US Presidency
1961

The industries which would benefit the most from increased trade are our most efficient even though in many cases they pay our highest wages, their goods can compete with the goods of any other nation. Those who would benefit the least, and are unwilling to adjust to competition, are standing in the way, as the NAM Economic Advisory Committee pointed out last year, of greater growth and a higher standard of living. They are endangering the profits and jobs of others, our efforts against inflation, our balance of payments position, and in the long run their own economic wellbeing because they will suffer from competition in the in 1881. inevitably, if not from abroad -for, in order to avoid exertion, they accept paralysis. Finally, let me add, if we can not increase our sales abroad, we will diminish our stature in the Free World. Economic isolation and political leadership are wholly incompatible.