To the extent that bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements lead to violations of human rights, they should be modified or terminated

I have argued that simply as a matter of fairness in trade, it is intolerable for one country to provide, in effect, emission subsidies to its firms. [...] Europe must use the foundations of the international trade law we have created to force any recalcitrant country, any rogue state—including the United States—to behave responsibly.

Over the past twenty-five years bilateral international treaties and free trade agreements with investor-state-dispute-settlement have adversely impacted the international order and undermined fundamental principles of the UN, State sovereignty, democracy and the rule of law. It prompts moral vertigo in the unbiased observer.

I am disappointed by the president's decision to continue pushing forward on the disastrous trade agreement that will cost American jobs, harm the environment, increase the cost of prescription drugs and threaten our ability to protect public health. This treaty is opposed by every trade union in the country and virtually the entire grassroots base of the Democratic Party. ... Secretary Clinton made her strongest statement to date against this deal. In my view, it is now time for the leadership of the Democratic Party in the Senate and the House to join Secretary Clinton and go on the record in opposition to holding a vote on this job-killing trade deal during the lame-duck session of Congress and beyond. We need to defeat this treaty and fundamentally rewrite our trade policies to create good-paying jobs in this country and throughout the world and end the race to the bottom. I will continue to do everything I can to make sure that the TPP does not get implemented.

We shall not bind ourselves by treaties. We shall not allow ourselves to be entangled by treaties. We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighbourly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these.

It is a grave matter that a treaty should be broken or arbitrarily set aside; it is still graver when the idea of the sanctity of treaties being the foundation of peace is considered so chimerical that no one who upholds it can be honest, and that resentment at the breach of a treaty must necessarily be pretence and hypocrisy. That all this is of bad augury for the future of Europe is certain.

There is no need to adopt more “free trade agreements”, which are asymmetrical agreements providing privileges to investors but no enforceable obligations.

I agree with Ralph Nader that we need to repeal NAFTA and all of those so-called free trade agreements, but they are — they don’t constitute fair trade. And with respect to Colombia, I can say that not only have I been to Colombia, I have seen the devastation of the militarization of our policy, particularly with Colombia, and the displacement particularly of the Afro-Colombian communities across that country.

"Free trade" is a slogan used to attack practices designed by competitor economies to protect their own interests.

It's not us that loses financially if we don't have a free trade agreement, it's Germany and France and other European countries, and that's why of course there will be a free trade agreement that allows all our business to trade freely to and from continental Europe. It will take a relatively short period time in my view because they lose financially.

We need to be free to do deals with the rest of the world. We must be out of the protectionist common external tariff which mainly protects inefficient EU industries at the cost to British consumers.

I was speaking out in Minnesota—my hometown, in fact—and a guy stood up in the audience, said, "Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you’d oppose?" I said, "No, absolutely not." I said, "You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade."

What I see is European construction drifting towards a free-trade zone, that is to say an English-style Europe, which I reject. If we do nothing, this will lead in 15 years to a break-up. I reject a Europe that would be just a market, a free-trade zone without a soul, without a conscience, without political will, without a social dimension.

A balanced treaty between Canada and Europe, aimed at promoting a partnership for fair and sustainable development, should begin by specifying the emission targets of each signatory and the practical commitments to achieve these.