Remarks supporting renewal of fast-track trading authority

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 15, 1997

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, members of the administration. Mr. Lang, thank you for coming all the way from Iowa. And Susan, thank you for coming all the way from California; all else fails, you can give speaking lessons. [Laughter]

I also would like to thank the Members of Congress who have come. I see Senator Moynihan and Senator Baucus and a significant delegation from the House, including Congressmen Matsui and Fazio who have often been on the forefront of our trade issues. It's nice to see former Chairman Gibbons out there and former Congressmen Carr and Anthony. There may be - and former Congressman, our Ambassador to Mexico, Jim Jones. There are a lot of other former Members perhaps here, but I appreciate all of you being here to support this endeavor today.

These stories that we have heard, one from a farmer, one from a high-tech small-business person, make it clear that as we approach a new century and a new millennium, we live in a time of profound change and immense possibility. We have worked, as the Vice President said, to take our Nation and to lead the world to the edge of this new era in this new economy, to build on a strategy of eliminating the deficit, increasing investments in our people, and expanding our exports, and to do it in a way that would bolster America's world leadership for peace and freedom and prosperity around the world.

It is true that we have made significant progress with the balanced budget agreement in completing the business of balancing the budget, in making education our genuine top priority, and investing in our people. And it is a good thing that we are moving forward. But we must also recognize that for all the dramatic expansion of trade in the last 4 1/2 years, for all the expansion in our economic opportunities and the enhancement of our world leadership, the world markets are changing so rapidly and growing so quickly, there, too, we must take new action to move forward.

I'm asking the Congress to renew the President's traditional authority to negotiate trade deals, to open more American markets for goods and services from our country, and to restore the partnership between the Congress and the President in the trade arena necessary to keep our economy strong and our leadership strong.

The Vice President said this before, but I want to reemphasize this: We are enjoying now an unemployment rate in the Nation of under 5 percent, with over 13 million new jobs in the last 5 years. We have stable inflation at the lowest level in 30 years. And it appears that after a very good year last year, our economy this year will also grow in excess of 3 percent.

Now, how do we intend to continue to do that if we have 4 percent of the world's people and we already have 20 percent of the world's income? We have to sell to the other 96 percent of the world's people, especially when we know that the developing economies are projected to grow in Latin America and Asia at almost 3 times the rate of the mature economies over the next 15 to 20 years. And if we do it right, by the way, it will make the world a much better place because 10 to 15 to 20 countries will move from the ranks of being very poor countries into being countries with sustainable incomes for their own people, making them better democratic partners, more likely to be positive contributors to the world of tomorrow, less likely to be trouble spots that will command America's attention to try to keep something bad from happening when we ought to be working with them to make good things happen.

So this is very much the way of the future that America must lead toward. We have worked for 4 1/2. years - we had over 220 new trade agreements. I compliment our Trade Ambassador, Charlene Barshefsky, and her predecessor, Mickey Kantor. They have worked very hard. Most recently, we had an information technology agreement which will generate hundreds of billions of dollars in income.

We now estimate that of the important growth we've enjoyed in the last 4 1/2. years, almost a third of it came because of our expansion of trade. During this period American has once again become the world's number one exporter, our largest producer of automobiles, the world's largest agricultural exporter, the world's largest producer of semiconductors. From the farms of our heartland to the high-tech firms of the future, business is booming in this country. And from specialty steel to telecommunications, America leads the world in a very competitive global marketplace.

But I emphasize again, this is not a static situation. In order for us to continue to create jobs and opportunities for our own people and to maintain our world leadership, we have to continue to expand exports. We have to use every tool we can get to open foreign markets to our goods and services; we have to continue the fight for open, fair, and reciprocal trade; we have to continue to stand against unfair trade practices; and we have to act now to continue this progress to make sure our economy will work for all the American people.