2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada: on Free Trade

Bill Richardson: We need fair trade, not just unabashed free trade

A: What I believe we need in this country is fair trade, not just unabashed free trade. What I would do is, first of all, any future international trade agreement should have the following components as part of the law, not as a side agreement.

1. Worker protections, because this is critically important comparing work standards in America and in other countries.
2. We should have environmental protections. One of the unfortunate sides of NAFTA, which I supported, was that it was supposed to improve air quality. It hasn’t happened. So there has to be very, very strong labor protections and environmental protections.
3. Last, wage disparities. I think it’s critically important that any future trade agreement look what other countries have in terms of wages and find ways to promote equity in those wage disparities. But we are in a global world.

Dennis Kucinich: NAFTA and GATT intentionally limit workers rights

Now, why was that? Cheap labor. They also were looking to move it to places where if possible they could have prison labor, slave labor, child labor. They didn’t want environmental restrictions. So what happened is NAFTA and GATT opened up the door for that. And it really undermined workers in this country, it undermined workers in other countries.

My first week in office, I will move to cancel NAFTA and our relationship with the WTO and go back to bilateral trade that will be conditioned on workers’ rights, human rights, environmental quality principles.

John Edwards: We need smart trade, not fair trade vs. free trade

John Edwards: Globalization means more education needed for success

A: We have to be smarter than we’ve been about the effects of globalization. What globalization has done is created a stratification of class in America. It’s much more difficult for somebody like me, who came from a pretty modest background and now has absolutely everything, to be able to do that in the country today. There are a lot of reasons for it. Our tax structure is one reason; not having access to health care is another. But the impact of globalization has makes it much more difficult to be able to move up and for their children to have a better life.

We have to be smarter, better educated. Science, math, technology -- we need to push more kids into those areas. We need to make it easier for kids to go to college, not harder. We need more serious investment in graduate education in all those areas.