    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [November 10, 1994]
    [Pages 2052-2060]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at
    Georgetown University
    November 10, 1994

        Thank you very much, Father O'Donovan, for your introduction and for
    our wonderful trip to the Middle East. Thank you, Dean Krogh, for your
    comments and for your outstanding leadership. To the Members of
    Congress, the Cabinet, and the administration who are here, members of
    the faculty, the diplomatic corps, the students, and a special word of
    hello and

    [[Page 2053]]

    thanks to many of my former classmates who are here. It's nice for us to
    be here with no obligation to take notes. [Laughter]
        I want to thank Robert Wagner for endowing this series of lectures,
    and also Ron Lignelli and the Georgetown Phantoms for keeping you all
    entertained. It is wonderful to be back in this magnificent hall. And I
    am particularly honored to be here to give this first, inaugural
    lecture.
        In the fall of 1964, with about 200 other freshmen in the School of
    Foreign Service, I was enrolled in Carroll Quigley's Western
    civilization course. All of us--that was 30 years ago; it's kind of
    spooky now to think about it. [Laughter] All of us who were there then--
    and there were a bunch of us here who were there then--we can remember
    things from those lectures. At the end of the series he did a lecture on
    Plato, and he always had this appropriately beat-up copy of the
    ``Republic'' which he ripped into at the end of the lecture and threw
    across the room and said, ``Plato was a fascist.'' [Laughter]
        Even then I was a decent politician, and I remember the best grade I
    made on any of his tests was the question about Plato and the myth of
    the cave, and I only wrote one page in the little test book and three
    other lines. And he said, ``If you can explain it in this short a
    duration, you obviously understand it''--[laughter]--``98.'' Hooray! I
    might add, it was the only 98 I received in the entire year. [Laughter]
        Carroll Quigley's ideas were expressed well, both in the very terse
    prose of his book on civilizations and the high drama of his lectures.
    He left a lasting impression, I think, on every one of us who ever
    entered his class. And as you have already heard Father O'Donovan say,
    he drummed into us that Western civilization was the greatest of all,
    and America was the best expression of Western civilization because of
    its commitment to future preference, the belief that the future could be
    better than the present and that we have an obligation to make it so. It
    is interesting that we would come here today at a time when, frankly, a
    lot of our fellow Americans, in the face of ample evidence to support
    Carroll Quigley's dictum, are not sure they believe it anymore.
        Three years ago, here in this hall as a candidate for President, I
    had an opportunity on three different occasions to speak about those
    lessons of Professor Quigley's and how I thought they applied to the
    present moment. And I expressed the belief then that, working together,
    we could shape the future and meet the challenges of a rapidly changing
    world at home and abroad at the end of the cold war, but that we could
    only do it by leaving behind the old political debates and the divisions
    and forging a new dynamic center of American politics, not a compromise
    but a move forward based on the ideas of opportunity, responsibility,
    and community.
        I argued 3 years ago that the main job of Government is not to solve
    all our problems. In this day and age, it simply can't do that. But it's
    also not to sit on the sidelines and shout and preach at people because
    that's not enough. Instead, I believed then and I believe today that the
    primary obligation of Government is to empower citizens to make the most
    of their own lives and then to insist on responsible behavior in turn.
        Finally, I urged that we should see ourselves not as isolated
    individuals but as members of interdependent communities, locally,
    nationally, and of course, globally, communities in which we have to
    work together if we're going to make the most of our opportunities and
    deal with our problems.
        After I was elected President, I was well aware going into the
    office that it would be very difficult to translate these ideas into
    specific policies, then to get them enacted into law, and to keep the
    country with me during a process which would take time and patience,
    which would inevitably be contentious, and which would require a
    delicate balance between a determination to stand on principle and a
    willingness to have principled compromise.
        Why is this? First of all, the problems we face are absolutely
    immense. The social problems of crime and violence, rooted in the
    breakdown of families and communities, have been building in this
    country for 30 years at least. And they plainly require for their
    reversal much more than specific governmental actions. Indeed, no matter
    what we do, millions of Americans are going to have to decide to change
    their ways, to put the interest of their families, their communities,
    and their own personal development ahead of momentary selfish impulses.
        The economic problems we face--the stagnation of American incomes,
    the declining rate of security in jobs and health care and retire-

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    ment--these things have been building for 20 years. And they, too,
    plainly require for their reversal more than simply specific
    governmental policy changes, although these are imperative.
        The pressures of the global economy are relentless and dynamic. And
    Government can help to deal with them, but it cannot reverse them. The
    fact that workers must be willing to upgrade their education and their
    skills throughout a lifetime is absolute. Government can help to create
    opportunities to do that, but workers must take advantage of them and
    cannot deny the facts of economic life.
        We also know that in this time, particularly as we are going through
    a period of change, people feel uncertainty because they don't have a
    new framework within which to view the world after the cold war that is
    neat and understandable and that has a definable enemy. And here at
    home, people feel genuine insecurities that are personal to them, an
    uncertainty about their personal future.
        We see it all the time. Yesterday there were several stories about
    people saying, ``Well, yeah, there has been a recovery, but I don't
    think it's going to last.'' There is this feeling that we're waiting for
    the other shoe to drop. A lot of people feel that even as they walk home
    every day. I never will forget the man in New York who told me during
    the campaign--he was working in a hotel--that he had come here from
    another country; he was proud to be an immigrant. He was doing well
    economically. But his son wasn't free. And I asked him what he meant,
    and he said, ``Because my son can't walk across the street and play in
    the park unless I go with him. My son can't even walk two blocks to
    school unless I go with him.'' He said, ``My son has read up on all the
    candidates. He says I should vote for you. If I do, I want you to do one
    simple thing: Make my son free.'' In this atmosphere, people are easily
    unsettled.
        Finally, there is the immutable fact that in every age and time,
    real change is difficult. Most everybody is for change in general but
    then against it in particular. Machiavelli said over 400 years ago, ``It
    must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out,
    nor more doubtful of success, nor dangerous to handle than to initiate a
    new order of things.'' He turned out to be pretty smart. [Laughter]
        In spite of all these difficulties, until Tuesday I thought we'd
    made a pretty good beginning. [Laughter]
        The voters clearly all along had wanted smaller, more effective,
    less intrusive Government that reflects both our values and our
    interests, governmental action that brings stability into their lives
    and doesn't create too many problems because most folks think they've
    got enough problems already. But they plainly want us also to be strong
    and secure and to lead them into the next century in a country that is
    strong and secure, with the American dream alive.
        The reason I thought we'd done pretty well is that in the last 22
    months, we brought the deficit down more than at any time in history in
    a comparable period, and next year we'll have 3 years of deficit
    reduction in a row for the first time since Mr. Truman was President.
    We've reduced the Federal work force by 70,000 already and put it on a
    path to shrink to its smallest size since Mr. Kennedy was President.
    More than 5 million new jobs have come into our economy, and this year
    for the first time in a good, long while, a lot of them are high-wage
    jobs. We have more high-wage jobs coming into the American economy this
    year than in the last 5 years combined.
        We have deregulated significant parts of our economy, and we've
    freed States from regulation so that they can pursue their own paths to
    reform welfare and health care and education.
        We passed a very strong crime bill with tough penalties and funds
    for prison and police and with prevention programs that have enjoyed the
    support of members of both parties and all law enforcement agencies.
    We've supported working families with the family leave law, with
    childhood immunizations, with expanded Head Start and more affordable
    college loans and income tax cuts for 15 million working families with
    incomes of up to $27,000.
        We've expanded trade dramatically in these last 2 years, opened new
    markets, relaxed a lot of our controls on our own products so they can
    be sold overseas in the aftermath of the cold war. We have kept the
    world's strongest, most mobile, most flexible defense. We've worked for
    peace and freedom from the Persian Gulf and the Middle East to Northern
    Ireland and southern Africa and of course in Haiti. And for the first
    time since the dawn of the nuclear age, there are no Russian missiles
    pointed at the people of the United States.
        Most of these measures required the support of members of my party
    in Congress, especially in the especially polarized environment in which

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    we have been operating. In an ordinary time, that record would have
    generated support for Congress men and women who made it, and a desire
    to have more people to have that kind of record continue. Even though
    some of the decisions were tough, and change is always controversial,
    and there is always a lag time between when change occurs and when it is
    felt, nonetheless, in an ordinary time, even though tough decisions were
    required, especially in the area of deficit reduction and crime where
    things had gotten so out of hand for so long, the people who made that
    record would have been supported.
        But this is no ordinary time. And on Tuesday the voters reflected
    their frustration with the pace of change and the messy and often, to
    them, almost revolting process by which it was made; their frustration
    that some things were not done which ought to have been done,
    particularly in the area of political reform. And they clearly said that
    we have to do more to limit Government's reach into their lives and to
    make more efficient the Government they pay for.
        They also thought that, frankly, we sent them some mixed signals,
    especially in the area of the economic program, the crime bill with the
    very controversial assault weapons ban, and the health care program,
    where after over $200 million by the best estimates had been spent by
    people who were organized against it, a remarkable feat of reverse
    plastic surgery was performed.
        Well, anyway, the reasons for this vote will be analyzed by experts
    who are more objective than I am for a long time. But you don't have to
    be as bright as a tree full of owls to say that it was a smashing
    victory for the Republicans, for their strategy, their tactics, and
    their message that Government is no longer the problem--that was their
    message in the eighties--now Government is the enemy.
        Well, I think it's also clear that I bear some responsibilities for
    policies and political decisions that hurt our candidates. I do believe
    that we were moving in the right direction, and I think we have to
    continue to try to address the problems of this country. But I also
    regret particularly the loss of those who were trying to take the
    country in the direction that the voters said they wanted: the people
    who voted to reduce the deficit, to reduce Government, to deregulate
    large areas of our economy; people who voted to break partisan gridlock.
    I regret that in this swirl, this national sea change, that people who
    actually were building the blocks of the future that the American people
    in every survey say they want were lost to the Congress. And I hope they
    will have a chance to serve again.
        Regardless, the American people have now entrusted their fate and
    their future to a Republican-led Congress and a Democratic President. I
    have heard them, and I will continue to listen closely to them. With all
    my strength I will work to pursue the new Democrat agenda I outlined
    here at Georgetown in 1991. And I hope the Republicans will move beyond
    the rancor of the campaign rhetoric to be new Republicans as well.
        After all, the American people told us to make America work for
    them. They want to be the subject of this debate--not the Republicans,
    not the Democrats, not the President, not the Congress--they want to be
    the subject of this debate. They want us to rebuild the American dream,
    to stop playing politics now and start pulling together.
        I know we can do it. There is clear evidence in what has already
    happened in the last couple of years. In this last Congress, there were
    bipartisan majorities who stood up for education reform, for the new
    trade agreements, for national service, for a tough crime bill, for many
    other efforts to move our country forward.
        Now the American people want us to move ahead to help solve the
    problems that still block our progress as a people. I am ready to share
    responsibility with the Republican Party when it assumes leadership in
    the Congress. I ask them only to join me in the center of public debate,
    the place where the best ideas for the next generation must arise. I ask
    them to join me in moving forward to keep America strong. Already there
    are areas where clearly we can work together: welfare reform,
    congressional reform, the line-item veto, continuing efforts to reduce
    and reinvent Government. And I must say, their term limits proposal is
    looking better to me every day. [Laughter]
        I hope we'll be working together on lobby reform, campaign finance
    reform, continued advances in education and training, and health care
    reform that leads us to real solutions. Above all, we must not do
    anything to jeopardize this country's economic recovery.
        All of us who do the people's business must be ready to work, as
    Professor Quigley said over

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    and over again, to make the future better than the present. That
    commitment is not only important at home, it is terribly important when
    it comes to our crucial role in the world. From the beginning of this
    administration, we have chosen to engage fully in this rapidly changing
    world, and the results are known to the people the world over, from
    Haiti to North Korea, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East. We have
    remained firm in our commitments to build greater security, to spread
    democracy, and to usher in a new age of prosperity and open markets all
    across the world.
        Today I want to talk with you about the third of those goals, our
    strategy in the global economy, and three crucial events that are coming
    up in rapid succession in the next couple of weeks that will help to
    broaden and bolster our progress.
        When I came to this hall as a candidate for President in 1991, I
    said something that I'm still having trouble getting everybody in the
    country to focus on, that we had to tear down the wall in our thinking
    between domestic and foreign policy and forge a new economic policy,
    rooted in our own security interests, that would serve ordinary
    Americans by launching a new era of global growth. I argued then that
    all our efforts to lead the world would fail if we weren't strong at
    home, but that if we withdrew from the emerging global economy, our
    workers and our families would inevitably be hurt. And from the day I
    took office, we have acted on those beliefs.
        Our economic strategy embraces change and prosperity, growth and
    security. We are pursuing this strategy because it promotes peace and
    prosperity around the world, but also because it is clearly in the
    interests of our working people and their families. It's good for
    American families. It produces high-wage jobs. It's a strategy that
    enables the United States to keep leading the fight to open markets
    worldwide, a strategy to promote free trade and the growth that
    undergirds democracies and helps to assure peace, a strategy to help
    every American family, every American worker, every American farmer
    benefit from the worldwide growth and the prosperity it will yield. The
    center, the heart of our economic policy must be an unbreakable link
    between what we do to open the global marketplace and what we do to
    empower American workers to deal with that marketplace.
        Understandably, at the end of the cold war when the nuclear threat
    is receding, when we have so many pressing problems here at home and
    when people are clearly worried about their own personal circumstances,
    and when the Government itself faces serious financial constraints
    because of years and years and years of piling up massive deficits,
    there are those on both the traditional left and traditional right in
    our country who would like us to withdraw more from the world,
    politically, strategically, economically, to stay more within our own
    borders.
        We have not; and we need only look around the world, to Kuwait, to
    the former Soviet Union, to the Middle East, to the Korean Peninsula, to
    NATO and its Partnership For Peace, to Haiti to see how important it is
    for America to continue the role of engagement in the world.
        Long before the cold war was over, a new global economy was
    emerging, an economy which started 20 years ago to put great pressures
    on the wages and benefits of our working people, to put great pressure
    on many of our companies to compete and win, to make internal changes in
    order to survive and prosper.
        Now, this has helped to prompt a serious question about what our
    country should want and about whether Government should act or should
    retreat in this area of our national life. I think what we have to want
    is a strong America, a strong America in terms of national security and
    national defense, but also in terms of stronger families, better
    education, higher paying jobs, and safer streets. Strong at home, strong
    abroad; two sides of the same coin.
        The United States has never been in a stronger economic position to
    meet both these challenges to compete and win in the world. We have the
    world's most productive work force, an economy that is gaining strength
    every day, an economy that just since I became President has created now
    over 5 million new jobs. And as I said, there are more high-wage jobs
    this year than there have been in the previous 5 years. And this gives
    us some hope that finally we have begun to move to counteract this 20-
    year trend of stagnant wages, a trend which unbelievably last year--at a
    time when we had rapid growth, millions of new jobs, and no inflation--
    still led to a slight drop in the average income of American workers.
        Our Government is working as a partner with the private sector on
    this strategy. We are reemerging as the world's largest producer of

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    automobiles, for the first time in 15 years. We've regained our position
    as the globe's top seller of semiconductors. We're creating the
    industries of tomorrow, from biotechnology to express delivery. We've
    opened markets with our Japanese partners in products from cellular
    telephones to rice. We've sold power plants to India, fiber optic
    systems to Indonesia. Our businesses are proving that they can meet and
    beat the global competition if only given a chance to do so.
        But we know that we cannot meet the challenges of competition unless
    we help all Americans also adjust to the changes we're all facing. For
    too many of our people, trade still appears to be a gale-force wind,
    just another threat ready to blow away the prospects of a stable job at
    a good wage, just another problem adding to the already unstable,
    uncertain condition of their lives.
        I believe that if we continue to work together on this trade issue--
    Democrats, Republicans, and independents--as Americans, we can agree on
    ways to help all our people make their way in the new economy. We must
    help workers whose jobs are threatened by changing the workplace, by
    doing what we have to do to help them deal with imports or shifting
    winds. They'll have to retool. They'll have to reengage. But we can do
    that.
        In the recovery which is occurring now, the economy has created more
    high-wage jobs. It is growing steadily. But as I said, our workers'
    wages, millions of them, are still caught in that period of stagnation.
    And last year more than a million Americans lost their health insurance.
    Almost all of them were in working families. This is not a problem that
    will go away. We are the only nation with an advanced economy, the only
    one, where in the last 10 years the percentage of our people with health
    care coverage under 65 has declined. So it is easy to understand why
    many Americans still aren't feeling the impact of growth. It's also easy
    to understand why many Americans are frustrated by what it takes to
    sustain that growth.
        On Tuesday morning, I had an interesting conversation with a radio
    talk show host in Detroit who said to me, ``Mr. President, I'm not one
    of those cynics.'' He said, ``I see these jobs coming into our economy.
    The biggest problem we've got now in the auto industry is people
    complaining about overtime.'' But he said, ``I want to ask you
    something. Is it absolutely necessary for the Fed to raise interest
    rates every time we announce more jobs? I don't mind helping other
    people to get jobs, but I don't see why my income should go down just
    because we're hiring new people.'' And he said, ``If you've got a
    variable mortgage, or you're about to go buy a car, that's what happens.
    We get punished. The economy adds jobs; my income goes down. I don't get
    it. If there were inflation, I would understand.'' These are interesting
    questions, but this is the way the American people are thinking about
    this complex global society in which we live.
        So our ultimate goal has to be to both spur the growth and provide
    the skills and create the package of high-wage jobs that will reverse
    the trend and increase the ability of our people to feel secure in the
    face of all this change, to see the changes that are going on as our
    friend and not our enemy. Of course, I believe very strongly that the
    only way we can do it is to keep breaking down barriers and keep
    expanding our exports. Every billion dollars in exports creates about
    16,000 jobs in America, and on average, those jobs pay much better than
    other jobs in our work force.
        Look at NAFTA, our trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that
    provided our greatest moment of bipartisan cooperation in the last
    Congress. Thanks to NAFTA, new exports to Mexico and Canada have helped
    our businesses create as many as 100,000 jobs. In the 6 months after the
    treaty's adoption, exports from the United States to Mexico increased by
    nearly 20 percent, about 3 times the rate of our overall export growth
    in this time of economic expansion. And the future looks brighter still
    and will be even brighter as the growth rate in Mexico picks up.
        But NAFTA and the debate that led up to its passage also reminds us
    of the changing nature of the economy. In a time when capital and
    factories and entire industries are completely mobile, our competitive
    edge and the ultimate source of our wealth must be our own people's
    knowledge and skill and their ability to continue to learn throughout a
    lifetime. At the dawn of this century, this new century, and indeed this
    new millennium, the livelihoods of one-half our people will depend upon
    their ability to engage in what we now call lifetime learning. As never
    before, we are what we know; we earn based on what we learn.
        Again I say, this should not be a partisan issue. We should continue
    our vigorous program

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    to give our children and our workers the world's finest education and
    training and retraining. In less than 2 years, with bipartisan support
    in Congress, we've already expanded Head Start, established the first-
    ever national standards for our schools, put our Nation on the right
    road by saying, ``Here are the national standards; we'll help you
    measure how you're doing. But you get to decide, with fewer Federal
    strings, not more, how to meet those standards.''
        We've created a national network of youth apprenticeship programs to
    help high school students who want to go on into the workplace, don't go
    to college, but do want good jobs to continue to increase their
    educational attainment, again with bipartisan support. We reformed the
    student loan program to give millions and millions of Americans lower
    cost and better repayment options so that no one should ever refrain
    from going to college because they're afraid to borrow the money because
    they're afraid they'll never pay it back.
        Now, our next big challenge in the coming Congress is to replace the
    unemployment system with reemployment, helping workers who are laid off,
    most of whom now will never be called back to their jobs, but who do
    need new training to develop new skills and find new jobs. The present
    unemployment system is geared to yesterday's economy. It is premised on
    the idea that you will be called back to your old job and you will be
    given a living standard that is far below what you're earning in the
    workplace just to get you by until you're called back. Most people are
    not called back in America anymore, and it is time to fundamentally
    change that system. It would be better for workers, but it would plainly
    be better for employers as well because they would not be paying for an
    unemployment system that does not achieve the objectives that it was
    originally designed to achieve.
        This will help our workers because, as I say, nobody, nobody can
    promise to remove the uncertainty from modern international economic
    life. They will face uncertainty whether we act or not. What we wish our
    people to do is to look at the future with more confidence, more
    optimism. And if together we help them to get the tools they need to be
    ready for whatever the future holds, they will be able to do that.
        In the coming weeks, we have the opportunity to continue pursuing
    our economic strategy and to put in place three more crucial building
    blocks for American success in the 21st century. Next week, as part of
    our strategy to develop regional initiatives that put the United States
    at the center of emerging and dynamic regions, I'll be in Indonesia to
    meet with leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. I'll
    be following that up with meeting with 33 democratically elected leaders
    of our hemisphere at next month's Summit of the Americas down in Miami.
    And in the midst of these meetings, as Congress reconvenes, we'll be
    engaged in an historic effort to pass GATT, the largest, most
    comprehensive trade agreement ever.
        In this century there have been a handful of congressional votes
    that have demonstrated what kind of country we are and what kind of
    people we're going to be. The vote on the League of Nations after the
    First World War was one. And when the United States failed to engage, we
    paid a terrible price and so did the rest of the world in economic
    stagnation, isolation, and eventually another world war.
        After the second war, Congress faced a vote on the Marshall plan. At
    that time, we rose to the challenge and put aside our partisan
    differences and helped to launch 50 years of peace and prosperity, not
    only with the Marshall plan but with other institutions that rebuilt our
    former enemies and constructed the framework of security which enabled
    us ultimately to prevail in the cold war.
        Now once again we face such a test. The United States has been
    leading the world in pushing for the adoption of GATT. And now we've got
    to follow through and lead once again. We should not delay GATT. That
    will jeopardize our leadership and our prosperity. Negotiations among
    scores of nations have produced an agreement that will produce the
    biggest tax cut in history and in the long run help tie together a
    global economy and usher in a new era of prosperity. It is the key link
    to free trade, more open societies, and economic growth all around this
    world.
        For the United States it means both free and fair trade. For 40
    years our markets have been more open than those of other major
    economies. These rules are not right for 1994. GATT will require all
    nations to finally do what we have already done, cut tariffs, eliminate
    nontariff barriers, protect copyrights and patents. It will create
    hundreds of thousands of new jobs here in United States, good-paying
    jobs, and it will level the playing field for our companies, our

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    workers, our farmers. It will make our exports more competitive, exactly
    when our ability to send more American products and services overseas is
    expanding.
        For 8 years, Presidents of both parties, from President Reagan to
    President Bush to our administration, have worked hard to complete this
    agreement. We were able to do it. GATT has enjoyed the kind of broad
    bipartisan support in Congress that NAFTA did. And it's supported by a
    wide range of business and consumer and farm groups. I invite the
    leaders and the members of both parties once again to put aside our
    partisan differences and do what's right for all Americans. And I'm
    confident that Congress will ratify the GATT this month.
        While we work to pass GATT, I'll also be looking ahead to continuing
    to cement our relations with two of the fastest growing regions in the
    world, Asia and Latin America. For decades, our sights have been set on
    traditional economic relationships, the large, mature economies of
    Europe and Japan. These nations will remain close allies, key
    competitors, and critical markets for us. But the new century demands a
    new strategy, and it is clear that the young, vigorous economies of Asia
    and the Western Hemisphere offer enormous untapped potential for our
    people to prosper.
        Consider this: Asia's dynamic economies account now for 4 out of
    every 10 dollars of world trade. Almost one-third of our own exports go
    now to the Pacific Rim. Markets in Asia have already created more than 2
    million American jobs. And over the next 6 years, the Asian members of
    APEC plan to invest $1.1 trillion in infrastructure, enough to rebuild
    15 Santa Monica freeways every day.
        Yet, despite these opportunities, the presence of stiff economic
    competition and the end of the cold war have left some Asians to wonder
    whether we're ready to withdraw from the region. Nothing could be
    further from the truth. That's why, after visiting six countries in 3
    days in the Middle East, and coming home for 8 days of this campaign,
    and trying to stand here without missing a beat on my speech--
    [laughter]--I am going to Indonesia to say, we remain engaged.
        We must say to the world, we will maintain and strengthen our
    bilateral security relationships with Japan, with South Korea, with
    Australia, with the Philippines, with Thailand and others, including
    that forward presence of our troops to deter conflict. We will encourage
    stronger regional security structures, and we will continue our active
    work to implement the agreement for a nonnuclear Korean Peninsula.
        We are also committed to expand our economic ties across the
    Pacific. And as I said, in spite of all the events of the last few days
    and the fact that I'm a little bit jet-lagged from the first round, I
    think it's important for the United States to be in Jakarta. When we met
    in Seattle a year ago it was at my invitation, because I wanted the
    leaders of the 14 Asian economies to come together for the first time,
    to invigorate APEC, to embrace a vision of a new Asia-Pacific community
    with no artificial dividing line down the middle of the Pacific.
        Next week we'll move from a common vision to a common direction.
    We'll work to set concrete goals to open the way for doing business in
    Asia, taking down tariff walls, eliminating nontariff barriers,
    simplifying procedures and standards to smooth the flow of goods. I hope
    and I expect we'll set a target date for achieving free and open trade
    among all the Asia-Pacific economies.
        APEC is fundamentally an economic institution, so our meetings will
    focus on those questions. But there will be private meetings, and during
    them, I will also raise some other questions. I'll raise our concerns
    about many other issues, including the progress of human rights and
    democracy in the region.
        These things require patience and persistence, but we must not give
    up on our commitment to the values in which we believe, even as we
    pursue our own economic interests. Over the long run, we have learned in
    America that justice and progress go hand-in-hand, and it will also be
    true for our interests in the world.
        Even though there may be no sudden breakthroughs, we must continue
    to be persistent. As in the past, I will be doing everything I can to be
    frank in terms of our differences as well as our potential partnerships
    with the Chinese, with the Indonesians, and with others.
        I don't think we have to choose between increasing trade and
    fostering human rights and open societies. Experience shows us over and
    over again that commerce can promote cooperation, that more prosperity
    helps to open societies to the world, and that the more societies are
    open the more they understand that maximizing freedom and prosperity can
    go hand-in-hand. The rule of law, accountable government, the

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    free flow of ideas, all these things encourage economic development and
    political maturity and freedom.
        The advance of human rights and democratic values also requires
    strong government-to-government contacts. So I'll continue to promote
    without apology those rights and values in Asia and around the world. We
    have a long history of friendly relations with Indonesia, with other
    countries, but we are engaged in a range of bilateral and global issues
    with the Indonesians, with the Chinese, and with others. We recognize
    and we respect the differences among cultures. Like all Americans, I
    struggle with our own society's ongoing tensions and inequities and very
    difficult social problems. But I don't believe the search for human
    dignity is peculiar to the American culture. Everywhere people aspire to
    be treated with dignity, to give voice to their opinions, to have a say
    in choosing their leaders. At a time when we are strong enough to
    inspire people around the world, we have to keep pressing on for
    freedom.
        In Asia and elsewhere, we have good reason for hope, we have good
    reason for progress because free markets and democracy are on the move.
    The new global community is taking place all around the world,
    enshrouding the values of tolerance and liberty and civil society. I
    guess I really do believe that history is on our side and we have to
    keep trying to push it along.
        If we're looking for further confirmation of these trends, of
    course, we can find them in abundance in our own hemisphere. One month
    from now, leaders from South and Central America, the Caribbean, and
    North America will be in Miami at our invitation to discuss the future
    of our hemisphere and to celebrate the spread of freedom and democracy.
    Think of it: 33 leaders, including President Aristide of Haiti, will
    attend the Summit of the Americas, the first such hemispheric gathering
    in almost three decades; all democratically elected leaders.
        There, we'll be able to work to strengthen the roots of those
    democracies through sustainable development; we'll be able to take
    crucial steps to increase trade, to maintain growth in the region, to
    lay concrete plans to open markets, to expand trade. We'll have a
    partnership for prosperity that stretches from Canada to the tip of
    South America. It means more jobs and higher income. It also means more
    peace, more freedom, and more security.
        As with GATT and APEC, the Summit of the Americas will move us
    toward a future of greater prosperity. It will tie us to new partners.
    And if we follow through, historians will look back at these events and
    see that our generation reached across the oceans and the borders to
    cement relationships with nations that will rank among the economic and
    political powers of the 21st century. We will have demonstrated that the
    American people have learned the lessons of the past, have learned the
    lessons of the present, and are ready for all the challenges that lie
    ahead.
        Thirty years ago in this hall, Carroll Quigley told the class of
    freshmen that I was a part of that our greatness rested on the
    extraordinarily American belief that we could make the future better
    than the past. Many Americans today don't believe it, but the evidence
    is there; the future is there. We have to have the courage to act on
    that belief, to seize that future, and to keep our people optimistic,
    outward-looking, and strong. If we are strong in our convictions, the
    reality is that our future will be strong as well.
        Thank you all, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:36 a.m. in Gaston Hall at Georgetown
    University. In his remarks, he referred to Rev. Leo J. O'Donovan,
    S.P.J., president, Georgetown University; Peter F. Krogh, dean, School
    of Foreign Service; and alumnus Robert Wagner.