Robert Kuttner Quotes

Too many countries that do not play by the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization - including, notably mercantilist China and monopolist Saudi Arabia - have been allowed in, to the detriment of both the WTO and the liberal trading environment it is supposed to sponsor.

Before we move forward with new efforts to lower the barriers to international free trade, we must review the consequences of the policies of the past and address the problems of the present.

You can’t have free trade of others don’t play by the same set of rules that our guys play by…. Free trade works if we open our markets and they open theirs.

The arguments for protection are more easily made attractive than those for free trade.

Demanding freedom of access to other markets isn't protectionism, it's free trade.

We're the only dinosaurs left who maintain that the myth of "free trade" really exists.

A tariff which cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the Government a facile instrument in the hand of private interests;

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

There are some who want to move us back to the days when we were protectionists and keep all goods off our shores.

China is the most protectionist country of the very large countries. They talk more about free trade than they actually practice.

Consider trade protectionism. It's been tried - and found wanting - since the Great Depression.

The E.U., China, and Japan all talk free trade, and they all practice protectionism.

You must stand up for multilateralism. You must make trade great again.

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

We can do a much better job free of protectionist Europeans.

We will trade freely with free nations and not spend our time chasing trade deals with predatory countries like communist China.

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.

Chinese mercantilism is not free trade, but it is far better than American militarism.

You don't need a treaty to have free trade.

We shouldn't be putting tariffs on anything. That hurts working men and women in US. What we should be doing is making our manufacturing more competitive.

I'm a big free trader. But it has to be fair.

[Donald Trump rhetoric]this is a common rhetorical line used by people who are against free trade that say, we're in favor of trade; we just don't like any of the free trade deals that America has actually signed onto.

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.

We have countries where, if we make a product and we send it to that country, they charge us 100 percent tax. If they make the same product and send it to us, we charge them nothing. You think that's smart? It's not.

Here's what the rest of the world does that we don't do. They take the tax off of their exports and place a tax on their imports. We do the opposite. We tax our exports and don't tax our imports.