    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [November 7, 1997]
    [Pages 1509-1511]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Fast-Track Trade Legislation and an Exchange With Reporters
    November 7, 1997

        The President. Good morning. Today we received more good news for
    America's workers and their families: real wages continue to rise, the
    American economy added another 280,000 jobs in October alone, and
    unemployment dropped to 4.7 percent. The American economy has now added
    13\1/2\ million new jobs since 1993, while inflation has remained low
    and stable. All this proves further evidence that our economy is the
    strongest it's been in a generation. This also shows we have to move
    forward with the strategy that is working, the strategy of balancing the
    budget, investing in our people, and expanding American exports. That
    has brought us to this place of prosperity.
        The choice before Congress is clear. I think it is imperative that
    we understand that a key reason more people are working and that wages
    are rising and that unemployment is down to the lowest level in more
    than two decades is that we have opened new markets and won new
    customers for American goods and services. The vote by the House of
    Representatives on fast track will determine whether we continue to move
    ahead confidently with the strategy that has brought us 13\1/2\ million
    new jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in nearly 25 years.
        Every time there is a trade agreement, we hear dire predictions of
    the consequences for American workers. The opponents of fast track would
    have you believe that if we hadn't done these trade agreements in the
    last 5 years, we'd still have all the good new jobs we have, and we
    wouldn't have lost any jobs. That is simply not true. We wouldn't have
    nearly as many of these good new jobs, and most of our job losses are
    due to changes in technology and consumer buying choices.
        Today, with 4.7 percent unemployment, we see that America's trade
    policy creates good new jobs, it does not lose them; it boosts incomes,
    rather than undercutting them. It would be a folly to turn back now.
        The right answer is to give us the authority to break down more
    trade barriers and to do more, more quickly, to help those who are
    displaced by economic changes and to do more to raise labor and
    environmental standards in other nations. That is our policy.
        If America is restricted in its ability to make trade agreements,
    then our national interest in creating good jobs, protecting the
    environment, advancing worker rights will be restricted as well. We must
    not give other nations a boost in the global economic competition so
    vital to our own economic strength. The question is not whether we are
    going to have a system of world trade but whether we have one that works
    for America, whether we have a level playing field or one tilted against
    us.
        Let me just give you one example. Now that Canada has negotiated a
    trade agreement with Chile, every major economy in the hemisphere has
    duty-free access to Chile's markets but one, the United States. And just
    yesterday Canada signed a comprehensive agreement with Argentina,
    Brazil, and other nations, ahead of the United States. That's a strategy
    of ``America last.'' It is unacceptable.
        Again I say, the choice before Congress is clear: We can rise to the
    challenge of the future, write the trade rules on our terms, spur
    further economic growth and more jobs; or we can turn our back on the
    world and fail to compete for new markets, new contracts, new jobs. More
    than ever, our economic security is also the

    [[Page 1510]]

    foundation of our national security. Our strength depends upon our
    economic allies, our trading partners, and our economy. It affects our
    ability to get other nations to cooperate with us militarily and against
    the new threats of terrorism and drugs, organized crime and weapons
    proliferation.
        If we want to keep our leadership strong and our economy on the
    right track, Congress simply must give our Nation the power to negotiate
    pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-American trade agreements, to maintain the
    momentum and confidence our economy enjoys. A Member of Congress who
    votes for fast track is doing the right thing for America.

    Iraq

        Q. Mr. President, given the statement of Chairman Butler this
    morning that he got nothing out of Saddam Hussein and given that Saddam
    Hussein hasn't responded to the international community positively
    unless military action has been taken, are you going to recommend either
    U.N.-sponsored or unilateral military action that would involve in some
    way, shape, or form U.S. forces? And when would that be?
        The President. Well, first of all, the delegation that was in Iraq
    is on its way home now, and they will report, and then the international
    community must decide what to do. I think it is important that we be
    resolute, and I think it would be a mistake to rule in or out any
    particular course of action at this moment.
        Q. How long will you be willing to wait----
        The President. Wait, go ahead, Terry [Terence Hunt, Associated
    Press] and then----
        Q. Actually, I was just going to ask you, Mr. President, do you
    think that--do you see any sign that Saddam Hussein is anything but
    defiant, that he is willing to give at all? He is still threatening to
    shoot down the U-2 spy planes, and he's refusing to let the Americans be
    part of the inspection teams. Do you see any reason for hope here?
        The President. No. I don't. But we have to be resolute and firm.
    Keep in mind what is at stake here. The international community has made
    a decision embodied in the United Nations resolution that Saddam Hussein
    must not be permitted to resume producing weapons of mass destruction.
    The advisers in UNSCOM, the inspectors there, they are the eyes and ears
    of the international community. They have been very successful, as you
    know, in doing their job. That is the issue.
        And whether he's firm or weak, in the end, the international
    community has to be firm to make sure that his regime does not resume
    its capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction.
        Q. Mr. President you seem willing to wait until the U.N. diplomats
    come back. How much longer are you willing to wait for compliance?
        The President. Well, let me say, I think we have to wait until the
    U.N. diplomats come back. We have to counsel with our allies. We have to
    give them a chance to be heard and see what we're going to do. But I
    have seen no indication that any of our allies are weakening on this.
    Everyone seems to be united in their determination to restore the
    inspections on terms that the United Nations decides, not on Saddam
    Hussein's terms.
        Q. Mr. President, will you give a visa to Tariq Aziz? And also, will
    you recommend to the Security Council or to the U.S. Ambassador to the
    U.N. that they do take military action in the Security Council? That is
    one of the options.
        The President. Well, on the Tariq Aziz question, we normally give
    anybody a visa to come to the United Nations, and that has been our
    policy. However, I don't think it ought to be used for stonewalling or
    foot-dragging, and we have that under review.
        On the second issue, I can only say what I said before: I think we
    have to be firm and resolute. At this moment, in my view, it would be a
    mistake to rule in or out any option.

    Fast-Track Trade Legislation

        Q. On fast track, Mr. President, what's wrong with leaving the
    policy as it is now--you negotiate the deal, let Congress tinker with
    it?
        The President. First of all, the main thing that's wrong with it is
    that other countries aren't interested in negotiating with us this way.
    No other country has to face that. Every country recognizes that a
    nation's parliamentary body has the right to vote up or down on the
    action by the executive. But no one--these deals are very complicated to
    negotiate; there are always lots of different aspects to it. And you
    can't say, ``Well, we're going to negotiate it and then subject it to a
    thousand amendments.'' Even within this framework there are ways to deal
    with major concerns.
        But I asked Ambassador Barshefsky last night, I said, ``Just tell me
    one more time, do you

    [[Page 1511]]

    really think we can negotiate seriously with any country without this
    authority?'' And she said, ``No. Unambiguously no.''
        Let me emphasize, however, something we have done in this. Because I
    think it's very important, and it's been completely lost in the debate.
    We have agreed to have congressional observer groups in every single
    trade negotiation the way we have congressional observer groups now on
    NATO expansion, the way we have a congressional observer group on the
    chemical weapons treaty. Any Member of Congress who has ever been on one
    of those observer groups will tell you that that dramatically increases
    the effective input of the Congress into the process on the front end.
    And we have agreed to very specific stages of involvement for the
    Congress here. And presumably, the observer group in the trade issues
    would be just like the observer group in NATO. It would include people
    who are strongly for what we are doing, people who are skeptical, people
    who may be opposed. All of them get their input.
        You know, I took a number of the congressional observers with me to
    Madrid, to the NATO conference. I would expect that to be done on all
    these trade issues. So we have offered Congress, including those who
    have reservations about certain trade agreements, an unprecedented
    amount of input on the front end into this process.
        I strongly support it, by the way. I think it is a good idea, but it
    ought to be recognized for what it is. The question that Congress should
    ask themselves is, are we going to have more or less influence over
    trade policy if this bill passes? Are we going to have more or less
    input in labor and environmental issues and more advance of that if this
    bill passes or if it fails? The answer is, more influence in other
    countries on labor and environmental issues, more input for Congress if
    the bill passes.
        No fast-track legislation has ever proposed this before. I support
    it. My policy is to push the labor and environmental issues. My policy
    is to push congressional involvement. And my policy is to do more at
    home to help people who are dislocated from their jobs for whatever
    reason. But that is not an excuse to send a signal to the world that we
    just don't expect to do trade agreements anymore with other countries
    and we don't expect to be partners.
        And other countries do not understand--what is America afraid of? No
    other country has 13\1/2\ million jobs in the last 5 years. No other
    country has a 4.7 percent unemployment rate, except for Japan, which has
    a different system, as you know. This country has outperformed every
    other country in the world, and the 220 trade agreements that we
    negotiated had a lot to do with that.
        Our barriers are lower on average than virtually every other country
    in the world. We have more to gain from this economically. What they
    want is the sort of long-term, stable political relationships that will
    stabilize democracy and guarantee long-term economic growth for them and
    give them access to high-quality products. This is a no-brainer on the
    merits. This is clear on the merits. And it is in the interest of
    working people, and it is especially in the interest of working people
    who either have or want to get higher wage jobs, because they are the
    jobs that are created by the expansion of trade.
        One of the reasons you've got these income figures going up now is
    not only that unemployment is low and therefore the labor markets are
    tighter but we are slowly changing the job mix in America because as we
    get into more trade, trade-related jobs pay higher wages. So this is
    clearly the right thing to do, and I'm determined to keep working until
    we convince a majority of the House of Representatives that it is.
        Thank you.
        Q. How close are you?
        The President. Close.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:50 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the
    White House. In his remarks, he referred to President Saddam Hussein and
    Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq. A reporter referred to Richard
    Butler, Executive Chairman, United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM)
    charged with dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.