    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [July 9, 1993]
    [Pages 1033-1034]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the American Chamber of Commerce in Tokyo
    July 9, 1993

        The President. I would like to resume the discussion because I want
    to have as much time as possible just to listen and learn today. Let me
    say that in my former life I came here several times and met with
    business leaders on behalf of the interests of my State.
        I'm sure that the people who have spoken before me have basically
    outlined the strategy we are attempting to pursue back home. But
    essentially what we're trying to do is to deal with the major problems
    of America at home and then try to get ourselves in a better position to
    do what we can to be a good partner for the private sector in competing
    in a global economy.
        We are well on the way to passing a record-breaking deficit
    reduction plan that has great credibility in the financial markets. And
    we've got a big decline in long-term interest rates at home, which I
    think is quite good. For all the economic softness, and it's quite
    considerable at home, we have over 950,000 new jobs in the economy in
    the last 5 months. That's about as many as the United States produced in
    the

    [[Page 1034]]

    previous 3 years.
        We've got a serious attempt going on to bring health care costs
    under control, which as all of you know is one of the major causes of
    America's lack of competitiveness. We're over 14 percent of GDP in
    health care; nobody is over 9 except Canada, and they're barely over 9.
    And we're working on significant changes in our policies with regard to
    technology, defense conversion, and trade, among other things.
        So, that's a basic outline of what I've been trying to do for the
    last 5 months. I wanted to come here and just listen to you today
    because you've been able to do something that I think is very important,
    which is to operate in Japan to create opportunity. And I just want to
    know what you think we should be doing and how we can do more to help
    you and to create more people like you.
        I didn't hear what Mr. Fallon said, but if the Ambassador fairly
    characterizes it, and he's pretty good at doing that, my attitude about
    this is that I prefer an open trading system. I don't think a wealthy
    nation can grow wealthier unless there is global economic growth. There
    are all kinds of challenges to that. Now, I think the environmental
    movement that is sweeping the globe actually gives us a chance to create
    more jobs, not lose them, if we do it in an intelligent way.
        But my view is also that the United States should try to get better
    rules but play by the rules that are in play. That's sort of always been
    my attitude. I could never have won an election if I wanted the rules to
    be different from those that obtain at the time. You can always try to
    improve the rules. We're trying to have a different campaign finance
    reform system, we're trying to have a different lobby reform system in
    America, but meanwhile we all play by the rules that are there. So,
    that's my attitude about that. I wish I'd heard exactly what you had to
    say but I think--I get criticized in some quarters for saying that, but
    normally when you show up for a game you've got to play by the operative
    rules, not the ones you wish were in play.

    [At this point, panelists discussed problems and successes unique to
    operating an American business in Japan.]

        The President. I was just going to make one other comment about
    this. You made a very perceptive observation when you said the Justice
    Ministry only has this issue to negotiate and we've got nothing to give
    back because they can't imagine why Japanese lawyers would set up
    offices in New York to do business or anything like that. I mean, I can
    understand that. Most people just assume when they go to another country
    they'll use lawyers who understand the law and practice in those
    countries. But one of the big problems we've got in America, as I'm sure
    you know, is that we don't have enough lawyers who are facilitators and
    we have too many who are, in effect, litigators. We have too many who
    slow down the operations of the private sector rather than who speed it
    up.
        And there may be a little something we can do on the political side
    by indirection, by, you know, by sort of saying that Japanese companies
    doing business in America--one of the things that this administration is
    looking at in the whole productivity mix is how we can reduce the cost
    of litigation and the cost of decision making and the delays there. And
    there may be some merit in our taking some initiative to bring some
    Japanese lawyers who do business work to the United States to work with
    American lawyers, to work with American businesses to see if we can kind
    of change the culture a bit and maybe some of the laws in our country.
    That is a little something we could give back, and it wouldn't do us any
    harm to do that anyway.
        Q. There are some who are there already. And they can do that. We
    can't do the same thing here.
        The President. I know but, I mean, if they thought they were going
    to, their companies operating in America----
        Q. I'm talking about the lawyers.
        The President. Yes, I know, but if they thought their companies in
    America were going to get something out of it, it might help us to get a
    little more leverage here. And we'll pursue that. You made a very
    compelling point.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:10 a.m. in the Akebono Room at the Okura
    Hotel.