    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [April 12, 1996]
    [Pages 574-578]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Progress Report on Auto Trade With Japan and on the
    Administration's Economic Team
    April 12, 1996

        Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President, Ambassador Kantor, Senator
    Levin, and Congressman Levin; all the distinguished leaders from the
    auto industry and Mr. J.C. Phillips from the UAW and to Jim Hill; all
    the people here from the agencies that are part of our Nation's economic
    team that really worked so hard to achieve these results. I welcome all
    of you here.
        I want to thank you for what you said, Jim. I am a car guy. I was 6
    years old the first time I crawled underneath a 1952 Buick in my
    father's tiny dealership in Hope, Arkansas, population 6,000, and I
    never quite got over it. And one of the things that I promised myself I
    would do if I ever got a chance to have an impact on it was to give the
    American automobile industry the chance to be rewarded for its
    willingness to compete. And that is what we have worked hard to do in
    this administration.
        I just saw something--Mickey Kantor and I walked outside, along with
    the Vice President, Mr. Panetta, and I saw something I never thought I
    would live to see--and just 4 years ago, if you had told me that I would
    see it, I'm not sure I would have believed it--right-hand drive American
    models made by American workers in American plants bound for Japan, a
    Ford Taurus, a GM-built Cavalier, a Chrysler Neon, built for the
    Japanese market where consumers are now freely buying tens of thousands
    more American cars than ever before. These new exports, as others have
    said, are the results of efforts by our car makers and our economic
    team. We have worked to expand our trade on fair terms not only with
    Japan but with others throughout the world. These exports show what we
    can do when we truly work together and when others work with us in a
    spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit.
        The boost in sales is tremendous news for American workers, for our
    auto and auto parts manufacturers, for our strong relationship with
    Japan. I also want to say it is good news for the people of Japan. When
    I first went to Japan in 1993, I said to the Japanese people what I will
    have the opportunity to reiterate in just a couple of days: We have no
    more important bilateral relationship. We are bound together in our
    support for democracy and freedom and for the security of freedom-loving
    peoples in Asia and now elsewhere, as Japan has shouldered bigger and
    bigger burdens to help us all pursue the goals that we share. We also
    know that if we have a free and open trading relationship with them, it
    will help their economy, it will give their consumers more choices, and
    it will help both nations to be more competitive as we hurtle our way
    forward into the 21st century.
        Just 3 years ago our ties were strained by a trading relationship
    not beneficial to our Nation. The trade wasn't working, but the ties
    weren't working either. Today our relationship is working better for
    both of us. There's a lot to be done. In a big and complex relationship
    like ours there will always be a lot to be done. But we are
    strengthening and deepening our relationship. It is now a powerful force
    for creating opportunity, for advancing democracy, and for improving the
    quality of life in both our countries.
        I also want to say that, as Ambassador Kantor said earlier, I
    believe that the right kind of trade

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    is critical for our Nation's future. I believe the position of the
    United States must always be that we favor open trade. We are not afraid
    to compete. We believe we can win. But if we're going to live in a world
    where we want others to raise their standard of living to our level, and
    we no longer control anything like the percentage of the gross national
    product we did at the end of World War II, then, fine, we'll compete and
    we'll help others to advance, but we expect the same access to foreign
    markets that we give foreign producers to ours. It is a simple rule and
    one we have followed. It is a critical part of our economic strategy.
        When I became President, job growth was slow; the deficit was
    exploding, more than twice as high as it is now. We did two things. We
    put in place an economic strategy: lower the deficit, cut it in half in
    4 years, get interest rates down, increase investments in education and
    training, in research and technology, reform and shrink and make more
    effective the National Government, and expand trade on terms both free
    and fair. That strategy has been implemented by a national economic
    team, the first time we ever had a fully functioning National Economic
    Council to parallel our National Security Council, to integrate, plan,
    and implement the economic strategies of this country and to work in
    full partnership with the private sector.
        We now have 8\1/2\ million more jobs than we had just 3 years ago.
    And I might say, of the G-7 countries, that's more than 8 million more
    than the other six nations combined. We have the lowest combined rates
    of unemployment and inflation in 27 years. And trade has been critical
    to that; as Ambassador Kantor said, 200 separate agreements--20 with
    Japan alone, now 21. Our exports are at an all-time high, our auto
    producers now leading the world.
        Even more important, we have a framework agreement in our
    relationship with Japan which establishes a comprehensive system for
    dealing with problems that inevitably arise between two great nations.
    As a result, our exports there are up over 30 percent; in the areas
    covered by the agreements, up 85 percent. Today, exports to Japan
    support more than 800,000 good-paying American jobs, including 150,000
    new ones since 1992. Most of these are good, high-wage jobs because jobs
    tied to exports on average pay 15 percent above the national average
    wage.
        We are, therefore, in expanding our trade to an all-time high--a
    full third in the last 3 years--slowly helping to change the wage
    picture that has bedeviled so many American workers who think that
    they'll work harder and harder and never get a raise. In 1992, 6 percent
    of our new jobs were in high-wage industries. In 1995, almost 60 percent
    of our new jobs were in high-wage industries. This strategy will work.
    It is not a miracle; it will not work overnight; it plainly depends for
    its success primarily on the willingness of American workers and
    American business leaders to work together, to be competitive, to be
    productive. But it will work. This report shows the difference this
    approach will make.
        Last year we reached a landmark agreement that increased our access
    to the Japanese market for autos and for auto parts. One of the many
    legacies of our friend Secretary Ron Brown was the establishment with
    Ambassador Kantor of a team to monitor and enforce the agreement. This
    report shows that since the agreement was signed, sales of American-made
    autos have increased by more than a third. Sales of American-made cars,
    trucks, and vans rose more than 225 percent between 1992 and 1995,
    including over 58,000 Big Three cars exported from the U.S. just last
    year. In the first 2 months of this year, our people sold one-third more
    autos to Japan than in the same period last year. So the movement is all
    in the right direction.
        In auto parts, exports over the last 3 years up 60 percent, to $1.6
    billion last year. Now, to give you one example of the evidence that
    this agreement and its faithful implementation and your work has made,
    Tenneco Automotive of Houston spent 25 years attempting to break into
    the Japanese market. Now their Monroe shock absorbers will be sold in
    almost 7,500 Japanese shops.
        These developments are part of the rebirth of our auto industry, an
    industry that lost 49,000 jobs in the 4 years before I took office and
    has gained about 80,000 in the 3 years since. Because of the partnership
    between labor and management, for the first time in 15 years, last year
    the United States auto industry again was number one in the world. So
    again, let me thank the representatives of the Big Three, the many auto
    parts producers, and all the workers who have worked so hard to make our
    belief in this economic strategy a reality.
        The Big Three will be introducing 17 new right-hand models for the
    Japanese market in the next 2 years. To those of us who have any

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    memory of this, it seems almost inconceivable. But you always believed
    you could compete with anybody, anywhere, as long as you had a level
    playing field. I still believe that. I know we're right. And I know all
    Americans will be very proud of these results.
        Let me just say one other thing about the trade issue. I'm happy
    about the debate in America on trade today, but I sometimes think it
    falls into two camps which don't reflect the real world. There are
    people who say, well, America has got a lot of folks who haven't gotten
    a raise in a long time, and we may be creating a lot of jobs but there
    are people who are losing jobs. Well, that's true. But it is also true
    everywhere in the world. It is not true that the answer is to put a wall
    up around America and walk away from our obligations and our
    opportunities to compete and win. If we did that, we would pay a
    terrible price.
        Then there are others who say, well, we ought to be for free trade,
    but we shouldn't worry so much about all these specific agreements and
    all these details. We shouldn't have governments negotiating this, we
    ought to just sort of get out of the way and see what happens and hope
    for the best. We tried it that way and it didn't work out very well.
        Both of those arguments are wrong. Neither reflects an understanding
    of how the real world works. The right policy is to be for free and fair
    trade. The right governmental action is to support a genuinely
    competitive marketplace, help to create it, and then get out of the way.
    That is the proper policy. If we put up walls, what would happen to the
    jobs of the people who make cars in plants like the Chrysler plant in
    Belvidere, Illinois, or Fords in Atlanta or Chevrolets in Lorain, Ohio,
    that produce those right-hand drive vehicles we just saw? On the other
    hand, if we didn't want to hold others to the same standards we expect
    to meet in world competition, what would happen to all the jobs of the
    people who would not be able to stand against the kind of unfair
    practices we have seen practiced in the past?
        We made a good start in the auto industry. The Japanese have
    proceeded in good faith. I think it's been good for them as well as us.
    I hope that we will see the day when these policies will be the law of
    the world, when the World Trade Organization, because of GATT, really
    will have an integrated world trading system. I hope we will see the day
    when we will see these kinds of benefits in dealing with all of Asia,
    all of Latin America, all of Europe, all of Africa, all of the countries
    that were formerly part of the Communist bloc.
        But I know this: These people in the auto industry have proved that
    our policy works. I thank you, Senator Levin and Congressman Levin, for
    your work. I want to thank all the people in our administration, the
    economic team and, most of all, I want to thank the workers and the
    managers in the auto industry for proving that we're doing the right
    thing.
        Now, before I close let me just make one more announcement. We could
    not have done what we did here if we hadn't had a vision not only of the
    economic policy we wanted to pursue but also of how we wanted to pursue
    it. We put together an economic team for the first time in the history
    of this Government that really functions. I can't imagine why it had
    never been done before, but it hadn't. There were a lot of different
    power centers in the Federal Government allegedly making economic
    policy. We decided to change that. We had a good strategy, good
    teamwork, and good players.
        We didn't have a better player than the late Secretary of Commerce,
    Ron Brown. Nobody was more determined that American workers and
    companies would get a fair shake around the world, and his extraordinary
    efforts are a model for us all. He memorized--as I said at his memorial
    service the other day, he made every Department of Commerce employee
    memorize a one-sentence mission statement that ought to be the mission
    of everybody in our Government: Our mission is to ensure economic
    opportunity for every American.
        Well, we still have to do that, and I don't want to miss a beat. And
    I am determined that we will continue on the work that Ron Brown was
    engaged in the last day of his life. So today I am proud to announce
    that I intend to appoint Ambassador Mickey Kantor to be the next
    Secretary of Commerce. And I will send his nomination to the Senate
    promptly.
        This is not an easy time for the people at the Commerce Department,
    but they will do fine. And I think that we need to send a clear signal
    to the rest of America and to the world that we don't intend to miss a
    beat. We have got a strategy, we have got a team, it's working, and
    we're going forward with it.
        No Trade Representative has ever amassed a record of achievement
    that surpasses Mickey

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    Kantor's in the last 3\1/2\ years: GATT, NAFTA, 200 separate agreements,
    enforcement, the consequences that flowed from it. But frankly, it
    hasn't been easy. If you think that you have been to something tough,
    you ought to sit in those trade negotiations day-in and day-out, and
    then when you finish one, be told to get on an airplane to fly halfway
    around the world and get in the middle of another one.

        I have heard Mickey say a thousand times he was 6 foot 4 and blond-
    headed when he came to work here. [Laughter] He and Ron Brown used to
    joke, you know, that they were the Alphonse and Gaston of our economic
    team. Mickey was the bad cop; Ron was the good cop. I thought we ought
    to give him the chance to be a good cop for a change. [Laughter] And I
    want to thank him for his service.

        I also want to announce that I will ask his principal deputy,
    Charlene Barshefsky, who has been a brilliant negotiator for our
    country, to serve as acting U.S. Trade Representative. She has been a
    deputy there since I took office. She has been our chief trade
    negotiator in Latin America and in Asia. She is not here today because
    she is on her way back from a trade mission. And I have gone to many
    places and had world leaders ask me who she was because they virtually
    got tears in their eyes after 4 or 5 hours of trying to outmaneuver her.
    [Laughter] So I want to thank her in her absence.

        Finally, I want to make one more announcement. In just a few days we
    will have another very important vacancy in our economic team, one that
    has been critical to the success of our plans to being able to cut the
    deficit in half and continue to invest in America's priorities, and that
    is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I have been very
    blessed to have two outstanding Directors, and I gave them both other
    jobs.

        Leon Panetta is now serving with great distinction as the White
    House Chief of Staff and longs for the days when he used to have that
    other job. [Laughter] Alice Rivlin will soon be moving on to become the
    Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board and therefore the object of our
    complaints whenever the economy is not growing as we think it should.
    [Laughter] And so there is, or soon will be, a vacancy at the Office of
    Management and Budget. And I am pleased to announce today that I intend
    to nominate as the next director Franklin D. Raines.
        Frank Raines has had extensive experience in Government and in the
    private sector. He worked at OMB and on the domestic policy staff under
    President Carter. Since 1991, he has served in the very important
    position of vice chair of the Federal National Mortgage Association,
    Fannie Mae. He knows the world of finance; he respects the bottom line.
    He also understands, I know from our work in the transition and from a
    conversation we had just yesterday, the very real, human impact the work
    of the budget has on the American people and the opportunities they will
    or will not have to make the most of their own lives. So I am very proud
    to ask him to join our team.
        I, frankly, was a little surprised that he was willing to leave that
    incredibly lucrative position--how shall I say it. [Laughter] So I told
    Frank when he came here that he was about to join the ranks of Bob Rubin
    and Mickey Kantor and a number of other successful people who came into
    this administration to help save the middle class, and when they leave
    they'll be part of it. [Laughter]
        As you might imagine, this has been a profoundly moving and
    difficult week for all of us in our political family. Mickey Kantor and
    I were particularly close to Ron Brown; we loved him very much. I am
    doing what I think is the right thing to do today for the economic
    interests of America's business and for the future of all those workers
    who deserve the opportunity that is set out in the Commerce Department's
    mission statement. I've known Mickey Kantor a very long time. Except for
    the color of their skins, the careers that he and Ron Brown had are
    remarkably parallel over a long period of time. And if he does as well
    at Commerce as he did at the trade office, we are in very good hands
    indeed.
        I also want to thank Frank Raines for proving once again that this
    country is full of patriotic Americans who love their country, who are
    willing to serve, and who are willing to make real, tangible sacrifices
    to serve, because the work of democracy, the work of citizenship is what
    makes the rest of this country move and go.
        I thank them both, and I'd like to ask if, each in their turn,
    they'd like to come up and just make a few remarks. First, Mickey
    Kantor.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:40 p.m. in the

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    East Room at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to J.C.
    Phillips, chairman, United Auto Workers Local 882, and Jim Hill, Atlanta
    plant manager, Ford Motor Co.