[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[November 6, 1997]
[Pages 1507-1509]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Fast-Track Trade Legislation and an Exchange With Reporters
November 6, 1997

    The President. Good evening. Today I was proud to represent all 
Americans in honoring the service of President George Bush at the 
dedication of his Presidential Library. It was an extraordinary moment 
for many reasons, but one of the most impressive things to me was that 
there were four men, two Democrats, two Republicans, who have held this 
office, all agreeing strongly that for America to continue to lead in 
the world economy, Congress must extend the President's power to 
negotiate new trade agreements.
    A large bipartisan majority in the Senate supports extending this 
authority. Speaker Gingrich and I are convinced that the authority will 
strengthen our leadership, and we want the House to follow suit. A vote 
against fast track will not create a single job, clean up a single toxic 
waste site, advance workers rights, or improve the environment anywhere 
in the world, but it will limit America's ability to advance our 
economic interests, our democratic ideals, our political leadership.
    So, once again, before Congress votes tomorrow, I call upon the 
House of Representatives to vote for American leadership, for America's 
economic future, and pass the fast-track trade negotiating authority.
    Q. Mr. President, how close are you at this point? How close do you 
think you are in the House?
    The President. I think it's a close call. Obviously, I'm here 
because I'm trying to pull out all the stops, and I want to emphasize 
the extraordinary moment we had today when the four Presidents were all 
strongly endorsing fast track. President Ford, President Bush have 
spoken out on this; President Carter has actually made a number of phone 
calls. It is close, but the policy is not close, and I am convinced that 
a substantial majority of the Congress knows the policy is not close, 
that it is clearly in America's interest to do this.

Iraq

    Q. Mr. President, the Iraqis in a letter today threatened again to 
shoot down the next U.S. spy flight. There is apparently no give on 
their side at all. Are you becoming more concerned?
    The President. Well, it would be a mistake for them to shoot down a 
plane. But we have a team there working for the United Nations, and our 
policy is clear--and I don't mean American policy--world policy. What 
they need to do is to resume the inspections. And the team is coming 
home this weekend, and we'll see where we are then and where we go from 
there.
    Yes.

Fast-Track Trade Legislation

    Q. What deals have you cut and are you planning to cut in order to 
get fast-track trade through, and does that include Congressman Smith's 
language on abortion?
    The President. What we've tried to do is to resolve--if there are 
any issues, economic issues, that affect congressional districts or 
States that we can resolve honorably, we've worked hard to resolve those 
in ways that I think are consistent with what we're trying to do on fast 
track. If there are other issues that we can resolve that permit the 
business of the Congress to go forward, we're trying to resolve them. 
But there has been no agreement of the kind you just mentioned.

[[Page 1508]]

    Q. Mr. President, can I ask you about your statement that if this 
were a secret ballot, this would pass by a 3-to-4 margin? Is that a 
fairly damning assessment of Members of Congress? It suggests they're so 
strongly in the grip of special interests that they won't vote their 
conscience on an issue that directly affects U.S. standing in the world.
    The President. Well, they're under a lot of pressure. And you know, 
we see a lot of evidence that from time to time in these elections, that 
if one side is funded and another is not, that they can be very--that 
they can be in trouble. And there are other issues there for them to 
consider. All I'm saying is, I believe if there were a secret ballot, it 
would pass overwhelmingly.
    And what I'm trying to do is to bring the vote tomorrow evening in 
line with where I think everybody's understanding is. I think the most 
important thing to do is to heighten the public awareness of this. The 
level of--though we've been talking about it now for months, I think 
because this is the authority for the President to continue to negotiate 
trade agreements rather than a specific agreement with a lot of 
specifics in it, there's not as much public interest, public awareness, 
or public involvement in this, and that has made the issue more 
difficult to lift the level of the national interest on. But I feel I 
must say I'm encouraged by the developments of the last few days, and 
we're just going to continue to do it.
    Let me just mention one other thing that we've done in this, because 
I think I should have been talking more about this, but I think it's 
quite important. In order to address some of the concerns of Congress 
with regard to labor and the environment and congressional input, we 
establish in this trade bill a panel of advisers on labor issues, a 
panel of advisers on environment issues, parallel to that which existed 
in previous bills of advisers on business issues. That's never been done 
before. In addition to that, we're going to have a congressional 
observer group for every one of these trade negotiations the way we have 
congressional observer groups for NATO expansion, for example, or for 
the chemical weapons treaty.
    Now, those of you who followed this and have been on our trips, for 
example, like when the congressional observer group went with me on the 
NATO trip to Madrid, know that this is a critical part of securing 
congressional approval because the NATO observers are involved in the 
early negotiations. They know what's going on. Their voices are heard. 
They are not just confronted with a fait accompli at the end of the day.
    All these things have been changed for this particular fast-track 
bill, so one of the things I'm trying to hammer home to a lot of 
individual Members is that they--or their representatives, whether 
they're Democrats or Republicans, and--will have an involvement in how 
these specific trade agreements are negotiated, far greater than their 
predecessors have had in my administration and in previous 
administrations going back 20 years. And I think that's a big plus. One 
more.
    Q. With the outcome still in doubt, have you and Speaker Gingrich 
considered delaying tomorrow's vote to give you more time to round up 
support?
    The President. We find that the deadline concentrates our attention 
markedly, and so we're working hard. We think we can get there by 
tomorrow night, and that's what we're working to do.
    Q. Mr. President, is it tomorrow night now?
    The President. I'm sorry. I don't know. I haven't talked to the 
Speaker today. We think we can get there tomorrow, and that is what we 
are trying to do. I have not received any information. You probably have 
better information than I about when it is scheduled.

Iraq

    Q. A question again about Iraq. What do your intelligence people say 
are motivating Saddam Hussein? Why is he doing this? Why is he pushing 
this again to the brink?
    The President. Well, we learned, you know, back during the Desert 
Shield/Desert Storm period that his motivations are somewhat complex and 
difficult to fathom from time to time. All I can say is that the reason 
that we have the inspection regime and the reason we are determined to 
resume it is that, whatever else happens and however long he stays 
there, the international community has decided that he mustn't be 
allowed to resume the production of weapons of mass destruction. So he 
can have whatever motive he wants.
    We have tried to work with the United Nations to deal with the 
humanitarian concerns of the Iraqi people. We are very concerned about 
those. But we can't permit a man with

[[Page 1509]]

his record, the regime with their policies, to get into the weapons of 
mass destruction business if we can stop it. And that is what the 
inspection regime is designed to do, and there is a lot of evidence, you 
know, that it has been quite successful. So all I know is that whatever 
his motives are, I just want to start the inspections again.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 6:32 p.m. in the Briefing Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.