Bill Delahunt: “As the gentleman says, it is almost as if there is a loss of a sense of community; that these people who really made…”

“As the gentleman says, it is almost as if there is a loss of a sense of community; that these people who really made America great, the small farmer, is at such an incredible disadvantage because of unfair trade. Unfair trade. And those are the people we ought to be concerned about. Who is standing up for the small farmer here in America today? It is certainly not the multinational conglomerate. I was pleased to hear my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), talk about that we are not opposed to trade. Because the reality is every single Member that participated in that trip wants to encourage trade. We are pro-trade. We are pro-fair trade. But what we want to be able to do is to write the rules of international commerce so that every single American benefits from the prosperity that is generated by global trade and by the global economy. That is what we are about. And that was really the first very small step along that road. The very first step. But what we have discovered in real terms is that not everybody is playing by the same rules. We have to have a set of rules where there is a minimum wage; where there are child labor standards; where there is a 40-hour workweek; where there is paid vacations; where there is a weekend. It is not about exploiting other nations, it is about raising their standard of living and not suppressing our own standard of living to benefit the few.”