OnTheIssues interviews with presidential candidates: on Free Trade

Paul Adams: Tariffs on all big ticket items entering the US

Paul Adams: I am a protectionist, anti-TPP, anti-job exporter

A: I'm totally against it. I am a protectionist, isolationist, anti-TPP, anti-job exporter. We will not survive as a nation if we have no jobs for our people.

Marc Allan Feldman: Trade with other nations is the best way to encourage peace

A: Support. Trade with other nations is the best way to encourage peace, liberty, and progress in the human condition. Limitations on trade should be a decision made by the individual consumers and manufacturers. Individuals and private businesses should not be forced to do business with organizations that pollute, cheat, or abuse their employees.

Mark Stewart: The 1000+ page TPP can't possibly be free trade

A: I fully support free trade. And we don't need elaborate negotiations to do free trade. The 1000+ page TPP can't possibly be free trade. There are clearly restrictions, penalties, and tit-for-tat reciprocity that serves political interests. The proper restrictions are NO restrictions. If a foreign government is subsidizing its industry and "dumping" goods on the USA, that's good for our consumers. They can't do it forever. If a foreign government is keeping US-manufactured products out, we need to "wage peace" with their citizens, that they demand the American stuff (which most foreigners love) or they will rebel.

Mark Stewart: Don't be spooked by a trade deficit; it means great deals

Talk about "great deals", consumers do these great deals privately every time. Every time someone freely purchases an item, it means he obtained something valuable for a proper price OR LESS. That "consumer surplus", what a consumer would have paid but didn't have to, is the great deal that free trade gives & that Mr. Trump doesn't seem to recognize.

Now a lot of stored-up dollars abroad probably come back to purchase our stuff. So that's when our trade deficit moderates. But if it never goes to even, so what? That indicates we are rich enough to procure stuff from other nations. It incidentally helps those nations too. Free trade is what lifts societies, we should reduce almost every trade barrier we've erected.

Jim Hedges: Generally oppose free trade

A: sometimes, but generally oppose

Jill Stein: TPP attacks our basic national sovereignty

Stein: The dispute resolution method allows corporations to not go to parent country--corporations can sue for lost future profits--it's a crazy concept.

OnTheIssues: To what court would corporations sue?

Stein: "Investor state dispute resolution courts." Three judges appointed by the World Bank, and heard in secret, who can overrule democratically established laws of the US or Mexico or any member of the treaty. A country can have its laws overturned by a corporation saying you are restricting my future profits by requiring that I pay workers the prevailing wage or clean up my toxic waste. It represents an attack on our basic national sovereignty. It means for example you can no longer pass a "local-preferred" policy because some agribusiness says it discriminates against their product .It would not stand the test of public scrutiny, which is why it is secret. What is not treasonous about this?

Jill Stein: Opposes Fast Track and executive action

Stein: Executive action for treaties in contrary to Constitution--they need congressional approval. We as the public should have a chance to view them, so it is dangerous for executive action to take place with international treaties. I very much oppose Fast Track.

Jill Stein: TPP is like NAFTA on steroids

Stein: Well, TPP is worse; it's like NAFTA on steroids--very little about trade and more about putting corporate profits first and creating a corporate state.

Roseanne Barr: Opposes expanding free trade

Q: Oppose

Virgil Goode: Don't expand free trade

A: No.

David Walker: Fair trade; but keep NAFTA and China trade

A: Yes, but we need to focus on fair trade and enforce related trade provision agreements. Free and fair--we're not doing a good job on enforcement.

Q: What about NAFTA? Should it be re-negotiated, or are you for keeping it?

A: For, but there are issue about enforcement.

Q: How about China trade?

A: For, but there are issues with fairness that have to be explored and addressed by taking action.

Rocky Anderson: Opposes expanding free trade

A: Strongly Oppose

Andre Barnett: Supports expanding free trade

A: Agree, with American interest in mind.

Robert Steele: Free Trade is a scam

• "Free Trade" is a scam that has allowed corporations to hollow out the US economy
• Fair Trade is fully-informed trade that prevents child labor and other social and ecological costs to be financed by the US consumer
• Our top priority should be on full employment restoring the integrated sustainability of our economy
• The federal government (all three branches) has been captured by giant corporations and does not represent We the People

Robert Steele: Oppose expanding free trade

A: Strongly Oppose. Free trade is not the same as fair trade. We have allowed corporations to hollow out the US economy by out-sourcing work to countries where child labor and other social and ecological costs are not controlled, and where governments subsidize unfair competition.

Scott Keller: Free trade with the full involvement of the people

A: I support free trade, but with the full involvement of the people, not through back room deals involving only bankers & politicians. It has to be fully free trade (meaning open to and determined by all rather than just a few) to be truly free trade. Plus I have ideas about how to make the US the best goods producer of the world again with awesome quality and low prices and become self-dependent regarding at least the basic needs once again--including energy.

Brian Moore: Withdraw from NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, and IMF