126 Free Trade Quotes

Following is our list of free trade quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about free economy.

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Famous Free Trade Quotes

You don't need a treaty to have free trade. — Murray Rothbard

Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world. — Kofi Annan

Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. — Murray N. Rothbard

Free market capitalism and trade is the only way to end hunger and poverty across our planet, the empirical evidence is unquestionable. — Javier Milei

NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty. — Michael Badnarik

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit. — Milton Friedman

Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature. — David Ricardo

Fair Trade is all about improving lives, but we don't do that through charity - there is no hand out in the Fair Trade movement. People are solving their own problems through Fair Trade. — Paul Rice

The free market economy is supposed to be the only path leading to the happiness of humanity by promoting wealth and prosperity, power and influence of nations. — Omar Bongo

The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity. — Martin Van Buren

A free economy and strong communities honor the dignity of every person, rewarding effort with justice, promoting upward mobility, and building solidarity among citizens. — Paul Ryan

Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. — Ayn Rand

Europe should stick to an open economy, to competition and we should refuse protectionism. It will not save one single job in the long run to protect non-competitive industries. — Anders Fogh Rasmussen

So long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud. — Milton Friedman

Laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to the realization of the noble dreams of socialism. — Henry George

Short Free Trade Quotes

  • No borders, just horizons - only freedom. — Amelia Earhart
  • There is no pure free-market economy. — Jeane Kirkpatrick
  • Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution. — Ben Shapiro
  • Freedom will only come when you no longer trade your time for money. — Andrew Tate
  • The goal is to normalize trade relations based on sound science and consumer protection. — Mike Johanns
  • Competition is merely the absence of oppression. — Frederic Bastiat
Free trade quote Fools take the knife and stab people in the back. The wise take a knife, cut the cord and free thems
Fools take the knife and stab people in the back. The wise take a knife, cut the cord and free themselves from the fools.

International Trade Quotes

After 16 months of teaching, consulting, fellowship, and special project activities on matters ranging from conservation to healthcare to international trade, Gov. Ventura appointed me to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. — David Minge

It is usually people in the money business, finance, and international trade that are really rich. — Robin Leach

Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity. — Walter Block

Increased fragmentation of production across international borders - a natural outgrowth of the gains from specialization - meant more trade for any given value of final production, thus adding to the major expansion in gross trade flows in the 1990s and 2000s. — Jerome Powell

Maintaining confidence in international trade will be critical to the broader economic recovery in the post-Covid world. — Liz Truss

For the only way in which a durable peace can be created is by world-wide restoration of economic activity and international trade. — James V. Forrestal

The main concept is that of an international solidarity expressed in practice through worldwide division of labor: free trade is the principal point in the program of internationalism. — Christian Lous Lange

Let me say at the outset that I do not reflexively oppose international trade. — Richard Neal

As far as the Russians were concerned, I felt the reverse; they had adequate gold, if they wanted to buy, and they weren't dependent upon international trade. I felt they were more self-sufficient. — W. Averell Harriman

The Bush Administration and the Congress have to stop ignoring this crisis in international trade. The longer we ignore it, the more American jobs will move overseas. It's just that simple. — Byron Dorgan

Free Economy Quotes

Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. — George C. Marshall

Since achieving their independence in 1992, the people of Croatia have built a democratic society based on the rule of law, respect for human rights, and a free market economy. — Elton Gallegly

Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire. — Ludwig von Mises

A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual. — Eric Hoffer

In a free market capitalist system, 'price signals' are everything. Prices are determined by buyers and sellers in the free market, and these prices are broadcast from the exchanges, reaching all corners of the economy - where they are used to transact business. — Max Keiser

Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property. — Milton Friedman

The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State. — Bertrand de Jouvenel

Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. — Milton Friedman

The fact that, in the United States, there are people serving ten-year prison terms for growing marijuana plants in their backyards while Wall Street racketeers, who have defrauded millions of people and destroyed the global economy, walk free is a kind of bizarre hypocrisy that boggles my mind. — Mark Haskell Smith

I believe one of the main roles of Government is to keep our economy free and fair. — Liz Truss

Free Market Quotes

That's not for me to decide, that's for the voters to decide and many of them are saying, this slavish adherence to the cult of the free market that the Republican party has followed for decades isn't what we want anymore. That's not a question for me, that's up to them. — Milo Yiannopoulos

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. — Milton Friedman

The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people. — Milton Friedman

The basis of the free market is anytime you can generate revenue or profit, you've created value in excess of the resources you consume in a society. — Michael Saylor

I am pro-capitalism, and I am pro-free market. — Max Keiser

A scientist or an experimentalist gets feedback from Mother Nature, and an entrepreneur gets feedback from a free market in which people vote with their money and time. Those are much better predictors. — Naval Ravikant

The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners. — L. Neil Smith

The free market argument for limiting free speech ie build your own platform if you don't like our moderation evaporated as soon as Apple and Google banned Parler from their app stores. There's no opportunity to build an alternative if the OS duopoly prevents it. — David O. Sacks

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. - Hilaire Belloc

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. — Hilaire Belloc

But entrepreneurs get feedback from nature and free markets, which I believe are much more realistic feedback mechanisms. — Naval Ravikant

World Trade Quotes

Trade your expectations for appreciation and your whole world will change. - Tony Robbins

Trade your expectations for appreciation and your whole world will change. — Tony Robbins

We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off. — John Trudell

The idea that my future self would trade all the money in the world to be poor and 20 years old again, really made me re-analyze how I saw living life in the moment. — Alex Hormozi

I was in Jersey when the whole World Trade Center thing happened and I felt powerless. So, I went to Hawaii and did a surf movie. It's kind of fluffy. — Michelle Rodriguez

Egypt struggles to cope with guarding the Suez Canal, through which passes 8% of the world's entire trade every day. Some 9% of the world's oil passes this way daily; closing the canal would add about 15 days' transit time to Europe and 10 to the U.S. — Tim Marshall

We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is not easy to be a pioneer - but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world. — Elizabeth Blackwell

I resolved to abandon trade and to fix my aim on something more praiseworthy and stable; whence it was that I made preparation for going to see part of the world and its wonders. — Amerigo Vespucci

Skill is successfully walking a tightrope between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Intelligence is not trying. — Marilyn vos Savant

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. — Henry David Thoreau

Foreign Trade Quotes

No extension of foreign trade will immediately increase the amount of value in a country, although it will very powerfully contribute to increase the mass of commodities and therefore the sum of enjoyments. — David Ricardo

What generates war is the economic philosophy of nationalism: embargoes, trade and foreign exchange controls, monetary devaluation, etc. The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war. — Ludwig von Mises

So prominent was the Jewish role in the foreign commerce of Europe that those nations that received the Jews gained and the countries that excluded them lost in the volume of international trade. — Will Durant

Our two-party system is a fraud, a sham, a delusion. On foreign policy, trade, immigration, Big Government, we have one-party government, one party press; and conservatives are being played for suckers. — Pat Buchanan

In response to a suggestion that total free trade would end in cheaper foreign products flooding the market and causing unemployment. — Milton Friedman

That foreign trade should be fair rather than free. — Lyn Nofziger

Unless the trade deficit shrinks, the combination of the trade deficit and the interest and dividend payments to foreigners will grow ever more rapidly. — Martin Feldstein

Other powers will continue to enjoy an equal right to trade in and develop the natural resources of the occupied territory, for the economic development of which the investment of foreign capital is very desirable. — Koki Hirota

Conflicting commercial regulations of the different States shackled and diminished both foreign and domestic trade; hence the power to regulate commerce was conferred. — Robert Toombs

I expect to see trade wars, foreign policy disasters, a few race riots, a decrease in personal liberty, higher taxes, higher inflation and probably, economic collapse. The silver lining is, secession will probably become more feasible. — Charley Reese

Free Enterprise Quotes

Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. — Ronald Reagan

From working in my mum's tiny chemist shop to my experience building large businesses, I have seen how we should support free enterprise and innovation to ensure Britain has a stronger future. — Rishi Sunak

The system that enables the most people to earn the most success is free enterprise, by matching up people's skills, interests, and abilities. In contrast, redistribution simply spreads money around. Even worse, it attenuates the ability to earn success by perverting economic incentives. — Arthur C. Brooks

You beat 50 percent of the people in America by working hard. You beat 40 percent by being a person of honesty and integrity and standing for something. The last 10 percent is a dogfight in the free enterprise system. — Arthur L. Williams, Jr.

Of course I believe in free enterprise but in my system of free enterprise, the democratic principle is that there never was, never has been, never will be, room for the ruthless exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few. — Harry S. Truman

In a free enterprise, the community is not just another stakeholder, but is in fact the very purpose of its existence. — Jamsetji Tata

A people armed and free, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression. — James Madison

While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. — Barry Goldwater

Entrepreneurial profit is the expression of the value of what the entrepreneur contributes to production. — Joseph A. Schumpeter

Provided that societies stay mindful of the challenges that capitalism creates and never forget the paramount importance of inclusion and equal opportunity, we can and should celebrate the miracle of free enterprise-and the billions of souls it has helped free from desperate poverty. — Dalai Lama

People Writing About Free Trade

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman
quotes on capitalism, inflation and government

372 3653
Read quotes by Murray Rothbard

Murray Rothbard
quotes on state

116 1340
Read quotes by Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan
quotes on youth, peace and education

301 3612
Read quotes by Javier Milei

Javier Milei
quotes on economy, libertarian and rock music

65 1
Read quotes by Michael Badnarik

Michael Badnarik

30 491
Read quotes by David Ricardo

David Ricardo
quotes on comparative advantage

72 922

More Free Trade Quotes

Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty. — Chief Joseph

Politicians of both parties told us that free trade with Asia and Latin America would spur economic growth, and maybe it did somewhere else. — James David Vance

The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist — Danny Glover

I have opposed the Communist cold war line ever since, both by public utterance and by private help to trade unionists breaking free from the Communist influence. — Earl Browder

We are already well down the road toward a managed-trade regime. It would be far better to acknowledge that reality, and seek a set of reasonable rules, than to pretend that Ricardian trade is the norm and allow mercantilist states to overwhelm U.S. industry and ratchet down wages, in the name of free trade. — Robert Kuttner

Free trade is the serial killer of American manufacturing and the Trojan Horse of world government. It is the primrose path to the loss of economic independence and national sovereignty. Free trade is a bright, shining lie. — Pat Buchanan

The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it! — Hubert H. Humphrey

Trade protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation. — Frederic Bastiat

Free trade is very important if we respect equality among nations. — Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

I favor free trade in drugs for the same reason the Founding Fathers favored free trade in ideas: in a free society it is none of the government's business what ideas a man puts into his mind; likewise, it should be none of its business what drugs he puts into his body. — Thomas Szasz

Free Tibet before free trade. — Zhu Rongji

Globalization and free trade do spur economic growth, and they lead to lower prices on many goods. — Robert Reich

The history of capitalism has been so totally re-written that many people in the rich world do not perceive the historical double standards involved in recommending free trade and free market to developing countries. — Ha-Joon Chang

I love trade. I'm a free trader, 100 percent. But we [the USA] need smart people making the deals, and we don't have smart people making the deals. — Donald Trump

By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights the right to belong to a free trade union. — Ronald Reagan

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice. — Edmund Burke

Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past. — Ha-Joon Chang

Too many countries that do not play by the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization - including, notably mercantilist China and monopolist Saudi Arabia - have been allowed in, to the detriment of both the WTO and the liberal trading environment it is supposed to sponsor. — Frank Gaffney

In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries - and poor people - are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer. — Margaret Thatcher

The poorest of families, the poorest of children, are subsidizing the growth of the largest agribusinesses in the world. I think it’s time we recognized that in free trade the poor farmer, the small farmer, is ending up having to pay royalties to the Monsantos of the world. — Vandana Shiva

It's very hard to find things that rhyme with North American Free Trade Agreement. — Chris Martin

I am for joining a free trade zone. The European Union is not such zone, but a zone of raging bureaucracy which stears every hectolitre of wine, and every tone of beef. — Janusz Korwin-Mikke

A depression is a large-scale decline in production and trade...there is nothing in the nature of a free-market economy to cause such an event. — Nathaniel Branden

Yes, I will put it out there - I will work for anyone for free if they're prepared to make their clothing Fair Trade and organic. It's really hard to get people interested in it. — Emma Watson

I am neither a free-trade man, willing to collect all the money we have to raise by direct tax upon the people, nor am I willing to lay a tax simply for protection when the Government does not need the money. — Joseph E. Brown

What private property does is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce for more. Then, if there's a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer. — John Stossel

And you can't have a prosperous economy when the government is way overspending, raising tax rates, printing too much money, over regulating and restricting free trade. It just can't be done. — Arthur Laffer

The message is NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) is there. NAFTA has helped both our countries enormously. We live up to the terms of NAFTA. We ask you, our best friend and most important trading partner to do the same thing. — Anne McLellan

I am convinced that both markets and free trade are good, but the traditional answer that we give to students to explain why they are good, the one based on perfect competition and Pareto optimality, is becoming untenable. Something much more interesting and more complicated is going on here — Paul Romer

To hear the Japanese plead for free trade is like hearing the word love on the lips of a harlot. — Lane Kirkland

There is this idea of history as something you make, as a meaningful narrative with a beginning and an end, the end being a utopia of happiness that we'll reach through socialism or free trade or democracy, and then it will all be wonderful. — Pankaj Mishra

Any time you read that your government is erecting tariff barriers, supporting threatened industries with subsidies, or interfering in any way with free trade between individuals or nations, you must realize that your standard of living is being lowered as a result. — John Pugsley

I'm in favor of free trade, but I think if you had to make a choice between having technological progress versus free trade, you had one or the other, you should always pick technological progress. I think it's an incredibly important variable for creating more prosperity. — Peter Thiel

We've advanced in the construction of a true free-trade area across South America... What's needed now is less rhetoric and more action. — Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

There is a phrase in trade theory; it's called "kicking away the ladder." First you violate the rules - the market rules - and then by the time you succeed in developing, you kick away the ladders so others can't do it too, and you preach about "free trade." — Noam Chomsky

I rise to oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, the latest expression of the disastrous trade policies of this administration which are, unfortunately, a continuation of the disastrous trade policies of previous administrations. — Russ Feingold

You win pennants in the off season when you build your teams with trades and free agents. — Earl Weaver

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