    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [May 6, 1993]
    [Pages 576-581]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Export-Import Bank Conference
    May 6, 1993

        Thank you very much. Good morning everyone. I'm delighted to see all
    of you here in such large numbers. I want to thank my good friend Ken
    Brody for inviting me to come and speak with you for a few moments. He's
    the President-designate of the Ex-Im Bank. That's a delicate way of
    saying that it takes a long time to get confirmed in today's Washington.
    [Laughter] I know a little about that in another context.
        I have thought a good deal about what I wanted to say to you today
    about the subject which brings you here. I hope you will understand if I
    ask for a few moments to address the situation in Bosnia first, not only
    because the national press is here but because you are very much a part
    of the world which will be affected by what happens there and how that
    impacts our friends and neighbors in Europe and particularly in the
    Mediterranean area.
        Over the past week we saw some very encouraging progress toward a
    negotiated settlement of the tragic conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
    Two of the three Bosnian parties signed the Vance-Owen agreement. The
    third party, the Bosnian Serbs, signed contingent on approval by their
    self-styled parliament. Progress unfortunately was stopped by the
    Bosnian Serb assembly's de facto rejection yesterday of the Vance-Owen
    agreement. Their action is a grave disappointment to all of us who seek
    an early and peaceful resolution to what has been a very brutal
    conflict. It abrogates the earlier approval of the peace plan by the
    Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic.
        Their call for a referendum on the peace plan can only be seen as a
    delaying tactic to further consolidate the gains they have made because
    of the enormous advantage they have in heavy artillery coming as it does
    from the former Yugoslav army. It ignores the reality that everybody
    else in the world has recognized: Sooner or later, an enduring peace can
    only come from good-faith negotiations that lead to a peace plan
    acceptable to all the parties.
        The international community, I believe, must not allow the Serbs to
    stall progress toward peace and continue brutal assaults on innocent
    civilians. We've seen too many things happen, and we do have fundamental
    interests there, not only the United States but particularly the United
    States as a member of the world community.
        The Serbs' actions over the past year violate the principle that
    internationally recognized borders must not be violated or altered by
    aggression from without. Their actions threaten to widen the conflict
    and foster instability in other parts of Europe in ways that could be
    exceedingly damaging. And their savage and cynical ethnic cleansing
    offends the world's conscience and our standards of behavior.
        Therefore, I have this morning directed Secretary Christopher to
    continue to pursue his consultations with our allies and friends in
    Europe and Russia on tougher measures which can

    [[Page 577]]

    be taken collectively, not by the United States alone but collectively,
    to make clear to the Serbs that we are embarked on a course of peace,
    and they are embarked on a costly course.
        The vote last night simply makes this Christopher mission more
    important. Secretary Christopher will be insistent that the time has
    come for the international community to unite and to act quickly and
    decisively. America has made its position clear and is ready to do its
    part. But Europe must be willing to act with us. We must go forward
    together.
        Your presence here, your understanding of the importance of exports
    to America's future, to the blending of our Nation and our culture and
    our values with those of like-minded persons throughout the world should
    only reinforce our determination to confine, inasmuch as the
    international community can possibly confine, savage acts of inhumanity
    to people solely because of their ethnicity or their religion, and to
    confine insofar as we possibly can as an international community the
    ability of one country to invade another and upset its borders, and
    certainly to try to confine this centuries old series of ethnic and
    religious enmities to the narrowest possible geographical boundaries.
        That is what we seek, not to act alone, not to act rashly, not to do
    things which would draw the United States into a conflict not of its own
    making and not of its own ability to resolve but simply concerted action
    that the international community can and should take to deal with these
    issues. I'll have more to say about it later, but in view of what
    happened today, I thought I ought to say this.
        For 59 years, since President Franklin Roosevelt created it to help
    increase foreign aid and trade with the Soviet Union, the Ex-Im Bank has
    assisted United States companies to sell more than $270 billion in our
    exports all around the world. And now the Bank's role in helping our
    economy and helping our exports has never been more important. You are
    the people who generate an enormous portion of our high-wage, high-
    growth jobs. Without expanding our exports, this country cannot grow,
    cannot grow economically and cannot create more jobs.
        In the global economy which we now are shaped by we see a critical
    part of every economy's functioning is related to its level of
    productivity, especially in the export sector. We also know that America
    has some special problems entirely of our own making without regard to
    what we may or may not think of every aspect of our trade policy. We
    have relatively low savings and investment. We have an enormous budget
    deficit which we ran up not in investing in productive investments at
    home that would produce later wealth but largely in increasing
    consumption. Indeed, for the last 5 years, the spiraling growth of the
    Government's deficit has been related almost entirely to paying more for
    the same health care and to bigger and bigger interest payments on
    accumulated debt. This is a terrible burden on the economic performance
    of this country as well as on our future.
        Finally, we have, as I said earlier, in putting more of our
    Government's money to health care, we've also seen more private sector
    dollars go to health care, so that now we are spending 35 percent more
    of our national treasure on health care than any other nation in the
    world, imposing significant new burdens on American businesses as they
    seek to compete within the American market and beyond the American
    market.
        We now, therefore, face an interesting set of challenges,
    particularly for a country used to looking for simple answers and
    dealing with one issue at a time. That is, indeed, one of the great
    debates in which I am engaged here. Some people say, ``Well, you just
    ought to do one thing. Just reduce the deficit, no matter what.'' For
    the last 12 years we were on a track that, at least at election time,
    was focused on one thing: Just lower taxes, no matter what. Never mind
    what happens to the deficit. Never mind what happens to the investment
    of the country. Never mind what happens to the long-term economic
    health.
        Do we need to reduce the deficit? Yes, we do. Do we also need a
    targeted program of investment in the education and training of the
    American work force and in the technologies that will shape this economy
    into the future? Yes, we do. Do we have anything so far to replace the
    steep, steep cuts in defense spending which have gone to the very heart
    of a lot of our high-wage, high-tech economy, with many spinoffs
    benefiting the commercial economy to date? No, we don't. But we need a
    technology policy and a defense conversion policy that attempts to
    replace that. So we need to bring down the deficit, and we need a
    targeted program of investments in jobs technology and training.

    [[Page 578]]

        Thirdly, I would argue that we will never reduce the deficit to zero
    and never restore fundamental health to this economy until we address
    the health care crisis in terms of providing security to Americans and
    controlling the cost. And that is obviously a big part of what we're
    about up here.
        I do not believe we should be forced into the false choice of saying
    we must do one or the other. In the past, our governments have come to
    people saying, well, we'll just spend money and solve your problems for
    you, or we'll just cut taxes and solve your problems for you. Today, we
    have to have a much more disciplined and coherent approach that says we
    are going to bring the deficit down, we are going to target investments
    in technology and training, and we are going to do something about the
    health care crisis. But we must have an economic policy that is more
    than investments, that involves doing the right things with technology
    policy, the right things with defense conversion, the right things with
    the Ex-Im Bank, the right things to expand our commitment to exports.
    Indeed, the economy, I think, must continue to be the number one
    priority of our country, and therefore, the number one priority of this
    administration.
        The work that exporters and the Ex-Im Bank do to expand jobs and
    growth is fundamentally important, because every time we sell $1 billion
    of American products and services overseas, we create about 20,000 jobs.
    In all, more than 7 million Americans clearly owe their jobs to exports.
    And because those workers in export-related jobs make about 17 percent
    more than the average worker, we need more of those jobs.
        I have this chart here I wanted to show. It's the only one I brought
    today. I'm trying to resist my policy-wonk impulses. [Laughter] But I do
    want to--you can't see it over there--it shows that in all industries,
    export-related jobs have average hourly wages of $11.69 as compared with
    $10.02 for nonexport-related jobs. In manufacturing, the figures are
    virtually the same, $11.93 to $10.83. And in services, the margin is
    even bigger, $11.30 to $9.83. It is clear, therefore, that one of the
    answers to the wage stagnation which has gripped the American economy
    for almost 20 years now with most hourly wage workers in the country
    working longer work weeks for stagnant or lower wages--one of the
    answers to that is to increase our exports.
        In the last 5 years, exports have accounted for almost half of our
    Nation's economic growth. Goods and services exports made up 10.7
    percent of our GDP in 1992, up dramatically from only 7.5 percent in
    1985, just 7 years earlier.
        Your work is important, because if U.S. technology, whether it is
    related to the environment, energy, transportation, or
    telecommunications, is to secure its preeminence, it must have a global
    reach. Only with world markets can we afford the research and
    development to stay competitive. Export expansion obviously encourages
    our most advanced industries. I am committed to promoting these exports,
    and what's where the Ex-Im Bank plays an important role.
        In fiscal year 1992, the Ex-Im Bank fostered more than a quarter
    million American jobs that were an outgrowth of the Bank's support for
    $14 billion in exports. That's pretty impressive, but it won't be enough
    just to hold our own ground. I know we can top that by strengthening the
    partnership between our Government and the private sector through the
    Ex-Im Bank.
        It's helped to send abroad everything from machine tools to computer
    software. It's been at the forefront of the new export industry that our
    Vice President has championed, the environmental industry, one that is
    so important that I have directed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown to work
    with the Ex-Im Bank, the EPA, and the Department of Energy to craft a
    national strategy for environmental exports. These efforts will not only
    help to clean up the planet, they will put a lot more Americans to work.
        We have several environmental services exporters with us here today.
    One of them, Harza Engineering of Chicago, helped a rural community in
    Venezuela to fight off the threat of cholera and other diseases by
    channeling a fresh water supply. At the same time it created more than a
    thousand jobs for Americans. That's just one case among many.
        We want to increase exponentially these successes in all areas of
    exports. We can also make ourselves more competitive by streamlining our
    programs, an action long overdue. Right now, there are more than 150
    different export promotion programs in more than 10 Agencies. They are
    tangled like a ball of yarn. And our goal is to untangle them. We want
    to end the duplication and overlap to make sure all these programs are
    customer-driven. We want our guide to be the needs of the exporters and
    the lenders.
        Our vehicle to a coherent export promotion

    [[Page 579]]

    plan will be the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, an interagency
    group created by the Congress largely through the efforts of Senator Don
    Riegle. The Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown chairs the group, which has
    been meeting daily. And once he is confirmed, Ken will also have hands-
    on involvement in that effort.
        With the Department of Commerce and the Trade Promotion Coordinating
    Committee, Ex-Im will help lead the way toward developing an export
    mentality throughout our Government and throughout our Nation. At the
    same time, the Bank will become more of an active consumer-friendly
    bank, one that will give more attention to small and medium-sized
    businesses. For every applicant, the Bank will aim to bypass unnecessary
    redtape.
        Right now, it takes the staff about 6 months to process a
    preliminary commitment application and only one in six such preliminary
    commitment leads to an actual export sale. But with new procedures the
    Bank will be able to respond to most requests within 7 days. Now, that's
    reinventing Government.
        The staff will be able to process more cases and support more real
    deals. In short, the Ex-Im Bank will use better management measures to
    do more without spending more. In these days of deficit reduction, the
    Bank will have to live within its means like all other Government
    agencies. But Ken has assured me that he has a number of ways to make
    your tax dollars work harder and more effectively.
        What we do domestically and how we do internationally are
    inseparable. As I said earlier in my remarks, as the Ex-Im Bank builds
    exports markets abroad, we have to do more to assure that our workers
    are equipped with the skills that they need. The average worker will now
    change jobs eight times in a lifetime. We have to do a better job of
    their education and training.
        We need to become better students of economics. The old ways of
    doing business simply don't translate into reality today. One of the
    first things I did when I became President was to establish a National
    Economic Council. It just made good sense to me. We had a National
    Security Council that met with the President on a regular basis to deal
    with security issues, but a great deal of our security is in the
    economic area. And there was no regular discipline mechanism by which
    all the economic decisions were considered in terms of their impact on
    one another, and the United States could develop a coherent policy.
        Today, we have that mechanism, and it works. It works well, and
    we're working hard to make it work better.
        One of the reasons I was so gratified to get congressional approval
    of the overall budget plan that I presented in record time--it was the
    first time in 17 years that Congress had passed a budget resolution
    within the legal mandate--which reduces the deficit by over $500 billion
    through spending cuts and tax increases. And there will not be one
    without the other, I can tell you that; I'm not about to raise your
    taxes unless the spending cuts are there first. There will be no budget
    without both.
        This is very important in the export area. I can't tell you how many
    years--you probably know this as well as I do--how many years the United
    States would show up at some meeting of the G-7 or another international
    meeting and all of our trading partners would spend all their time
    telling us that we ought to get our financial house in order, we ought
    to bring our deficit down, we ought to do something to clean up our own
    backyard before we lectured our trading partners about changes in
    policy.
        But now we're in a different position. When I go to the G-7 meeting
    in July in Tokyo, the United States will be a success story in the
    making. For starters, we have a responsible budget plan that does reduce
    the deficit. Our interest rates as a result have fallen in many areas to
    historic lows, allowing American homeowners and businesses to refinance
    with ways that, if we can keep these rates down for a year, virtually
    all economists concede will put $100 billion-plus back into this
    economy, simply because of lower interest rates.
        In this room today I bet there are scores of people who have
    refinanced their home mortgages or been able to have lower business
    loans as a result of these interest rates. This is the ultimate stimulus
    for the American economy if we can pass the budget that reduces the
    deficit and keep these rates down. It is very, very important.
        When we can point to these accomplishments it makes it much easier
    for us to work with the Japanese in getting them to stimulate their
    economy and buy more exports. It makes it much easier for us to argue to
    our friends in Germany that it's a good thing to keep bringing interest
    rates down. It makes it easier to try

    [[Page 580]]

    to help work together with a coordinated economic policy to lift the
    world out of the economic stagnation that we now see in Europe and the
    Pacific, as well as in North America.
        These things are very, very important. But there is more that we
    have to do. After 7 years of talks, I would very much like to see a
    successful completion of the Uruguay round of the GATT by December the
    15th. World economic prosperity depends on it. It's the foundation of
    the global trading system. A few days ago, I met with the Finance
    Ministers and the Central Bankers of the G-7 nations, and I told them
    that the United States was prepared to make extraordinary efforts to
    complete the Uruguay round successfully, that we were willing to go the
    extra mile in doing that, but we needed their help and support. And I
    hope we will get it.
        The GATT agreement would be a blessing for the United States
    exporters because it will lower foreign tariffs, curb subsidies that
    tilt the playing field, and strengthen the protection of intellectual
    property, the piracy of which costs our companies about $60 billion a
    year. In the GATT and in all of our trade talks, we have put our trading
    partners on notice that I expect access to their markets comparable to
    the access we want to extend to them. But we welcome foreign products
    and services and investments here, as long as our products, services,
    and investments have a chance to be welcomed in other countries as well.
    It's fair, and it's good business.
        These are the principles that will underscore not only our
    multilateral but our bilateral relationships as well. With the right
    markets at home and the right rules in international markets, our export
    opportunities are virtually limitless.
        I want to say a special word about our opportunities in our own
    backyard in Latin America. Latin America is reining in its debt and what
    is emerging from a more stable economy is a populace clamoring for
    consumer products and entrepreneurs who are shopping for capital goods.
    It's a market for our exports that is growing at 3 times the rate of any
    other market in the world. That is why I strongly support the North
    American Free Trade Agreement, with the supplemental agreements we are
    presently negotiating with Canada and Mexico relating to labor and the
    environment.
        NAFTA will help us to unlock a market that will create hundreds of
    thousands of high-paying jobs. And NAFTA, therefore is a high priority
    for this administration. The reason it is so controversial is that the
    American people have seen 12 years in which their wages have gone down
    and 3 years in which we actually have fewer private sector jobs. And
    everybody is afraid of change. But the only way a rich country can grow
    richer is by exporting more and by having more partners in economic
    progress. And if we can make this agreement with Mexico work, then we
    can move forward to the other market economies of Latin America, to
    Chile, to Argentina, to any number of other nations who want to be a
    part of this kind of partnership. I think it is very, very important.
        Just listen to this: Exports to Canada already support 1.5 million
    American jobs. And in the past 5 years, the number of American jobs tied
    to Mexico have grown from 300,000 to 700,000 jobs, almost exclusively
    because of the unilateral reduction of trade restrictions by Mexico,
    which have allowed the volume of trade two-ways to go up and the trade
    deficit to be erased. These are very encouraging signs. We project
    another 200,000 good jobs if we can have a successful implementation of
    the NAFTA process.
        Mexico is a valued customer for another reason. We also believe that
    this new economic thinking, if it works, will help to spread all across
    the developing world. We know that there are an impressive array of
    political and economic leaders in Mexico, and I know that the Secretary
    of Finance Pedro Aspe is with us today. I want to welcome him and extend
    my best wishes to President Salinas for our emerging partnership.
        Outside this hemisphere, I think we have to look increasingly to the
    newly industrializing countries of Asia. I know we have someone here
    from Indonesia. Indonesia is the fifth biggest country in the world.
    Indonesia is now the leader of the nonaligned nations. They have a
    resolution on Bosnia actually being debated in the Untied Nations today.
    Maybe they can figure out how to do a better job with this.
        We have enormous opportunities there. When I go to the G-7 meeting
    in Japan, I'm going to meet with the President of Indonesia to send a
    signal to the nonaligned nations, to the emerging nations of the world,
    that the United States wants to be their partner in new trade relations,
    that there are all kinds of things that we can continue to do that we
    have not done before.
        Finally, let me say just a little word about

    [[Page 581]]

    Russia. The Bank is now setting out to do what it was originally set up
    to do because Russia may be able to absorb its efforts. To date, the
    Bank has approved $205 million in final commitments to Russia. It's
    working on an oil and gas agreement framework that could support as much
    as $2 billion in American goods and services for Russia's energy sector.
    As I told President Yeltsin when we met in Vancouver, the United States
    once had a famous citizen named Willie Sutton who was asked why he was
    devoting his entire life to robbing banks, and he said, ``Because that's
    where the money is.'' [Laughter] In Russia, energy is where the money
    is. If we can work it out, we can make a huge partnership there in ways
    that are enormously beneficial for the American economy and good for the
    Russians as well.
        At different junctures in this century, our country has shown itself
    to be a catalyst for global reform. We have faced off facism and
    communism. We helped to build the international institutions after World
    War II that made so many good things happen in the noncommunist world
    and now, because of the collapse of communism, are coming into their own
    with the real potential to fully flower.
        The world of tomorrow will reward those of us who not only have the
    values which made these institutions possible but which behave in ways
    that will be rewarded in the hard glare of international economic
    competition.
        I just saw today another set of figures showing that in the first
    quarter of this year, there was another huge increase in productivity in
    the American manufacturing sector. We want those manufacturers who are
    increasing their productivity. We want their workers who are the source
    of that increased productivity to be rewarded. I am convinced that the
    only way we can do it is by opening markets to the United States and
    giving the American people the chance to enjoy the benefits, the fruits
    of their labor and giving other countries the chance to grow through
    mutual trade and development.
        You are on the frontlines of that. I came here to salute you and to
    assure you that through the Ex-Im Bank and every other means at this
    administration's command we will do our best to have the kind of trade
    policy that will grow the American economy and benefit the entire world.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:02 a.m. at the J.W. Marriott. In his
    remarks, he referred to Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs.