[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.