[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[September 24, 1993]
[Pages 1592-1594]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on NAFTA and an Exchange With Reporters
September 24, 1993

    The President. I was asked on the way out of Florida this morning to 
make a comment on the Court of Appeals decision involving NAFTA, where 
the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and said, in effect, that 
NAFTA does not have to have an environmental impact statement. First, I 
applaud the decision. And second, I want to emphasize that if this 
agreement goes through, it will lead to improvements in the environment 
and increased investment on the Mexican side of the border in 
environmental cleanup.
    I also would like to say, based on the cause and conversations that 
I have been having with Members of Congress, I'm beginning to feel a 
little bit better about this agreement. I think that more and more 
Members of Congress who actually listen to the arguments, pro and con, 
understand that the overwhelming majority of the arguments against NAFTA 
are complaints about things that have already happened under the 
existing law, all of which NAFTA will make

[[Page 1593]]

better.
    NAFTA will raise wages more quickly in Mexico than if we don't adopt 
it. It will raise environmental spending more in Mexico than if we don't 
adopt it. It will reduce illegal immigration more in Mexico than if we 
don't adopt it. And it will plainly lead to more high-tech jobs, high-
wage jobs in this country. And also I think more of our Members of 
Congress understand that NAFTA stands for, in the minds of the rest of 
the market-oriented countries of Latin America a desire on the part of 
the United States to have a hemispheric trading bloc, which everyone 
believes will lead to more jobs and higher incomes in America; that is, 
NAFTA is the beginning, after which you can look at Chile, at Venezuela, 
at Argentina, at other of the market-oriented economies in Latin 
America. These things, I think, are beginning to sink in, and I'm very 
hopeful that we're going to be making some more progress. I think we 
are.

South Africa

    Q. Mr. President, on another subject, Nelson Mandela today called 
for an end to the sanctions on South Africa. I know you've followed this 
issue closely for many, many years. Is the United States now prepared, 
are you prepared to lift the sanctions?
    The President. When Mr. Mandela was here with President de Klerk, we 
talked about this. And then I've talked with him on the phone since he 
was here. And I'm looking forward to doing it again. Obviously the 
United States is going to be heavily influenced by the remarkable turn 
of events in South Africa, by the continued commitment on the part of 
the people of South Africa to move to a multiracial democracy. And so I 
will be very influenced, obviously, by what Mr. Mandela says. But I'll 
have a statement about that----

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, when you go to the United Nations on Monday, can 
you tell us what you'll tell them about your feelings concerning Bosnia?
    The President. Tune in Monday. I don't want to give the speech 
today.

Russia

    Q. Mr. President, regarding the situation in Moscow, President 
Yeltsin now is clearly threatening to use force, if necessary, to disarm 
his opponents in the Parliament. Does that affect your attitude towards 
the situation in there, your support for Yeltsin?
    The President. My support has not been affected by anything that has 
happened thus far. It is a difficult situation. I don't think we should 
attempt to quarterback every move from the United States. And I don't 
think I have anything else to say about it yet.

Anticrime Legislation

    Q. Mr. President, there are a lot of people who are asking, after 
your comments this morning on the nexus between violence and medical 
costs, what your crime policies are really doing to make a change in 
this other than just support for gun control?
    The President. Well, I've got a crime bill up there that goes far 
beyond support for the Brady bill and for a restriction on automatic 
weapons--I mean, assault weapons, although I favor both those very 
strongly. We also, through the crime bill and several other initiatives, 
are attempting to put more police officers on the street, to support 
boot camps and other alternative forms of punishment for young people to 
try to steer them away from a life of crime, and to support improvements 
in the criminal justice system itself to make punishment more swift and 
more sure.
    But if you look at the crime bill, if you look at the effort to put 
more police officers on the street and to support community policing, 
and if you look at the effort to provide boot camps and alternative 
forms of punishment and pass the Brady bill and pass some limits on 
these semi-automatic assault weapons, that's a pretty broad-based 
anticrime strategy. I hope that the Congress will act on it and act on 
it this year.

NAFTA

    Q. Mr. President, some people have expressed the view that NAFTA 
constitutes a kind of an unfortunate obstacle to you in political terms 
with all the focus that will be needed to pass the health care reform. 
How do you see the politics of the two issues fitting or not fitting 
together?
    The President. I disagree with that, because, first of all, let's 
look at what has to happen now on health care reform. We're going to do 
one more round of intensive consultations, then we'll have some 
legislation to send to the Hill that embodies the principles I discussed 
with the American people. There will be other bills.

[[Page 1594]]

They will go to the committees, and then we will begin the careful and 
exhaustive process of reviewing this.
    Meanwhile, NAFTA is on a much faster time track. The trade agreement 
has to be turned into legislation within a limited period of time by the 
Congress. And then there's a limited period of time for debate. So I 
will be spending a significant amount of time everyday calling Members 
of Congress in both parties trying to line up support and working on 
other people like Mr. Iacocca, to try to get them to speak out for us 
and working on bringing people into this debate who are selling things 
to Mexico and people whose jobs depend on it to show that it's a job 
winner as well as trying to illustrate to the Congress that the great 
benefits of NAFTA may well lie in its ability to be expanded to the rest 
of Latin America.
    So I've got a big agenda. And the NAFTA issue will be over before 
too long. That is, under the fast track legislation on trade agreements, 
there is a fixed amount of time we have to do it. We're either going to 
do it or not. It'll be over--the health care debate is on a different 
timetable. So I don't see them conflicting now. We just had to get the 
health care debate started, or we never would have finished it.

Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, on health care reform, if you end up 
underestimating the cost of your plan, are you calling for a formal 
annual review mechanism that would allow for tax increases or benefit 
cuts, if necessary, in order to meet your target?
    The President. What I think we should do is we should have an annual 
review process which would permit us, if we don't realize the savings 
through management we intend to realize, to make a decision to phase in 
some of the newer benefits over a longer period of time. That would 
control what we do--or to present them as options that can be paid for 
separately at the decision of the consumer until the savings enable us 
to phase them in completely.
    I do not believe--I will say again--I do not believe you can justify 
taking the world's most expensive and bureaucratic system in which most 
Americans who have insurance pay more than they should, under any 
conceivable model that they'd be in, anyone besides this one, and ask 
them to pay taxes on top of that to pay for the uninsured. We have got 
to manage this system to make it simpler, to achieve the savings without 
sacrificing choice and quality. We can plainly do it. We know it's been 
done in Germany, just to take one other example. We know it's been done 
several places in the United States. And the administration is happy to 
carry the burden into these congressional hearings of demonstrating the 
evidence that it can be done. But if it doesn't happen just as it 
should, then what should happen is we should phase the benefits in more 
slowly or present them as options that can be paid for. We shouldn't 
raise general taxes on people who are already paying too much for their 
own health care to pay for somebody else's health care who's not paying 
anything for it. I just don't think that's right.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 2:35 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House, upon his return from St. Petersburg, FL. In his remarks, he 
referred to former Chrysler Corp. chairman Lee Iacocca.