William L. Clayton Quotes

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

The best way to help countries around the world is to help them with trade.

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

If we want more trade in the world, we should establish bilateral trade agreements with other democratic countries. That way we can control the decision-making process. The major economic countries of the world will enter into those agreements.

Foreign trade can no longer be dealt with apart from other domestic economic policies and concerns. Governments often employ trade policies less for commercial ends than to achieve other goals- economic, political, and social.

More and more we must build our foreign policy around commerce.

You cannot close down free trade. What you've got to do is open up markets.

Economies that are open to trade grow faster.

We could not get NAFTA passed today with the current Congress…. We’ve got to combine trade liberalization with a broad-based sharing of the fruits of our productivity.

It must become a nation of free traders, which would throw open its ports to the world, and prove to European nations that the colonial system of restriction and monopoly was founded on delusion

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.

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.

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

Free trade agreements are never for one sector alone.

I love free trade, but we need great leadership to have real free trade. And we don't have good leadership. We have leadership that doesn't know what it's doing.

But, we have had the debate in our country now for a number of years as to whether or not free trade agreements are good for economic growth and economic opportunity in creating jobs and lifting people out of poverty.

I believe in free trade. I don't support regulating trade prices between different regions. Our point of view is we don't want trade barriers between different countries.

And one of our points of continuing conversation with our trading partners is the urgency of their taking steps to remove barriers to their improved growth performance.

Free trade, far from protectionism, is the path that we should take to make Latin America a thriving actor in the global economy.

Every nation has to follow a certain policy: Commercial, trade, various other types of policies.

A key U.S. initiative in this trade war must be to develop reliable trading partners in the world.

The establishment of free trade agreements can be a critical and progressive step towards greater economic integration, and continues to become more valuable in an increasingly global world.

The biggest share of U.S. exports to the six CAFTA nations is not the traditional job-creation kind. These are products that are not consumed in the purchasing nations.

Governments should not meddle with these trade issues… if we believe in free markets, then they have to be free

Most globalism opposition groups believe “that the foreign trade policy- making process was undemocratic and that it elevated global concerns over domestic ones.” Non-elected bureaucrats working largely behind closed doors were responsible for setting international trade rules that affected agriculture, services, trade-related investment measures, intellectual trade in goods; and over-saw a binding international dispute settlement process with little (if any) input from the domestic citizens and groups who would be affected by these economic rules and political mechanisms.