    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [November 13, 1993]
    [Pages 1978-1979]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    November 13, 1993

        Good morning. This week, Americans celebrated Veterans Day, the day
    we set aside to thank those who served, kept us secure, and helped
    preserve the freedoms each of us cherish.
        On Thursday, after paying my respects to the veterans at Arlington
    Cemetery, I met with two groups of patriots who span the generations:
    some of the remaining veterans of World War I and active duty personnel
    who served with such distinction in Somalia. These brave Americans are
    linked across the years to each other and to history by the valor with
    which they served our Nation. None of them shrunk from danger or
    challenge. In troubled times, they reached beyond our borders to protect
    our interests.
        And as the world undergoes the most profound changes in the last 50
    years, today we can draw a very powerful lesson from their courage and
    their vision. Just as we never protected our country by shrinking from a
    military threat, we cannot protect our prosperity by shrinking from our
    economic challenges.
        Since I became President, our administration has been dedicated to
    restoring the American economy, to making work pay for all Americans
    again, to creating the conditions that will allow our private sector to
    create more jobs and higher incomes and more opportunity for everyone.
        This economic program is beginning to work. We've lowered the
    deficit, kept inflation down, pushed interest rates down to record lows.
    Millions of Americans have refinanced their homes and businesses. And
    even though we still don't have as many jobs as we'd like, the private
    sector has produced more jobs in the last 10 months than in the previous
    4 years.
        Ultimately, however, the only way a wealthy nation can grow and
    create jobs and lift incomes is to lower trade barriers and expand trade
    in a growing global economy. There simply is no other way that any rich
    country in the world can create jobs and raise incomes than to find
    other customers for their goods and services. America is no exception.
    We have a chance to do this in a few days when Congress considers the
    trade agreement called NAFTA.
        The North American Free Trade Agreement will lower Mexico's barriers
    to American exports. When these barriers come down, we'll sell another
    55,000 more American-made cars in Mexico next year alone. We'll sell
    hundreds of thousands more computers and create 200,000 new high-paying
    jobs in the next 2 years. NAFTA is a real good deal for America. And if
    we don't open up Mexico for our products, you can be sure that the
    Europeans and the Japanese will open up Mexico for theirs.
        You see, if NAFTA passes, we'll have a competitive advantage over
    the Japanese and the Europeans in the Mexican market. If it fails, and
    Japan or Europe takes up the challenge that we walked away from, then
    they'll have an advantage over us.
        Why then do some of our fellow citizens fear NAFTA so much? Because
    in the last 20 years their world has changed a lot and often not for the
    better. Technology can now go anywhere in the world. Money and
    information travel the globe in a millisecond. Skills we once had alone,
    others now share.
        This new global economy has created an awful lot of opportunity, but
    it's also created a lot of hardship. We have to do many things to
    adjust. We're working now to devise a completely new system to replace
    our outdated unemployment system called reemployment. So that any-

    [[Page 1979]]

    one who loses a job, for whatever reason, will immediately receive the
    education and training and job placement help they need. We passed the
    family leave law so that you can't lose your job when you take some time
    off for a newborn baby or a sick parent; so that people can be good
    workers and good family members at the same time. We've got to have
    health care reform, and we've presented a plan that will provide, for
    the first time in our history, health care security to all Americans,
    even if they lose their jobs. And we're determined to fight crime with
    more police on the beat, more boot camps for youthful offenders, more
    jail cells for people who need that, too. That's what the crime bill,
    now moving through the Congress, will do.
        So in education, in health care, in family leave, in crime, we're
    working hard to give the American people the security all of us need to
    face the changes we confront. But we cannot make the world the way it
    was. We simply cannot protect our workers, their jobs, and their incomes
    from the winds of global competition by trying to build walls. The only
    way to provide economic security and expanded opportunity for the middle
    class in this country is to take this new world head on, to compete and
    to win. And we can win. The American worker is now the most productive
    worker in the world again. We can out-compete and out-perform anyone
    anywhere. We will be number one again for a long time if we reach out to
    the world to compete. That's why American workers have nothing to fear
    from NAFTA and why American workers should be very concerned if we vote
    NAFTA down, walk away from Mexico and the rest of Latin America and the
    opportunities they present.
        The day after Congress votes on NAFTA, I'm going to Seattle to meet
    with the leaders from Asian countries, including China and Japan, to ask
    them to open up their markets to our products, too. By the end of this
    year I'm going to try very hard to conclude an even bigger worldwide
    trade agreement that will bring down trade barriers to our products in
    Europe and the world over. Together with other nations, we can literally
    reignite growth in the world's economy and create millions of new jobs
    and export opportunities for all Americans. But we must begin this week
    by passing NAFTA. NAFTA is not only a trade agreement with Mexico, it
    has become a symbol of our commitment to growth and to trade throughout
    the world. And believe me, whichever way the Congress votes, it will
    send a signal to every nation in the world about our intentions. Are we
    going to maintain our lead in the global economy and push others to open
    their markets to our products and services and to everyone else's, or
    are we going to retreat into a shell of protectionism?
        If we pass NAFTA, it can put us at the center of the largest trading
    bloc in the world with Canada and Mexico, one that will quickly grow
    larger as we bring in the rest of Latin America. If we don't, we'll be
    stuck while someone else takes advantage of the opportunity. You know,
    this vote will tell us a lot about who we are as Americans in 1993.
    Great nations are defined not by how they act when the rules are clear
    and the future is set and the times are easy but by the choices they
    make during periods of great change when the future is not clear, the
    times are tough, and people have to forge their own future.
        This is a defining moment for America. Will we seize the moment?
    Will we vote for hope over fear? The history of America's greatness says
    we will, for we've always triumphed when our Nation has engaged the
    world and great challenges it offers. By passing NAFTA, Congress can
    demonstrate that we intend to compete and win in a thriving global
    economy. We took the lead in creating it, now we have to make it again
    for the 21st century. We can build a future we'll be proud to leave our
    children, and the future begins on Wednesday with a positive vote for
    the North American Free Trade Agreement.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at approximately 3:40 p.m. on November 12
    in the Oval Office at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on
    November 13.