Rob Portman Quotes

Free trade is an important component of our economy, but it also has to be fair. Too often, the needs of American workers are ignored while the interests of huge corporations are the focus of these trade deals.

Unfortunately, the United States has entered into several free trade agreements that do not sufficiently protect and support our manufacturing industries and the millions of American workers they employ.

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

We are on pace this year to have a trade deficit that is larger than $800 billion. We have never faced that before, but we continue to put forward trade agreements like these that leave us naked to competition that is neither free nor fair.

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.

TPP is a job killer.

Not only must we fight to end disastrous unfettered free trade agreements with China, Mexico, and other low wage countries, we must fight to fundamentally rewrite our trade agreements so that American products, not jobs, are our number one export.

That level of trade deficit throttles real growth in our country and continues the unfortunate path of selling out America. We are not winning the global trade war, we are losing it badly.

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

The Bush Administration and the Congress have to stop ignoring this crisis in international trade. The longer we ignore it, the more American jobs will move overseas. It's just that simple.

I fear that CAFTA will accelerate the demise of these domestic textile jobs.

There is nothing inconsistent between standing up for free trade and standing up for American workers.

U.S. trade policy has been a disaster for American workers.

Most Republicans and the business community extol the virtues of trade, depicting it as an engine of economic progress, while most Democrats and unions attack the exportation of American jobs, claiming that trade agreements are destroying our economy.

If we're going to do trade agreements, as we should, we need trade agreements with rules that will lift up all boats, rather than continuing to pull down U.S. food safety standards, U.S. worker wages, environment, all that these job losses and all that this has done to pull down our standards.

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.

China is crippling our manufacturing economy and eliminating our jobs by illegally flooding our markets.

I'm not for the sort of trade deals that hollow out our standards while they hollow out our middle class and middle class wages.

Beneficial in theory, so-called free trade agreements far too often have been detrimental to the United States economy and the manufacturing sector that forms its central pillar.

It was fairly obvious to anyone who studied the situation that China was dumping bedroom furniture in the U.S. to the detriment of our American workers and manufacturers to gain market access and share.

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

Free trade would place our farmers and workers in competition with peasant and sweated labor products.

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

Free trade is not just an economic opportunity, it is a moral imperative:

Unfettered free trade has been a disaster not only for Americans but for the working people of Mexico and Canada as well.