    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [October 15, 1997]
    [Pages 1367-1371]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Business Leaders in Sao Paulo, Brazil
    October 15, 1997

        Thank you very much, Mr. Miller, for your introduction and your
    statement. Thank you, Governor, for your moving words. And thank you all
    for coming out this morning. I am delighted to be here and to be joined
    by a distinguished delegation of Americans, including the Secretary of
    State, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Education, the United
    Nations

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    Ambassador, my Special Envoy to Latin America, the National Security
    Adviser, and four distinguished Members of the House of Representatives:
    Congressman David Dreier, Congressman Jim McDermott, Congresswoman Nydia
    Velazquez, and Congressman Ruben Hinojosa. We also have the Brazilian
    Ambassador to the United States here, the minister of the Brazilian
    Government, and the mayor, and I thank them all for coming.
        I think this bespeaks the importance of the relationship between the
    United States and Brazil. I'm delighted to be in Sao Paulo, the economic
    engine of this great nation and the commercial heart of the new Latin
    America. I often hear it said now that Brazil is the land of the future.
    I think that in this city, the future is here. I thank you for giving me
    the opportunity to discuss the partnership that I hope our two nations
    will forge for the 21st century.
        All of you know that over the last decade, a genuine revolution has
    swept across this hemisphere. As never before, the Americas are coming
    together in the embrace of common goals and common values. We have a
    special responsibility and a special ability, Brazil and the United
    States, to work together with the other nations of the Americas to lead
    this process, with the largest populations and the largest economies,
    rich natural resources, enormous and fascinating diversity among our
    peoples. Most important, both of us cherish the same ideals: freedom and
    equality; respect for the individual and the integrity of the family and
    community; social justice; and peace.
        Our partnership is already broad in scope and ambition. We fight
    drugs and the spread of nuclear weapons together. We work to protect the
    rainforest and to explore the heavens together. We work to help others
    in our hemisphere turn from conflict to cooperation together. But
    nowhere can we make a greater difference for our people than by leading
    all the Americas down the path to prosperity in the new economy of the
    21st century.
        The United States has worked--watched with respect and admiration as
    Brazil has embraced strong reform. With President Cardoso's Real Plan,
    with the support of the public and the Congress, Brazil has slashed
    inflation from 2500 percent to 5 percent in only 5 years--a truly
    astonishing accomplishment. In the course of so doing, 13 million
    Brazilians have been lifted above the poverty line, growth of more than
    4 percent a year has been achieved. Brazil has become a magnet for
    billions of dollars of foreign investment, a good deal of it from the
    United States.
        Brazil's growing prosperity is good news for Brazilians but also
    good news for Americans. Last year our bilateral trade totaled more than
    $21 billion. The United States is Brazil's largest single trading
    partner, larger than the Andean Pact, the Central American common
    market, CARICOM, and MERCOSUR combined. We buy about a fifth of Brazil's
    exports, and our exports to Brazil have more than doubled since 1992. As
    Mr. Miller said, American businesses know that Brazil is a great place
    to bet on for the future, it's a good place to do business, and today
    there is, I understand, also in this audience a first-rate trade
    delegation from Seattle trying to support that proposition.
        Our big trade numbers sometimes mask a lot of individual stories,
    not always from large companies. The Snider Mold Company of Mequon,
    Wisconsin, sells molds for making water tanks to companies in Brazil.
    Brazilian firms use the equipment to replace old tanks with safer
    models, supporting jobs in both countries and providing healthier
    drinking water for families in Sao Paulo. The lives of real people are
    changed for the better by this kind of trade.
        And in Brazil, we see a large snapshot of what is happening indeed
    throughout our region, where barriers are falling, trade and investment
    are booming, trade among MERCOSUR countries has more than quadrupled
    since 1990. In that same period, the United States exports to Latin
    America have grown by more than 100 percent. This all promotes greater
    efficiency in economic growth in the Americas and brings people better
    opportunities to build better lives for themselves and their children.
        Early in the next century, as open markets continue to spread, 20
    nations around the world, home to half the world's population, will lift
    themselves from the ranks of the poorest countries into the ranks of
    middle-income countries. Their gain in skills and jobs and wealth will
    be our gain as well.
        I want America to lead the process of economic integration and
    rising living standards here in our hemisphere and around the world. In
    the last 4\1/2\ years, we have concluded more than 220 separate trade
    agreements with expanding trade accounting for one-third of our

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    own strong growth. Now I'm working to persuade our Congress to renew the
    President's fast-track negotiating authority so that we can do more.
        In the past few weeks, the Senate Finance Committee and the House
    Ways and Means Committee, on which Congressman Dreier and Congressman
    McDermott who are here with me sit, have approved this legislation with
    bipartisan support. And we're going to do all we can to pass the bill
    this year. I hope, if I might be forgiven this on foreign soil, I hope
    that those of you representing American companies will urge Members of
    Congress of both parties to support the legislation. I need all the help
    I can get. [Laughter]
        I have also attempted to see that the United States puts special
    emphasis on Latin America. We hosted the Summit of the Americas in Miami
    in 1994. I appointed my longtime friend and former Chief of Staff Mack
    McLarty to be a Special Envoy to Latin America to send a signal to the
    continent that we are serious about a long-term sustained and
    comprehensive partnership. The United States welcomes all constructive
    efforts by others to bring our hemisphere together and, especially,
    Brazil's leadership role in those efforts. Brazil and Argentina, through
    their strategic alliance, are providing a decisive impulse for
    democracy, economic reform, and regional security cooperation. MERCOSUR
    has expanded trade among its members and with the outside world. It has
    also bolstered democracy and promoted peace as a growing integration and
    interdependence make yesterday's hostilities unthinkable today.
        We hope every step in the process of hemispheric integration,
    whether in MERCOSUR, NAFTA, CARICOM, or elsewhere will build momentum
    toward our common goal of a free-trade area of the Americas by 2005,
    first endorsed at the 1994 Summit in Miami.
        Our nations are committed to launch comprehensive negotiations at
    Santiago in April and, as we agreed at the Miami Summit, to achieve
    concrete progress by the turn of the century. Just imagine the potential
    of an American market with 800 million people, from Alaska to the
    southern tip of Argentina, buying each other's goods, spurring each
    other's creativity, enriching each other's lives, investing in each
    other's future.
        But even as we seize these possibilities, we must also work even
    harder to bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots. The age-
    old curse of Latin America, the constant undercurrent of all advanced
    economies of the last 20 years, has got to be dealt with more seriously
    not only by government but by people in the private sector working in
    partnership with government. We have to give everyone who will work for
    it a place in the future we are trying to build.
        In your country and mine and throughout the hemisphere, many people
    still question our course, fearing the pressure of competition, feeling
    as yet no benefit from the changes underway. Knowing that as yet, no
    nation has found the perfect formula for both embracing the global
    economy while preserving and extending the social contract.
    Globalization is irreversible. Protectionism will only make things
    worse. But while we cannot turn back the winds of change, we can and
    must do more to harness their force to everyone's advantage and make
    sure that the benefits and burdens of expanding trade are fairly borne.
        That means deepening democracy and the rule of law, including a free
    press and an independent judiciary. It means insisting on worker
    protection so that trade enhances working conditions and living
    standards instead of undermining them. It means equipping all our people
    with the education, training, and skills to succeed so that progress is
    everyone's friend.
        Since 1993, we in the United States have been working hard to come
    to grips with these two competing challenges. We have more than doubled
    our worker training funds directed at those in the work force who may be
    displaced by technology or trade. We have established the North American
    Development Bank to try to make investments in communities that have
    been displaced by our increasing integration with Canada and Mexico. We
    have worked to improve joint environmental inspections and enforcement
    and to jointly agree to stop using some kinds of chemicals and other
    things which are damaging to the environment.
        We have set up special empowerment zones to give our private sector
    incentives to invest in communities which are not touched by trade one
    way or the other because their economies have developed so little. All
    these things have not had perfect results, but they are making a
    difference, and they show that there is a way to have strong economic
    growth, an open economy, an openness to trade and investment, and

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    still care about extending opportunity so that more and more people who
    are willing to work have a chance to work and succeed.
        We must also do more to protect natural resources and the
    environment. The United States rejects the false choice between economic
    growth and environmental protection. We believe in sustainable
    development, making sure that today's progress does not come at
    tomorrow's expense. Trade-driven growth need not bring environmental
    quality down. Indeed, trade must maintain and improve the quality of our
    environment.
        Brazil and the United States share a commitment to meeting these
    challenges, all of them, head on. We can set a standard of success for
    the Americas, showing that democracy and free markets deliver,
    protecting our planet for future generations, making education and the
    wonders of technology the modern birthright of every citizen.
        I am especially impressed with President Cardoso's determination to
    improve education. Both of us are working to ensure that every school
    has high standards, that every child, rich or poor, has the knowledge to
    succeed in the new economy. America's new balanced budget includes the
    biggest new investment in education since 1965. Our agenda is sweeping
    but straightforward. We expect every 8-year-old to be able to read,
    every 12-year-old to be able to log on to the Internet, every 18-year-
    old to be able to go on to college, and every adult to be able to
    continue learning for a lifetime.
        Brazil spends nearly 6 percent of its GNP on education and is
    working hard to increase enrollment and to help more children complete
    their early years of school. Now, through our new partnership for
    education that President Cardoso and I signed yesterday, our nations
    will work together to teach our children for tomorrow.
        This afternoon I look forward to visiting the Mangueira School in
    Rio, where Brazil is proving every day that every child has the
    potential to succeed. I commend the Brazilian business community for
    investing in education, and I thank the Sao Paulo American Chamber of
    Commerce for your leadership in this effort which Mr. Miller referenced
    in his remarks.
        Even as we speak, the First Lady is visiting one of the schools you
    have adopted so that she can see your success first hand. Your programs
    have helped to keep children in school, helped teachers to learn, and
    helped to raise standards. Now they will help to broaden access to
    educational technology. I urge you to do as much of that as you can.
        Brazil and the United States share the vision that all our citizens
    should be connected to the information age. We have both adopted
    ambitious programs to link our schools to the Internet. We are
    attempting to make sure that every classroom and library in the United
    States will be hooked up to the Internet by the year 2000. When we do
    that and when Brazil does that, no math, no book, no tool of learning
    will be beyond the touch of our children, regardless of the wealth of
    their families or the part of town where they live. And when that
    happens, no dream will be beyond their reach.
        Already, Brazilian-American partnership is bringing world-class
    technology to boys and girls in Brazil. Ashford International, a small
    firm from Stone Mountain, Georgia, recently launched a project with Sao
    Paulo's local government supplying 5,000 multimedia computers for 1,000
    area schools. That's good for the students and good for the Stone
    Mountain company and its workers.
        Even as computers and the Internet are expanding the world of
    learning, they also bring new opportunities for electronic commerce.
    When I took office in 1993--just think of it, in 1993--only high-energy
    physicists had heard of the World Wide Web. Now, even my cat, Socks, has
    a webpage. [Laughter]
        I was meeting with one of the young men who has made a small--
    perhaps a large--fortune in figuring out how to commercialize the
    Internet in California the other day, and he said that the Internet was
    the fastest-growing organism in human history, that no one could measure
    its expansion.
        Today, there are as many as 50 million people on the Internet, and
    for Brazilian net browsers, the surf is up. Since 1996--since 1996--the
    number of Internet hosts in Brazil has risen by 535 percent. Electronic
    commerce can improve productivity, facilitate global communications,
    help small companies sell to a worldwide market, create a revolution in
    the way we all market and sell. But in order for this digital economy to
    flourish, it must not be weighed down by the heavy hand of government
    regulation and fees.
        President Cardoso and I discussed the importance of creating a
    market-led environment in

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    which this new medium can succeed. I feel very strongly that all nations
    have a responsibility to facilitate, not undermine, this process; it
    will have enormous economic implications that are quite positive for
    every country if we can do so.
        Working together on behalf of new technologies, by the way, has long
    been a mark of our relationship. You may know that in 1876, Brazilian
    Emperor Don Pedro II came to our Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
    where he helped draw attention to a new invention of Alexander Graham
    Bell, the telephone. Today, Brazil's telecommunications sector is the
    largest in Latin America. Your Government predicts it will net
    investments close to $70 billion by 2003. And earlier this year,
    America's Bell South, teaming up with respected companies in Brazil, won
    a bid to provide cellular telephone services here in Sao Paulo.
        A century ago, Brazil saw promise in our technological future.
    Today, we are proud to be investing in yours. New education and new
    technologies will help carry our nations forward. But we will soar only
    if we also maintain our oldest values. Your country and mine have a
    generous tradition of welcoming people from all around the world. One of
    our greatest strengths is our commitment to live together and work
    together and learn together, regardless of our backgrounds of race,
    religion, or ethnicity. I commend President Cardoso for his human rights
    plan and his emphasis on racial equality.
        In our country, in one public school district across the river from
    Washington, DC, which I can see from the White House, there are students
    from more than 150 nations--in one of our school districts--speaking
    more than 100 different languages. The neighborhoods of Sao Paulo are a
    window on the world. The colors of Italy enliven Bexiga. The flavors of
    Japan infuse Liberdade. The spirit of the Middle East fills Bom Retiro.
    The rhythms of Africa pervade every quarter. People from everywhere call
    this place home.
        It must be truly mysterious to you as it is to many of us when we
    see people from Bosnia to Central Africa, from the Middle East to
    Northern Ireland still determined to hate one another and fight and
    sometimes rob people of their freedoms and their very lives because of
    their differences. Our differences make it much more interesting to live
    in our communities and our Nation and, frankly, much more profitable to
    go into the future.
        So, as we make the most of this age of opportunity, we ask
    ourselves, which nations will do best in the global economy? The nations
    with the globe inside their borders. This, too, is a lesson that Brazil
    and the United States must, first, never forget for ourselves and,
    second, try to impart to the rest of the world.
        In the 19th century, we forged a friendship grounded in our common
    love of freedom. The United States was honored to be the first nation to
    recognize Brazil's independence. In the 20th century, we fought side by
    side to prevail in World War II and to preserve freedom's light. The
    United States is still honored that Brazil came to provide soldiers to
    fight with us for freedom in both the great World Wars of this century.
    Now, on the eve of the 21st century, a bold, new challenge awaits us: to
    secure the blessings of freedom and prosperity for all the people of our
    hemisphere and throughout the world.
        Our nations share a vision for the future of the Americas, where
    every child has quality education, all our people reap the benefits of
    modern technology, open societies linked and lifted by open markets
    create new opportunities for all people and protect their freedom to
    seize them. That is the future we are working to build. And together, I
    am quite confident that we will succeed.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:30 a.m. in the Auditorium at the Memorial
    America Latino. In his remarks, he referred to Daniel Miller, president,
    Sao Paulo American Chamber of Commerce; Gov. Mario Covas of the State of
    Sao Paulo; Brazilian Ambassador to the United States Paulo Tarso Flecha
    de Lima; and Mayor Celso Pitta of Sao Paulo.