Rob Portman Quotes

A lot of people don't understand how cargo coming into our ports matters, not just to Southern California but to every single congressional district. I want to educate on that issue.

Countries trade with one another for the same reasons that individuals, businesses, and regions do: to exploit their comparative advantages.

One by one, trade and investment barriers will continue to be swept away by globalization, like leaves on an autumn day…The new challenge will be less to regulate relations among national economies, than to establish the rules and structures of a transnational economy.

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.

Let’s export American products, not American jobs.

We do not wish to open your ports to foreign trade all at once.

A trade war is a conflict in which each side uses most of its ammunition to shoot itself in the foot.

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.

They [the Dutch] have in their greatest Councils of State and War, trading Merchants that have lived abroad in most parts of the World; who have not only the Theoretical Knowledge, but the Practical Experience of Trade, by whom Laws and Orders are contrived, and Peaces with foreign Princes projected, to the great advantage of their Trade.

Some Countries have rais'd Money in the Denomination, when others have lower'd it; …. Some have prohibited the Export of Money under the severest Penalties, when others have by Law allowed it to be exported; Some thinking to add to the Money, have obliged Traders to bring home Bullion, in proportion to the Goods they imported. Most Countries have try'd some or all of these Measures, and others of the same Nature, and have tryed contrary Measures at one time, from what they us'd immediatly before, … that since the Method used had not the effect design'd, a contrary would: Yet is has not been found, that any of them have preserv'd or increased Money; but on the contrair.

Nations finding the Export of Money or Bullion to pay the ballance due by Trade, a loss of so much Riches, and very hurtful to Trade, might have discharg'd the Import of such Goods as the People could best want; Or laid a Duty on them, such as might have lessen'd their Consumption: They might have given encouragement to Industry, whereby the Product would have been encreas'd and improv'd, or discourag'd extravagant Consumption, whereby the Overplus to Export would have been greater; Any one of these Methods would have brought Trade and Exchange equal

At this moment came the direful struggle between the great parties in Congress founded upon the claim which the majority ... from the north of the Potomac made to the right to lay any tax upon the importations into the United States which was intended to act as a protection to northern manufacturers by excluding foreign fabrics of the same kind. Hence all the states to the south of the Potomac became dependent upon the Northern States for a supply of whatever thing they might want, and in this way the South was compelled to sell its products low and buy from the North all articles it needed from twenty-five to one hundred and twenty-five per cent higher than from France to England. .

We demand unrestricted trade between the merchants of both countries in all articles except gold and cereals, without any official interference.

If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.

In the long run, trade works for America.

Considering how advantageous it would be to this realm to reestablish its foreign and domestic commerce, ... we have resolved to establish a council particularly devoted to commerce, to be held every fortnight in our presence, in which all the interests of merchants and the means conducive to the revival of commerce shall be considered and determined upon, as well as all that which concerns manufactures.

The strong point of England is her cheap goods.

The Sherman Act was designed to be a comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade. It rests on the premise that the unrestrained interaction of competitive forces will yield the best allocation of our economic resources, the lowest prices, the highest quality and the greatest material progress, while at the same time providing an environment conducive to the preservation of our democratic political and social institutions.

In a trading nation, the bent of all the laws should tend to the encouragement of commerce, and all measures should be there taken, with a due regard to its interest and advancement.

We want and command that all merchants of our lands, as well as merchants of other lands who are within our peace, together with their merchandise, who are coming to the said city, delaying there, or departing from there, shall have the liberty to come, remain and depart, both by water and bridges as by land, and that they shall be free in entering and exiting our land, without any impediment from our bailiffs or those of any other lord, as long as they shall hold to the required and correct customs.

What must be the character of that policy, which aims at national prosperity through the impoverishment of a large proportion of the home producers, with a view to supply foreigners at a cheaper rate, and give them all the benefit of the national privation and self denial?

One of the strongest arguments against a protective tariff is the impossibility of estimating what the indirect effects of it may be. No one--not even those in whose interest it in passed--can predict the result. Modern commercial relations are so intricate and multifarious, there are so many hidden and yet important connections between different occupations, that the wisest protectionist cannot foresee how a tax laid upon one import which he wishes to exclude from the domestic market may affect the production or consumption of some other which he has not the least desire to touch.

The laws of trade must be the great teacher.

Every restriction of trade creates vested interests that are from then onward opposed to its removal.