There is no way to have both the standards and perfectly free trade. In every case, lax practices tolerated abroad can feed back and undercut our standards at home. Evidently, safe food for American consumers is a more expedient breach of free trade dogma than fair wages for American workers. Philosophically, there is no difference. But there is a huge political difference between food standards and labor standards.
Pure food alienates no big domestic interest group.
In fact, U.S. agribusinesses that live with the FDA domestically want foreign competitors subjected to comparable rules. Labor standards, in contrast, are bitterly opposed by powerful U.S. global corporations that want freedom to relocate in low wage areas and to buy cheap components wherever they like. But once President Clinton demands that foreign food meets U.S. purity and safety standards, he is no longer a free trader. He is imposing U.S. standards on foreign countries as a condition of letting them export to our markets. This is a form of protection that is good policy and that most Americans value.