Nafta Quotes

When it comes to acid rain or oil spills or depleted fisheries or tainted groundwater or fluorocarbon propellants or radiation leaks or sexually transmitted diseases, national frontiers are simple irrelevant. Toxins don't stop for customs inspections and microbes don't carry passports. North America became a water and free-trade zone long before NAFTA loosened up the market in goods. ~ Benjamin Barber

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. ~ Nina Easton

Bill Clinton was for NAFTA. I heard him over in Tokyo he came out all said it was a great bill. Secretary Clinton was for it. She called it the gold standard when she was secretary of state. ~ Chris Matthews

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

I share the skepticism that my friends have about NAFTA. It was woefully weak in protecting workers and on the enforcement side. The question is can we meaningfully build a trade regime that has as its North Star protecting American workers and American jobs through meaningful enforcement? I think we can. ~ Thomas Perez

NAFTA represents the single most creative step towards a New World Order. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

In a 91-part series of sob stories from the laid off and the disgruntled, The NY Times is in the midst of bemoaning 'the downsizing of America' - better known as 'the whining of America.' The cause of all the heartache, in the esteemed newspaper of record's view, appears to be heartless corporate chieftains - as well as capitalism itself. Americans are moving forward, despite shackles. The shackles I am referring to are not NAFTA, not corporations. They are, instead, the barriers imposed by our own government. ~ Rush Limbaugh

NAFTA, supported by the Secretary cost, us 800,000 jobs nationwide, tens of thousands of jobs in the Midwest. Permanent normal trade relations with China cost us millions of jobs. Look, I was on a picket line in early 1990's against NFATA because you didn't need a PhD in economics to understand that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour. ~ Bernie Sanders

If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have: no federal meddling in our schools; no Federal Reserve; no U.S. membership in the UN; no gun control; and no foreign aid. We would have no welfare for big corporations, or the "poor"; no American troops in 100 foreign countries; no NAFTA, GAT, or "fast-track"; no arrogant federal judges usurping states rights; no attacks on private property; no income tax. We could get rid of most of the agencies, and most of the budget. The government would be small, frugal, and limited. ~ Ron Paul

You can find dozens of examples of this kind of liberal-class virtue-quest if you try, but instead of listing them, let me go straight to the point: This is not politics. It's an imitation of politics. It feels political, yes: it's highly moralistic, it sets up an easy melodrama of good versus bad, it allows you to make all kinds of judgments about people you disagree with, but ultimately it's a diversion, a way of putting across a policy program while avoiding any sincere discussion of the policies in question. The virtue-quest is an exciting moral crusade that seems to be extremely important but at the conclusion of which you discover you've got little to show for it besides NAFTA, bank deregulation, and a prison spree.

This book is about Democrats, but of course Republicans do it too. The culture wars unfold in precisely the same way as the liberal virtue-quest: they are an exciting ersatz politics that seem to be really important but at the conclusion of which voters discover they've got little to show for it all besides more free-trade agreements, more bank deregulation, and a different prison spree. ~ Thomas Frank

I didn't know how we were going to get jobs out of NAFTA, but I tend to be suspicious of these things, like NAFTAs and WTOs and so on. ~ Barbara Mikulski

This is the magical realism of NAFTA - Mexico, the birthplace of corn, is now importing surplus corn from el Norte - millions of tons driving the price down so campesinos can't afford to grow it. Exporting people and importing corn. It is backwards, no? ~ John Vaillant

NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity. ~ John F. Kerry

eventually you just stop saying that. because you realize you're an idiot. ~ Chris Arnade

NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good paying American jobs. If I
didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement. ~ William J. Clinton

To the extent that our workers compete with low-paid Mexicans, it is as much through undocumented immigration as trade. This pattern threatens low-paid, low-skill U.S. workers. The combination of domestic reforms and NAFTA-related growth in Mexico will keep more Mexicans at home. It is likely that a reduction in immigration will increase the real wages of low-skilled urban and rural workers in the United States. ~ William J. Clinton

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada. ~ Jerome Corsi

I have visited the cities and towns across America and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton's disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization. ~ Donald Trump

During the debate over NAFTA President Clinton said, 'I believe that NAFTA will create a million jobs in the first five years of its impact.' WRONG. According to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA has led to the loss of more than 680,000 U.S. jobs. I voted against NAFTA and other bad trade agreements and am fighting to stop the TPP. ~ Bernie Sanders

NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty. ~ Michael Badnarik

The idea is the least labor and capital and resources you put together and the more you accumulate the better capitalist you are. So the suggestion I will make to you is that the idea of constant accumulation, which is what America is about, what consumerism, NAFTA are about, means that you always take more than you need and you don't leave the rest. So I suggest that it is possible from an indigenous world view that capitalism is inherently out of order with natural law. ~ Winona LaDuke

The message is NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) is there. NAFTA has helped both our countries enormously. We live up to the terms of NAFTA. We ask you, our best friend and most important trading partner to do the same thing. ~ Anne McLellan

One can see the results of those policies in hundreds of communities around my State. As one might expect, our largest communities
places like Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay
lost thousands of jobs as a result of those trade policies, most notably NAFTA and permanent most-favored-nation status for China. ~ Russ Feingold

Is the NAFTA a stepping stone toward the New World Order? Absolutely! ~ Kent Hovind

We have to bake labor provisions into the core of an agreement. TPP would do that. Under NAFTA, countries had to simply promise to uphold the laws of their own nations. ~ Thomas Perez

Since NAFTA was put in place, Mexico has lost 1.9 million jobs and most Mexicans' real wages have fallen. ~ Stephen F. Lynch

In my state [ Maryland] we've lost jobs to NAFTA, we did not gain jobs from NAFTA. But I think it's very difficult when your state is right up against the northern border, you do see things differently. ~ Barbara Mikulski

Critics of NAFTA and CAFTA warned at the time that the agreements were actually a move toward ... an eventual merging of North America into a border-free area. Proponents of these agreements dismissed this as preposterous and conspiratorial. Now we see that the criticisms appear to be justified. ~ Ron Paul

Everything is in place - after 500 years - to build a true 'new world' in the Western Hemisphere ... And what happens if we don't pass NAFTA? I truly don't think that 'criminal' would be too strong a word for rejecting NAFTA. ~ David Rockefeller

You just said that you decapitated the major cartels," one of the senators says.
"Exactly," Keller says. "And what was the result? An increase in drug exports into the United States. In modeling the war against terrorists, we've been following the wrong model. Terrorists are reluctant to take over the top spots of their dead comrades - but the profits from drug trafficking are so great that there is always someone willing to step up. So all we've really done is to create job vacancies worth killing for."
The other major strategy of interdiction - the effort to prevent drugs from coming across the border - also hasn't worked, he explains to them. The agency estimates that, at best, they seize about 15 percent of the illicit drugs coming across the border, even though, in their business plans, the cartels plan for a 30 percent loss.
"Why can't we do better than that?" a senator asks.
"Because your predecessors passed NAFTA," Keller says. "Three-quarters of the drugs come in on tractor-trailer trucks through legal crossings - San Diego, Laredo, El Paso - the busiest commercial crossings in the world. Thousands of trucks every day, and if we thoroughly searched every truck and car, we'd shut down commerce. ~ Don Winslow