"If we want more trade in the world, we should establish bilateral trade agreements with other democratic countries. That way we can control the decision-making process. The major economic countries of the world will enter into those agreements"
About this Quote
The tell is in the word "control". Rohrabacher dresses his pitch in the respectable suit of pro-trade pragmatism, then immediately admits the real goal: not freer exchange, but managed outcomes with the right people at the table. "Bilateral" sounds technical, even boring, yet its political meaning is vivid. One-on-one deals let a powerful country dictate terms, sidestep multilateral forums, and keep domestic opponents from invoking international rules when the deal gets inconvenient.
The democratic filter does double work. It’s a moral frame that flatters the audience ("we trade with the good guys"), but it’s also a strategic carve-out: democracies are presumed to share security interests, enforce contracts, and align against rivals. In the late post-Cold War and early War on Terror era when this language circulated, "democratic countries" functioned as a shorthand for an American-led bloc. The subtext isn’t cosmopolitan; it’s clubbable.
Then comes the quiet bluff: "The major economic countries of the world will enter into those agreements". It’s an assertion meant to sound inevitable, like gravity. It pressures skeptics by implying there’s no alternative if you want to be taken seriously by the big players. Yet it also reveals anxiety about legitimacy: if the majors sign on, the method looks less like coercion and more like consensus.
What makes the quote work rhetorically is its blend of idealism and leverage. It sells trade as expansion while promising sovereignty as constraint - a politics of openness with the locks kept firmly in American hands.
The democratic filter does double work. It’s a moral frame that flatters the audience ("we trade with the good guys"), but it’s also a strategic carve-out: democracies are presumed to share security interests, enforce contracts, and align against rivals. In the late post-Cold War and early War on Terror era when this language circulated, "democratic countries" functioned as a shorthand for an American-led bloc. The subtext isn’t cosmopolitan; it’s clubbable.
Then comes the quiet bluff: "The major economic countries of the world will enter into those agreements". It’s an assertion meant to sound inevitable, like gravity. It pressures skeptics by implying there’s no alternative if you want to be taken seriously by the big players. Yet it also reveals anxiety about legitimacy: if the majors sign on, the method looks less like coercion and more like consensus.
What makes the quote work rhetorically is its blend of idealism and leverage. It sells trade as expansion while promising sovereignty as constraint - a politics of openness with the locks kept firmly in American hands.
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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