    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [December 14, 1993]
    [Pages 2172-2173]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Exchange With Reporters
    December 14, 1993

    Multilateral Trade Negotiations

        Q. Mr. President, are you disappointed about audiovisuals in the
    GATT?

        The President. Well, I'm disappointed we didn't get it resolved, but
    I sure wanted it out of there once I realized--I didn't want to settle
    for a bad deal. So we took it out, and now it will be subject to the
    ordinary trade rules. I think it's far better than accepting what was
    offered. And no one I knew, including the people in the audiovisual
    industry, thought it was worth bringing the whole thing down over. They
    just didn't want to get stuck with a bad deal. In other words, if we
    could get it out, which we did, as Americans, they want our country to
    benefit from these overall big reductions in tariffs. But they just
    didn't want to get trapped into something that wasn't good. So I think
    we're in pretty good shape.

    Russia

        Q. Mr. President, now that you have had another day to think about
    the Russian election results----

        The President. Well, obviously--no, I haven't talked to anybody
    about my trip to Russia--any of our people. So I don't know what I'm
    going to do there. I think that it is--I'll say just what I said
    yesterday--I think it was probably largely a protest vote. I think that
    when people are having a tough time and they have a tough time over a
    long period of years, they often look for simple answers. It's not
    unique to Russia. You can see that in many other democracies throughout
    the world and throughout history. It's not all that unusual. I don't
    think any of us expect to be giving up Alaska any time soon. But I
    think, there must be a lot of people in Russia who are extremely
    frustrated and have a high level of anger because they've been through a
    lot of tough times.

        And the people running the multinational institutions that are
    trying to help these countries convert from old-line Communist, top-
    down, command-and-control economies to market economies need to be very
    sensitive to that. I think we need to ask ourselves not so much about
    him right now, but about what this means for democracy in Russia, in
    Poland, and in other republics of the former Soviet Union and the other
    countries of Eastern Europe. And I'll have more to say about that as we
    go along.

        Q. Would you rule out----

        The President. Look, I have talked to nobody about anything. I can't
    even comment on that. I have not discussed my trip. We have not--except
    in general terms with my own staff. We've been working on other things.
    I have

    [[Page 2173]]

    not had time to even think about it.

    Note: The exchange began at approximately 11 a.m. at the Mellon
    Auditorium. A tape was not available for verification of the content of
    this exchange.