But I still don't support the subsidies. And I don't think we need them. And I think we ought to have sugar cane-based ethanol into this country. And I don't think that subsidies are the answer, because I'll open up every foreign market to our agricultural products, who are the most productive and best and most effective agriculture in the world. And all of this stuff about free trade -- my dear and beloved Ronald Reagan, with all this bashing of free trade, he must be spinning in his grave. (Wall Street Journal / CNBC GOP Economic Debate, October 9, 2007)
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the McCain campaign’s director of economic policy, says that not only does McCain support the reauthorization of TPA, but he would also aggressively use it as president to negotiate bilateral and multilateral agreements. “Every time a country has succumbed to the siren song of isolationism, it has come back to hurt that nation,” he says. “Senator McCain doesn’t want to see this nation hurt.” (National Review, August 9, 2007)
And Mr. McCain calls for jumpstarting the stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas, an idea for a hemispheric free trade zone that President Bill Clinton formally proposed in 1994. “We need to build on the passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement by expanding U.S. trade with the region,’’ he plans to say. “Let’s start by ratifying the trade agreements with Panama, Peru, and Colombia that are already completed, and pushing forward the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Too many Democrats have embraced economic isolationism, paying off special interests by opposing trade agreements with our democratic neighbors. They could not be more wrong.’’ “My administration would reduce barriers to trade and press for renewed Trade Promotion Authority,’’ the speech says. (New York Times, June 19, 2007)
KEY ISSUES
