2007 Des Moines Register Republican debate: on Free Trade
Duncan Hunter:
NAFTA is a bad business deal
When we had a $3 billion trade surplus with Mexico when we passed NAFTA, and the advocates said we’re going to build on that surplus. Today we have a massive trade loss. We went immediately to a $15 billion trade loss. If you take your product made in
Iowa down to the Mexican border right now and tried to get it across, you will pay a 15 percent tariff, which they moved into place after we passed NAFTA. We haven’t made good business deals between nations. NAFTA is a bad business deal.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Dec 12, 2007
Fred Thompson:
Free and fair trade is the backbone of our economy
Free and fair trade is the backbone of our economy. It’s been just as good for us as it has Mexico. They export or send more people out of the country every year than we do, in terms of illegal aliens. So it’s been a good thing for both countries. We nee
to make a commitment to free and fair trade and enforce the agreements. But too many people close their markets to us. They want to trade with us, but they want to place undue restrictions to our manufacturers and to our farmers. We can’t stand for that.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Dec 12, 2007
John McCain:
Consider subsidies a mistake, and oppose them
We should make sure that every nation respects human rights, and we should advocate that and try to enforce it. I will open every market in the world to Iowa’s agricultural products, and eliminate subsidies on ethanol and other agricultural products.
Subsidies are a mistake, and I don’t believe that anybody can say that they’re a fiscal conservative and yet support subsidies which distort markets & destroy our ability to compete in the world, as well as our ability to get cheaper products into the US
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Dec 12, 2007
Mike Huckabee:
A free country must feed, fuel, & fight for itself
Q: Does our country’s financial situation creates a security risk?A: It’s most certainly a national security threat because a country can only be free if it can do three things.
- It has to be able to feed itself.
It has to be able to put food on the table for its own citizens.
- It’s got to be able to fuel itself. If it looks to somebody else for its energy needs, it’s only as free as those are willing for it to be.
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And it also has to be able to fight for itself. It’s got to be able to manufacture its own weapons of defense--tanks, airplanes, bullets and bombs.
When we start outsourcing everything and we are in that kind of a trade deficit,
then just remember, who feeds us, who fuels us and who helps us to fight, that’s to whom we are enslaved. So if we can’t do those three things, our national security is very much at risk.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican debate
Dec 12, 2007
Mitt Romney:
Re-negotiate trade deals with China and other countries
I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I’ve done business in over 20 countries around the world, and I understand how we can build more strength in our own economy and that’s by investing in education, investing in technology and innovation, getting
ourselves off of foreign oil, and making sure that the playing field we play on around the world is level. It’s not right now. We’re going to have to re-negotiate deals with people like those in
China that manipulate their currency to put their products in advantage over ours. We want to make sure that we do not have a circumstance where people close down their markets to our goods because we can compete anywhere in the world.
One out of three agricultural acres is planted to go off-shore, so don’t put up barriers to keep us from being able to trade. The US can compete anywhere in the world, and to remain a superpower, we must compete around the world.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Dec 12, 2007
Ron Paul:
Look at the monetary system and deal with the trade issues
We need to adopt free trade agreements with other countries. We inhibit the export of, say, farm products to countries like Cuba. It’s time we changed our attitude about Cuba. Our markets get closed for monetary reasons because our chief export is our
dollar. Because we have the reserve currency of the world, people take these dollars and our jobs go overseas. You can’t solve any of these problems if you don’t look at the monetary system and how it contributes to these job losses at home.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Dec 12, 2007
Rudy Giuliani:
NAFTA has been a good thing and should be enforced
NAFTA should be enforced. NAFTA has been a good thing. I was concerned about NAFTA and I became convince, watching it, that it’s actually helped us. Our percentage of exports, percentage of our GDP, has gone up dramatically from something like 9% to 11%.
It’s brought more jobs to the US. The US should think about free trade, global economy, as something we want to embrace. This is what we’ve always wanted. The US is a country of entrepreneurs & dreamers
& creators, and what we should be thinking about is, how much can we sell to these people? As they’re coming out of poverty--20 million, 30 million people in India, China--these are new customers for the US. Then we have to make sure that we
have a level playing field. That’s very important. But we shouldn’t lose the goal of free trade. We’re big dreamers here in this country. We’ve got plenty we can sell all over the world that will make up for what we’re buying.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Dec 12, 2007
Tom Tancredo:
Oil trade imbalance is a national security risk
Q: Does our country’s financial situation creates a security risk?A: The reason why it becomes a national security problem is because the bulk of our imbalance of trade is a result of our importation of oil from countries that are not our friends.
That’s really where it rests. The rest of the stuff we bring in doesn’t constitute that kind of threat to the US. But when we supply funds for the people in other countries that have a malicious intent in regard to the US, it’s a national security issue.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican debate
Dec 12, 2007
Tom Tancredo:
NAFTA has been a disaster for many places, especially Mexico
NAFTA has been a disaster for a lot of places and especially Mexico. It destroyed the entire agricultural economy. They all came north. If NAFTA had worked so well, why would we still have so much pressure on our southern border from people trying to
escape from a country that does not provide them with the economic opportunities that NAFTA promised? What is also ingrained in this whole discussion is the lack of sovereignty, the fact that our borders are now meaningless.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Dec 12, 2007
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