if elected president. So, it might be that Gephardt's position on free/fair-trade is more similar to Dean's and Edward's position than I thought before this extra reseach on Gephardt that I just did.
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Trade: Unlike Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman, Gephardt hails from the "fair trade" wing of the Democratic Party, which views minimally regulated "free trade" as a threat to American jobs, wages, and environmental standards. When Bill Clinton and most Democratic congressional leaders pushed for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, Gephardt, who was then the second-ranking Democrat in the House, led the opposition. In 1999, he reiterated his disappointment over the adoption of NAFTA. Although he has not pledged to repeal it, Gephardt said in July 2003, "I'm the one who led the fight against NAFTA, and I did it because I believed that that trade treaty was not going to help the United States, was not going to help Mexico, was not going to help anybody in the world, because it is the beginning of a race to the bottom. And that is exactly what has gone on."
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http://slate.msn.com/id/2086555/However, it seems that Gephardt goes further than the other major Democratic candidates by supporting an international minimum wage.
Establishing an International Minimum Wage
An International Minimum Wage would keep U.S. workers competitive in the global marketplace
Based on the imperative of protecting both human dignity around the world and American jobs here at home, Dick Gephardt believes we must establish an international minimum wage. The World Trade Organization should establish an international standard for a minimum wage.
The creation of such a wage would guarantee that workers all over the world earn a livable wage. It also would keep U.S. workers competitive in the global marketplace. Countries could offset lower wages with trade concessions, and more developed nations would share in the burden facing less developed nations.
http://www.dickgephardt2004.com/plugin/template/gephardt/41…
HOWARD DEAN: No. What I said-- Well, I'll tell you what I said in a minute. But I'll follow my train of thought here, most briefly. Free trade has benefited Vermont a great deal. Here's the problem with free trade, and here's why I support fair trade, and why I want to change all our trade agreements to include human rights with trade, as Jimmy Carter included human rights with foreign policy. I still think NAFTA was a good thing. I think the president did the right thing. But the problem now is that, 10 years into NAFTA, here's what we've done. We have shipped a lot of our industrial capacity to other countries. And the ownership pattern, and the ratio of reward between capital and labor in those other countries is what it was 100 years ago in this country.
So the reason for NAFTA is not just trade. It's defense and foreign policy. That is, a middle class country where women fully participate in the economic and political decision making of that country is a country that doesn't harbor groups like Al-Qaeda, and it's a country that does not go to war. So that's in our intersect. That's why trade is really in our long term interest. What we've done so far in NAFTA is we've transferred industrial capacity, but we haven't transferred any of the elements that are needed to make a middle class. The truth is, the trade union movement in this country built America, not literally-- Well, they did do it literally with the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, and things like that. But they built America because they allowed people who worked in factories and mines to become middle class people. And America was the strongest country on earth, and still is, because we have the largest middle class on earth, with democratic ideals. That is, working people in this country, by and large, feel that this is their country, and they have a piece of the pie, and it matters what they think.
Now, if you want trade to succeed, ultimately, we're going to have to create a climate in other countries that are beneficiaries of NAFTA where they can create a middle class with democratic ideals. That means we should not have any free trade agreements, and we should go back and tell the WTO that "you need also to include environmental standards and labor standards." Here's why. Today, if you run a factory in Iowa-- Let's suppose you spend a million dollars a year disposing of all the waste products that come out that are toxic. You can go to another country and dump all that stuff in the river and on the ground. So America, because we have environmental standards, and we're willing to trade, straight out, free trade, with countries that it's cheaper by a million dollars, before you even get to wages, to do business there, I think that's a big problem. We're essentially saying, "Our environmental laws are strict. It's cheaper for you to go into business someplace lese. Go ahead." That's the wrong thing to do.
The same with labor standards. I don't know why we should be shipping our jobs offshore when kids can work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for a small amount of wages. And isn't that what America fought against 100 years go? Wasn't that the victory of the trade union movement? So it seems to me that my position makes sense. We've gone through 10 years of free trade. We've gotten to a position where we now need to change our trade agreements.
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http://www.jfklibrary.org/forum_dean.htmlhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=46131&mesg_id=46131&page=