Jeff Sessions Quotes

I am not anti-trade. I am pro-trade. But I am pro-sensible trade.

[Most progressive in the Democratic Party] won't stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership or take a position against it, you know, which is an absolute assault on our democracy.

Are Democrats for expanding U.S. trade with the world and perhaps creating new jobs, or are they out to protect existing U.S. jobs?

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

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.

I have long been a vocal advocate of reciprocal free trade though that position did not endear me to my own political party. And I continue to strongly believe in free and fair international trade.

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.

Enforcing trade deals is spot on. Acting in the interest of American workers is correct. But large-scale tariffs are a terrible idea.

Trade is an integral part of our foreign policy.

The overwhelming number of Democrats... think our trade policy has gone in the wrong direction. They think that our trade policy encourages companies to leave the country. They think our trade policy has caused more and more businesses to outsource.

The last thing a Trump administration plans is a trade war. The issue simply is getting a decent trade deal with each of the major trading partners.

What you do is you say, fine, you want to go to Mexico or some other country, good luck. We wish you a lot of luck. But if you think you're going to make your air conditioners or your cars or your cookies or whatever you make and bring them into our country without a tax, you're wrong.

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

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 concluded that the trade agreements weren't working as promised, and was depreciating the wages and the manufacturing base, and the jobs of Americans, and that both needed to change, and Donald Trump was out there. So I went to his rally.

I think that the important point is we've got to have a president who understands the benefits of free trade but also is going to enforce unfair trade agreements and is going to stand up to other countries.

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.

We have to renegotiate our trade deals, and we have to stop these countries from stealing our companies and our jobs.

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.

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

Let's take a look at NAFTA. Trump said that NAFTA was a bad deal and he was going to get rid of it in the first 100 days. Now, that's also off the table. He's made a lot of promises that he can't keep. He has distorted information. I do not think he should not be president of the United States. And I think our allies and people in other countries are looking at America and saying, "This can't be. How did this happen?"

From a high-tech point of view, an agriculture point of view, a goods-and-services point of view, a great deal of [committee Democrats] have no choice except to support allowing America access to these markets.

We have to renegotiate our trade deals.

Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country or, frankly, any other country. Never, ever again.