Daily Inspiration Quote by Donald Evans

A bureaucrat’s sentence dressed up as an open-minded question, Donald Evans’ line is really a permission slip for policy. The first move is time: “for a number of years.” That phrase turns conflict into background noise, suggesting the country has been responsibly “debating” long enough and is ready for an adult resolution. It quietly frames dissent as repetitive rather than urgent.

Then comes the strategic balancing act: “whether or not free trade agreements are good for economic growth and economic opportunity.” Evans stacks abstractions like sandbags. “Growth” signals macroeconomic legitimacy; “opportunity” nods to the American self-image of mobility. He’s not defending specific agreements yet; he’s defending the category, and he does it by placing the burden of proof on skeptics to argue against two of the safest words in modern governance.

The clause “creating jobs and lifting people out of poverty” is the moral alibi. Job creation speaks to domestic anxiety, while poverty reduction gestures outward, giving free trade a humanitarian sheen. The subtext: even if there are losers in the short term or in particular regions, the policy can be narrated as ethically expansive and nationally pragmatic.

Context matters. Evans, a public servant closely associated with pro-business, pro-globalization governance, is speaking from an era when free trade was marketed less as a technocratic choice than as a civic virtue. The sentence’s real intent isn’t to host a debate; it’s to close one by laundering a controversial instrument through universally applauded outcomes.