    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 20, 1993]
    [Pages 1777-1781]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the NAFTA Jobs and Products Day Trade Fair
    October 20, 1993

        Thank you very much. I want to thank Harold and Bob and, of course,
    Lee Iacocca, who has been such an eloquent spokesperson for NAFTA. It's
    nice to see him on television in an ad where he's--I enjoy watching him
    sell Chryslers, but I like seeing him sell NAFTA even more in the
    television ads.
        I want to thank the many Members of the United States Congress who
    are here today. They hold the fate of this trade agreement and in many
    ways the fate of America's trade future in their hands. I want to thank
    the members of the Cabinet who are here today: the Treasury Secretary,
    Lloyd Bentsen; our United States Trade Ambassador, Mickey Kantor, who
    negotiated the agreements on the environment, on labor standards, and
    some other things which make this a truly unique trade agreement in the
    history of world trade; the Labor Secretary, the Education Secretary,
    the Commerce Secretary, Bob Reich, Dick Riley, and Ron Brown. I've seen
    all of them. There may be other members of the Cabinet here today
    showing our unified support for this agreement. I also want to thank all
    the companies and the workers who came here today. They really showed
    what this trade agreement is all about. It's about the jobs of American
    workers and the future of American working families, people who are
    determined to compete and win.
        Today the demonstrations in these two tents should show our country
    and show our Congress why we need NAFTA. In the next month before the
    vote, we've got to vigorously make this case to the American people. I
    was talking with Bob and the other steelworkers over at their exhibit
    over here, and I said, ``You know, we figure that an enormous number of
    America's unions will actually pick up jobs if this agreement passes.''
        The NAFTA fight is an interesting one to me. Lee Iacocca has already
    said it pretty well, but I have to restate it for you in personal terms.
    Before I became President, I was a Governor of my State for a dozen
    years during the 1980's. When I took office in 1983, our unemployment
    rate was 3 percentage points above the national average. I know all
    about losing jobs to trade, to not being able to compete. There are a
    lot of companies here that have plants in my State, and I believe that
    every one I saw here, I have personally been in the plant. I saw
    companies shut down and move to Mexico in the 1980's. And when it
    happened, because I live in a small State, I knew who they were. I'm
    proud to say we brought one of them back, too, before I left office. I
    would not ever do anything knowingly that would cost

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    jobs to the American economy and take opportunities from American
    working people. This won't do that; it will do the reverse.
        The people who are fighting this are bringing to this fight the
    resentments that they have over what happened in the 1980's. You heard
    Lee talk about it: How many decent people lost their jobs? How many
    times did we see people shut down and move to other countries solely
    because of lower labor costs or higher other production costs in
    America? That's what happened before. But in the last 12 or 13 years we
    have seen productivity growth in the production sector in the United
    States go up at 4 percent or more a year.
        You heard Lee say that you can now produce an automobile for
    anywhere in this part of the world cheaper in the United States than
    anyplace else. We've had two European companies put plants in North
    America. They could have gone to Mexico. Where did they go? One went to
    South Carolina. One is now going to Alabama. Why? Because it's cheaper.
    Because the labor is highly productive, even though more expensive, and
    that is a relatively small part of a big, complex operation, making an
    automobile and putting it into a showroom.
        And I tell you, friends, if we can get folks in this country to
    focus on what this trade agreement does, it will alleviate the anxieties
    that so many people had in the 1980's. It raises the cost of production
    in Mexico by requiring greater investments in labor and in the
    environment. It lowers the trade barriers. On automobiles alone, the
    domestic content requirement will be lowered, and we'll be able to go
    from selling one to 50,000 American cars in one year alone. It will give
    us access to a Mexican market on preferential terms as compared with our
    Japanese and our European competitors, something that we have seen on
    the reverse side not only in Europe but especially in Asia. And it will
    create good jobs. We'll not only get more jobs out of this, but the jobs
    we get related to exports pay on average about 17 percent more than
    nonexport-related jobs in this country.
        And look at the Mexicans. You know, frankly, I'm getting a little
    weary of hearing people criticize Mexico as not perfect. You think
    everybody else we trade with in the world is perfect? Look at the
    progress they have made. It's hard to show a country that's made a
    stronger commitment to open markets and a free enterprise system, coming
    from a long way back.
        In most of my lifetime, if you wanted to be a popular politician in
    Mexico, the way to be popular was to badmouth the United States, blame
    all of the problems of the people on the United States. The last two
    Presidents of Mexico have started to turn that around. This President
    said, ``We're going to compete in the global economy, and we're going to
    try to have open relationships. And we're going to start with the United
    States.'' And unilaterally, they have lowered a lot of their tariffs,
    even though they're still 2.5 times as high as ours. And now we've got
    the trade surplus that Lee Iacocca talked about.
        We can do so much better if we adopt this agreement and we give
    ourselves a chance to compete in a friendly way with a country that now
    likes the United States, wants to be tied to the United States, full of
    80 million people who spend 70 percent of the money they spend on
    foreign products in the United States of America. It is a pretty good
    deal, and it's time we started to take it.
        We believe that this agreement will create 200,000 new jobs by 1995
    alone. Keep in mind, as has already been said, the Mexican economy today
    is only about one-twentieth the size of the American economy; it's about
    the size of the economy of California from Los Angeles County to the
    Mexican border. And already these folks are accounting for a $6 billion
    trade surplus.
        Imagine what would happen to the American economy as the Mexican
    economy grows, as the people there have their incomes go up, as they
    have more money to spend, and as they have a special trade relationship
    with the United States. Imagine, those of you who are involved in
    manufacturing, all the other things that are going to happen if we have
    this special relationship. One of our American toy manufacturers has
    already announced that they will change their plant location from China
    to Mexico and therefore will buy what is 85 percent of the value of the
    toy, the plastic parts, from an American company instead of a Japanese
    company. There are absolutely unforeseeable consequences of this.
        Let me just tell you about a couple of the companies that we just
    saw. The Harris Corporation is the number one United States supplier of
    radio and TV broadcast equipment. Twenty-nine percent of its $3 billion
    in annual sales come from exports. And in the last couple

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    of years, sales to Mexico have gone from $12 million to $40 million a
    year, despite 20 percent tariffs. Imagine what will happen when the
    tariffs drop: More people will be hired.
        There's a small business from Covington, Kentucky, represented back
    here, the Monarch Tool and Manufacturing Company, which began to export
    coin slots to Mexico over the last 3 years. The company was foundering
    in the mid-eighties. Now almost 70 percent of its sales come from
    exports.
        There's a company here from California, of which I am a satisfied
    customer, Golden Bear Sportswear. During the 1980's, this company, which
    makes among other things leather bomber jackets, moved its factory from
    San Francisco to Korea. And after 4 years they moved back. The lady that
    runs the company wrote me one of the most moving letters I've ever
    received, saying that she was absolutely determined to keep jobs in
    America and in California, to work with the people who helped to build
    the company and buy its products. Now the business is flourishing, and
    the owners are proud to put ``Made in the U.S.A.'' on the jackets. The
    family-owned business with 100 employees makes 100,000 jackets a year,
    most marketed through retailers like Brooks Brothers, the Gap, L.L.
    Bean, and Lands' End. They have annual sales of $16 million. Instead of
    moving a plant to Korea, they'd like to move some of those jackets to
    Mexico. I think we ought to give them a chance to do it. That's what
    America is all about.
        The beacon of our country's technological genius, Hewlett-Packard of
    Palo Alto, California, has computers which now face a 20 percent tariff
    in Mexico, which will drop to zero. Three years ago, Mexicans bought
    120,000 personal computers. Last year they bought 390,000 personal
    computers. Imagine how many personal computers 80 million people could
    buy if there were not a 20 percent duty on those products.
        Let me just say two other things about this. One person that I
    talked to on the line, and I wish I could remember where he was, said,
    ``You know, Mr. President, as important as NAFTA is for Mexico and
    American trade, it may be actually more important for other things. It
    will say to the world whether we're a good trading partner. It will say
    to the world whether the United States Government has a constant policy
    of supporting expanded trade and whether the President and the trade
    apparatus of the country can be trusted to make deals that America
    adheres to.'' Yes, you said that. [Laughter] And I thank you for that.
    And I can tell you this, it will also say to the world and especially to
    the rest of Latin America whether the United States wants to be a good
    neighbor again, whether we want to reestablish the kind of feeling that
    existed 30 years ago and 60 years ago.
        I tell you, my friends, democracy and the fever for a market economy
    is sweeping across Latin America. I dream of the day when we'll have
    over 700 million people in this trading bloc united in believing that we
    can help one another grow and flourish. But all the other countries of
    the world are looking at us, and all the other countries of Latin
    America want to know: Are we going to do this or not?
        Colombia, not a very big country, has a President struggling to
    liberate its country from the scourge of the dominance of drugs,
    struggling to develop a diversified free market economy. In the last 2
    years, that little country's increased their purchases of American
    products by 69 and 64 percent on their own. The President of Colombia
    says, ``I want to be a part of NAFTA.''
        Chile, for so long a military dictatorship, is now a democratic free
    market economy endorsing NAFTA. They don't benefit from it. They just
    want it to be a symbol of something they can be a part of. Look at
    Argentina, once the eighth wealthiest country in the entire world,
    finally on the way back again. We have opportunities we cannot dream of.
    I don't know how long it will take us to put all that back together if
    we turn away from this.
        The last thing I want to say is this: I have really tried to avoid
    talking about all the bad things that will happen if it doesn't pass
    because I want us to be optimistic and upbeat. And I don't want us to
    adopt this out of fear. There's been too much fearmongering on the other
    side, and all kinds of ridiculous statements made. But it is simply a
    fact that Mexico needs access to sophisticated goods and products, that
    Mexico needs access to investors who can make secure investments.
        What would we do in America if we turn away from this and they make
    this sort of arrangement with Japan or with Europe, and they make the
    investments there, and then we have to deal with their products coming
    through the back door from Mexico? What will happen to our job base? I'm
    telling you, everything people worried about in the 1980's will get
    worse if this thing is voted down and will get better

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    if it's voted up.
        My friends in California worried about the large influx of illegal
    immigrants--California, a State built by immigrants but burdened by
    illegal immigration in volume too great for a State with a very high
    unemployment rate today to handle. And people are afraid there. What's
    going to happen if it passes, or if it doesn't pass? If NAFTA passes,
    you won't have what you have now, which is everybody runs up to the
    maquiladora line, gets a job in a factory, and then runs across the line
    to get a better job. Instead there will be more uniform growth in
    investment across the country, and people will be able to work at home
    with their families. And over the period of the next few years, we will
    dramatically reduce pressures on illegal immigration from Mexico to the
    United States.
        But if you beat this, will it reduce the pressure for people looking
    for illegal immigration? No. It will increase the pressure on people
    coming here. So if you want to have the immigration problem eased, you
    must vote for NAFTA, not against it. We can go through issue after issue
    after issue, and it's the same.
        So I say to you again what we started this with. I know this has
    been a tough time for most Americans. There's all this bewildering
    change in the world, and it's making people's jobs less secure. And at
    the same time, we've got a lot of problems here at home with violence,
    with the availability and cost of health care, with all the other things
    that are bothering our people. But we are trying to address those in
    this administration. We're trying to give Americans greater security in
    their family lives, in their education lives, with their health care,
    and on their streets. But we cannot create security out of an
    unwillingness to change.
        This vote really is going to say a lot about what kind of people we
    expect to be. Are we going to hunker down and turn away and say, ``My
    goodness, we're going to be overcome by a trade agreement with Mexico''?
    Or are we going to take this as the first step toward reaching out to
    the rest of the world, saying Americans can compete and win again?
        We've got all the evidence we need. We know that it's not just the
    United States. No wealthy country in the world today can create new jobs
    without expanding trade. It cannot be done. Nobody is doing it. Nobody
    is doing it. And if you look at Europe, the most protectionist countries
    have higher unemployment rates. The most open market in Europe, Germany,
    is the only country with an unemployment rate as low as ours. I'm
    telling you, this is going to define what kind of people we're going to
    be and whether we want to really compete and win in the global economy.
    I think Americans are winners. And I think when it comes down to it, the
    Congress will vote for us to win.
        I want to say this one thing on behalf of the Members of the
    Congress. They have to make this vote. I'm working with them to make
    sure that we can get the training we need for people who will be
    dislocated. We need to do that for people anyway, all across America.
    And we will have a strategy to help those areas of the country that are
    already in trouble that have nothing to do with this. But the Congress
    tells me over and over again, they hear from the people who are against
    NAFTA because they're afraid and they're whipped up. They don't hear
    from the people who are for it, who are going to win.
        So we brought you here today not only to send a message to them but
    so that I could ask you and companies like you and employees like your
    employees all across America to call or write the Members of the
    Congress in every State, without regard to party, to talk about this.
    They need to hear from people who will get jobs, who will have increased
    incomes, who will have increased opportunities.
        I agree with Mr. Iacocca. We have no one to blame but ourselves if
    this thing goes down. We've got the facts on our side; they've got the
    fear on their side. We need to get the facts to the Congress in the
    faces of the people who will win from this agreement. And we have to do
    that.
        Every time you have to face a big change in your life, you can make
    one of two decisions: You can hunker down and hope it'll go away, or you
    can sort of face it and make it turn out all right. You can make change
    your friend. If you hunker down and hope it goes away, that works about
    one time in 100. The other 99 percent of the time, you better figure out
    a way to make change your friend, because it's coming at you anyway. The
    world economy is coming at us anyway. We have already paid the price for
    our inadequacies. We are now competitive, and we can win. And it is time
    we use NAFTA to prove it to ourselves, as well as to the rest of the
    world.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    [[Page 1781]]

    Note: The President spoke at 10:31 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Harold Sumpter, senior vice
    president, H&H Industries, and steelworker Bob Scheydt.