Not only must we fight to end disastrous unfettered free trade agreements with China, Mexico, and other low wage countries, we must fight to fundamentally rewrite our trade agreements so that American products, not jobs, are our number one export.
Engineers in the developed world should be arguing not for protectionism but for trade agreements that seek to establish rules that result in a real rise in living standards. This will ensure that outsourcing is a positive force in the developing nation's economy and not an exploitative one.
I do believe that international trade agreements benefit both nations, always.
Because countries often have differing political and economic systems, agreements are needed to protect those invested in trade.
I have long believed these types of collaborative agreements are a far better approach to federal land management than the contentious battles that too often sidetrack proper resource management.
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.
TPP replicates similar language from past trade agreements that has allowed foreign corporations the right to challenge U.S. federal, state, and local laws outside of American courts. These tribunals will not meet our high standard of transparency and due process, and they will rely on weak impartiality rules for selecting judges.
We need to recognize our agreements and disagreements with whomever is chosen as president, but we can't continue to just stall out in Washington just because it's not who I voted for. We have still an obligation and duty to challenge and to work through.
I would like to believe that TPP will lead to more exports and jobs for the American people. But history shows that big trade agreements - from NAFTA to the Korea Free Trade Agreement - have resulted in fewer American jobs, lower wages, and a bigger trade deficit.
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.
What we have are - some of the big political donors behind the super PACs are big on promoting more of these trade agreements which cost us jobs - another reason that we need to end political action committees and have only individual donations with their donations being disclosed completely with names and addresses and other information.
Without Kissinger's work in the Middle East, with Sadat especially, I doubt if the Camp David Agreements five years later would have happened. His achievements over detente, the seeds of trust he sowed in a very distrustful and hostile Moscow, helped over a long period.
Ohioans, I think, in large numbers, have felt that the government has not been on their side in all of these issues: on pensions, on the cost of prescription drugs, on the health-care system generally, on jobs, on trade agreements.
