    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [December 11, 1994]
    [Pages 2173-2174]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Final Session of the Summit of the Americas in Miami
    December 11, 1994

        The President. Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and
    gentlemen, let me begin by thanking the members of the host committee
    and the people of the city of Miami and the State of Florida.
        I am very, very pleased that we made the decision to come to Miami.
    I thank Governor Chiles and Lieutenant Governor MacKay and all those who
    made the case that we should be here. Our hosts have done a tremendous
    job of hosting this historic event. At this extraordinary moment of
    opportunity and responsibility, they have made our work easier and,
    especially last evening, much more enjoyable.
        The Summit of the Americas has more than fulfilled our expectations.
    Future generations will look back on the Miami summit as a moment when
    the course of history in the Americas changed for the better. We worked
    hard to arrive at this point. Yesterday, we achieved agreement on the
    many issues before us. Our talks were lively, open, and wide-ranging.
    They were filled with the spirit of democracy and mutual respect and a
    deep determination to increase the jobs and incomes of our people,
    improve the quality of their lives, and protect their freedoms.
        Meanwhile, the First Lady's summit on children, all of our spouses
    working together, looking toward the future of our children in this
    hemisphere, in many ways captured what the spirit of this meeting is all
    about, for all of our efforts will fall more to the benefit of our
    children than to our generation.
        Now I would like to ask the representatives of each of the major
    geographical regions of the Americas, the Caribbean, North America,
    Central America, and South America, to report on the agreements we have
    forged. In addition, we will hear from the leaders of two dynamic and
    vital institutions that are serving our hemisphere and that will loom
    large in our plans for the future, the Inter-American Development Bank
    and the Organization of American States. Then President Aristide of
    Haiti, who embodies our hemisphere's determination to uphold the
    sovereign rule of the people, will speak.
        Let us begin the plenary.

    [At this point, the final plenary session of the summit proceeded.]

        The President. First let me thank all those who have spoken before.
    I thank the Prime Minister and the Presidents, distinguished President
    of the Inter-American Development Bank, Secretary General of the
    Organization of American States. I thank especially President Aristide
    for his moving remarks. And I thank all of you here present who have
    supported the multinational effort to restore democracy to Haiti.
        We come here to begin a new era, an era of real promise. When Vice
    President Gore and I asked the American people to give us a chance to
    serve, we relied upon two phrases that we said over and over again. One
    was ``Put people first.'' The other was ``Don't stop thinking about
    tomorrow.'' In this meeting, for these days, we have put our people
    first, and we have thought about tomorrow.
        We are bound together by geography, by history, by culture, but most
    important, now by shared values: a ferocious devotion to freedom,
    democracy, social justice; a determination to improve the lives of all
    our people; and a determination to preserve the natural world we have
    inherited and that we must pass on.
        We have tried to give life to these values at this summit by
    agreeing to create a free trade area throughout our hemisphere, to bring
    together our nations to improve the quality of life for our people, and
    to strengthen and make permanent the march of democracy. These
    achievements have been given concrete expres-

    [[Page 2174]]

    sion by our commitment to negotiate with specific steps a free trade
    agreement for a free trade area of the Americas by 2005.
        This is more than words; this is a commitment to deeds. Free trade
    in our hemisphere has been talked about for years, but because of this
    process we've launched this weekend, it will now become a reality. Free
    trade will yield dramatic benefits in terms of growth and jobs and
    higher incomes. It will permit us to pursue economic opportunities and
    at the same time to reaffirm our commitment to promote the rights and
    interests of our workers so that all our people have the chance to
    benefit from free trade.
        I couldn't help thinking, when President Figueres was talking about
    the gross national product measuring everything but what is most
    important to us, that that is true but that unless we attend to the
    health of our economy, the things that are most important to us are more
    difficult to achieve.
        If you think about how many millions of people in this hemisphere,
    including in our country, are working harder today than they were just a
    few years ago for lower incomes, if you think about how many millions of
    people have less security in the face of the bewildering changes in the
    world we live in, what it means is they have less time for their
    families, for raising their children, less time for leisure, less time
    for citizenship, less time for learning in a calm and open atmosphere
    what the major issues of the day are. And there is not so much room in
    their spirit for the clear head and the generosity it takes to be an
    effective citizen in a strong democracy.
        So that all these things we care about, that we want for our people,
    require us to do our best to make sure that they can be victors in this
    great cauldron of change that is bringing on the next century.
        We also vowed to do our best to make our governments work better; to
    protect our democracies by making sure we could do the job we're
    supposed to do well, and that we stop doing things we shouldn't be
    doing; to protecting human rights; to fighting illicit drugs and
    international crime; to rooting out corruption. And we agreed to pursue
    vigorously sustainable development.
        In a way, sustainable development is an unfortunate phrase because
    it has so little poetry about it. But the meaning is very profound. It
    means to me that we must pursue short-term goals, consistent with our
    enduring values. It means we must pursue individual opportunity,
    consistent with our responsibility to our larger communities. It means
    we must share in the Earth's bounty without breaking our bonds with
    Mother Nature. It means we must take for ourselves in ways that leave
    more for our children. It means we must expand the circle of those who
    are able to live up to their God-given capacities, the women, the
    indigenous people, the minorities, the poor children of this hemisphere.
        For all these commitments, I thank you, all of you who have come
    here representing all these nations. The agenda we have embraced is
    ambitious and worthy. We have actually committed ourselves to 23
    separate and specific initiatives and more than 100 action steps
    protecting the diversity of plant and animal species, phasing out lead
    in gasoline, reducing infant mortality, improving education and health
    care. Our goal is to create a whole new architecture for the
    relationship of the nations and the peoples of the Americas to ensure
    that dichos become hechos, that words are turned into deeds.
        So as we come to the end of this historic Summit of the Americas, as
    we proclaim the dawn of this new partnership, as we say we have done
    this to put our people first and we have kept our eye on tomorrow, let
    us remember that the road ahead will be full of challenges and
    difficulties and that beyond all of the specifics of what we have done,
    perhaps most enduring is the friendship, the spirit of trust that has
    been built here. There is truly a spirit of Miami.
        And in future years when the difficulties mount up, when it is
    difficult to sustain the hope about which President Aristide spoke so
    beautifully, may future leaders remember the spirit of Miami. O espirito
    de Miami. L'esprit de Miami. El espiritu de Miami. The spirit of Miami.
        Thank you all, and God bless you.
        Now we will sign the declaration--if they will bring it to us.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:14 a.m. at the James L. Knight Center.
    In his remarks, he referred to Enrique Iglesias, President, Inter-
    American Development Bank, and Cesar Juairia, Secretary General,
    Organization of American States.