Jim DeMint on Free Trade Jr Senator; previously Republican Rep (SC-4)

Textile industry is dying so trade isn't the issue

DEMINT: DeMint agreed that when plants close, "it's a tragedy," but he said the answer is not to look back to a textile industry that has been dying for generations. "We need to make sure in South Carolina there are enough jobs for our people," he said. Key to growing jobs is improving education, and that is where Tenenbaum has failed as state education superintendent, DeMint said.

Voted YES on implementing the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

Voted YES on implementing the US-Singapore free trade agreement.

Voted YES on implementing free trade agreement with Chile.

Voted NO on withdrawing from the WTO.

Rated 72% by CATO, indicating a pro-free trade voting record.

The mission of the Cato Institute Center for Trade Policy Studies is to increase public understanding of the benefits of free trade and the costs of protectionism.

The Cato Trade Center focuses not only on U.S. protectionism, but also on trade barriers around the world. Cato scholars examine how the negotiation of multilateral, regional, and bilateral trade agreements can reduce trade barriers and provide institutional support for open markets. Not all trade agreements, however, lead to genuine liberalization. In this regard, Trade Center studies scrutinize whether purportedly market-opening accords actually seek to dictate marketplace results, or increase bureaucratic interference in the economy as a condition of market access.

Studies by Cato Trade Center scholars show that the United States is most effective in encouraging open markets abroad when it leads by example. The relative openness and consequent strength of the U.S. economy already lend powerful support to the worldwide trend toward embracing open markets. Consistent adherence by the United States to free trade principles would give this trend even greater momentum. Thus, Cato scholars have found that unilateral liberalization supports rather than undermines productive trade negotiations.

Scholars at the Cato Trade Center aim at nothing less than changing the terms of the trade policy debate: away from the current mercantilist preoccupation with trade balances, and toward a recognition that open markets are their own reward.

The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.