed - before it got finished, someday hopefully people will be thanking. That would have been one of the great disasters of all times, in terms of trade.

[Donald Trump] is talking a lot about redoing trade and that's the area that is getting globalists nervous. Number one, they want certainty. They do not want to see a disruption in trade. He's promising to rip up NAFTA, redo NAFTA. He's not going to do the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP trade with Asia.

We have a raising wages agenda. And that includes tax policy, trade policy. TPP is a very bad agreement. Covers 40 percent of the world's economy, and it will cost us jobs. It's not well-drafted. It's an agreement, an investment agreement that will benefit Wall Street a lot, but not working people.

Whatever the deal is with other countries, we want a better deal for America's workers.