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Having led many negotiations with countries outside the E.U. in the past, we would never enter the same compromises and reach the same good outcomes with states that don't shoulder the responsibilities and costs of the common market.

It takes two sides to make a deal, two sides to negotiate and two sides to make it go bad.

I was quite ready to accept certain restrictions on the United States. After all, there was a great dollar shortage. It was quite clear that the more prosperous Europe became, the more business there would be in the United States.

Because countries often have differing political and economic systems, agreements are needed to protect those invested in trade.

As history has repeatedly proven, one trade tariff begets another, then another - until you've got a full-blown trade war. No one ever wins, and consumers always get screwed.

Old ideas of not trading because 'they won't open their markets to us' miss the entire point of allowing goods to be imported into the United States - because we want and need them and because someone here believes that the good or service received in exchange for our dollars creates value for them.

Canada and the United States are also working at the World Trade Organization and in our own hemisphere with negotiations for a Trade Area of the Americas to try to help countries create a positive climate for investment and trade.

While foreign competitors, French or Japanese or German, merrily bid for contracts abroad, American companies find themselves tangled in a web of legislation designed to express disapproval, block trade in certain commodities, or perhaps deny resources to disfavored or hostile regimes.

Then as now, whatever disagreements over policies existed among Americans - and there were many such bitter policy disputes - the purposes and goals for which Americans fought were clearly understood.

We've made our living for a long time on commerce and trade at the border.