[ckilmer]

setting aside the quality of the trade agreements ... there is the problem of the 1000 page codicils that spell out the loss of US sovereignty in NAFTA & CAFTA type agreements. columbia/yale/harvard educated pigs in some of the dc think tanks are only too willing write the drivel that sells out the USA.

[Clintonfatigued]

Free trade has cost the U.S. jobs.

[Joe Boucher]

The United States is open for imports from anywhere with NO tariffs. While American products in places like China and South Korea are taxed at high import duties.
But by trying to level the playing field it is going to lose us jobs???????
HOw about demanding our exports be given equal treatment?
President Bush are you sure a little tit for tat may just cost some of your fat cat buddies a few bucks?

[DTogo]

Pro-Shamnesty, open-border, Washington elitists like YOU Mr. President, cost U.S. jobs.

Your idea of free trade is not fair trade.

[MNJohnnie]

Don’t worry. The second they anoint Hillary all these trade deals will sail right thur. It was her hubby Bubba that rammed thru NAFTA. The notion that Democrats are any less Globalist is absurd.

[yldstrk]

The North American Alliance is going down.

[P.O.E.]

But aren’t there jobs Americans don’t want to do anyway?

[isthisnickcool]

I'm a complete idiot. I supported George W. Bush for years. Only to find out that he's more an idiot than I am.

If he wants free trade then let's let him arrange for $20+ million of us to move to Mexico and live off their sociaty for free. As for myself, I'd like a nice house on the beach outside of Cozumel. I won't buy insurance, I won't learn the language, I won't pay taxes and I damn sure won't follow any Mexican laws. So get right on this for me Jorge so we can have free and balanced trade...

[jpsb]

President Bush is pretty much always wrong on policy, so not surprising he’s wrong again. Good Supreme court appointments though, I will give him that.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

What a surprise. Bush immediately produces a straw-man argument. Those who oppose managed "free" trade by unelected internationalists are "protectionists." Just like those who oppose illegal immigration are "racist."

"We don’t need government agreements to have free trade. We merely need to lower or eliminate taxes on the American people, without regard to what other nations do. Remember, tariffs are simply taxes on consumers. Americans have always bought goods from abroad; the only question is how much our government taxes us for doing so. As economist Henry Hazlitt explained, tariffs simply protect politically-favored special interests at the expense of consumers, while lowering wages across the economy as a whole. Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and countless other economists have demolished every fallacy concerning tariffs, proving conclusively that unilateral elimination of tariffs benefits the American people. We don’t need CAFTA or any other international agreement to reap the economic benefits promised by CAFTA supporters, we only need to change our own harmful economic and tax policies. Let the rest of the world hurt their citizens with tariffs; if we simply reduce tariffs and taxes at home, we will attract capital and see our economy flourish."

RON PAUL LIBRARY

[RightWhale]

Do we favor free trade or not? Seems to depend. When the commodity exchange is open we favor it. When it is the weekend they are all commies.

[rbosque]

He’s selling us out. We are a sovereign nation George. Stop importing poverty, stop NAFTA.

[Will88]

“So the federal government is providing substantial funding for trade adjustment assistance that helps Americans make the transition from one job to the next. We are working to improve federal job-training programs. And we are providing strong support for America’s community colleges, where people of any age can go to learn new skills for a better, high-paying career.”better, high-paying career.”

They’ve been throwing that line of nonsense around for about twenty years now. Just what percentage of displaced manufacturing workers do they claim to have retrained and put in a, “better, high-paying career.”

Do they have some reliable stats on that?

[ZULU]

Somebody in the Republican Party should tell Bush to shut the hell up and go hide in a closet somewhere until after the 2008 General Elections.

The man is a blathering fool. NONE of the candidates running on the Republican ticket want to be tied with this national embarrassment.

[alrea]

If they break the law do we get to too? I’m tired of paying these taxes so some lard potato can go to Washington.

[ChadGore]

Isolationism is bad for our military.
Isolationism is bad for our economy.

Activist and engaged thinking is the only thing that works.

[endthematrix]

"More exports support better and higher-paying jobs," the president said.

Well yes. But it was the Labor Dept or USTR that, "crossed thier hearts and hoped to die" that manufacturing job loss wasn't all that bad. That displaced workers could find a job in the IMPORT sector, or transporting all that IMPORTED goods. Yeah, thats one way for a superpower display economics.