[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[April 21, 1992]
[Pages 618-619]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Business Leaders

April 21, 1992
    I am very pleased to welcome to the White House this morning 16 
senior American business leaders to discuss how the American private 
sector can help to meet the most important foreign policy challenge that 
faces us, the transformation of the new States in the former U.S.S.R. 
from command to market economies and from authoritarian to democratic 
governments. We are determined to expand the volume of our trade and 
investment with them. And I would like to announce today a series of

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measures to meet these important objectives.
    First, I have asked that current negotiations with all the new 
States on trade, bilateral investment, and tax treaties be expedited and 
completed as soon as possible. These agreements will provide greater 
access for our companies, and they will lay a new foundation for our 
future commercial relationships.
    Second, I have also asked OPIC, the Overseas Private Investment 
Corporation, and the Ex-Im Bank, the Export-Import Bank, to negotiate 
new agreements and expand their operations in the former U.S.S.R., 
another critical step so that American firms can compete equally and 
fairly for a share of the new markets there.
    And third, I would like to reiterate my call to the Congress in a 
spirit of bipartisanship to pass, in time for my summit meeting with 
President Yeltsin in June, the ``FREEDOM Support Act,'' the landmark 
legislation that I announced on April 1st. We hope the business leaders 
here today and the larger American business community will support this 
bill which will lift cold war restrictions on trade and investment.
    And finally, I have requested that our Secretary of Commerce, 
Barbara Franklin, create new business development committees with 
Russia, Ukraine, and other countries to eliminate the barriers that 
currently discourage trade with them.
    All these issues will be high on my agenda when I meet with 
Presidents Kravchuk and Yeltsin. And I'm absolutely committed to giving 
American companies every opportunity to compete in these markets. The 
American private sector should seize this opportunity to do business 
with these countries. It's a vast and rich market, and expanding our 
business ties will benefit the American people.
    Increased trade means new markets for American goods, greater 
opportunities for American investors, and more jobs for American 
workers. The U.S. increased its exports of manufactured goods to the 
U.S.S.R. by nearly 40 percent in 1991. We should aim to do even better 
this year and the next.
    This is a defining moment in this century. And indeed, the private 
sector's role is absolutely critical. The need for capital, advanced 
technology, and human expertise in these countries during this decade 
and into the next century will be far too great for governments alone to 
meet. A great economic transformation to liberate the peoples of the 
former Soviet Union and benefit our own people will only occur if our 
private firms invest and trade to show them the way.
    I thank those business leaders that are with us here today, many of 
them already involved in trying to do business in the C.I.S. countries. 
And I pledge my commitment to this partnership with the American private 
sector. And now we will go inside and discuss in detail the agenda that 
I've just outlined. Thank you all very much for being here.

                    Note: The President spoke at 9:33 a.m. in the Rose 
                        Garden at the White House.