Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday that Republican voters want better trade agreements, not for the United States to close its borders.
Ryan, who was a chief architect of the trade promotion authority law that cleared Congress last year, said that despite the negative message resonating throughout the presidential race on expanding trade, U.S. businesses must have a global reach if they want to grow.
"They [voters] say no more bad trade deals; they say good trade deals," Ryan said on CNBC.com’s Speakeasy with John Harwood.
"Donald Trump says, 'Let's have good trade deals,' " he said. "So I don't think people are saying, 'Put up a wall and stop trading with the rest of the world.' How can you do that if we're 5 percent of the world's population?"
Trump has said he would "rip up" and renegotiate all U.S. trade deals, including the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which Congress could consider before President Obama leaves office.
"We are in a global economy, whether we like it or not," Ryan said. "And we believe, I believe, that America should be at the table of writing the rules of the global economy instead of China."
Last month, Ryan said that there weren't yet enough votes in Congress to pass the 12-nation TPP over specific concerns ranging from high-tech medicines to an exemption for tobacco from investor-state dispute settlement rules.
In 2015, Congress granted President Obama trade promotion authority, or fast-track, which allows the deal to move through the House and Senate on up-or-down votes without amendment.
The United States joined the 11 other nations on Feb. 3 to sign the agreement, kicking off the next phase of negotiations between the Obama administration and Congress to sort out their disagreements.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/273384-ryan-says-republican-voters-want-better-trade-deals-not-a-closed-border
