[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[November 24, 1997]
[Pages 1653-1654]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Exchange With Reporters Prior to Discussions With Prime Minister Ryutaro 
Hashimoto of Japan in Vancouver
November 24, 1997

Asian Economies

    Q. Mr. President, can you assure Americans that the Asian financial 
crisis won't damage their portfolios or hurt them financially in any 
way, especially those who are middle-aged or older who are preparing to 
retire? How does that affect Americans, what's going on over there?
    The President. Well, it affects us in several ways. First of all, we 
sell about a third of our exports to Asia. And if the Asian financial 
difficulties worsen, don't get better, then the value of the Asian 
currencies goes down; they don't have money to buy exports anymore; 
their exports to our country and to others become much cheaper; and more 
importantly, they lower the overall rate of economic growth in the 
world, which would hurt Americans. That is the most likely negative 
consequence of that.
    Now, obviously, if there--we have seen that when there are problems 
in financial markets in some parts of the world, sometimes it bleeds 
over to other parts of the world, and it can have an impact on our stock 
market, for example, which would go to the question that you raised.
    My view is that we should approach this with determination but with 
confidence. I mean, after all, we have a lot of productivity and a lot 
of hard-working people in Asia. And we have now, after the Manila 
meeting, a mechanism to approach these financial challenges. So we need 
to take this very seriously. We need to work

[[Page 1654]]

very hard at it. We don't need to be at all casual, but we should also 
have confidence that we can work through it.
    Q. Is Japan going to need a bailout from the IMF?
    The President. Are you asking the Prime Minister?
    Q. No.
    The President. I'm not in a position to answer questions about 
Japan's situation, except that I think that we believe that they must, 
and we're certain that they will, deal with these issues in an 
appropriate fashion. We just want to be in a position to be supportive 
when we can, and that's what we said at Manila, and that's what we did 
in Indonesia. But I think Japan can lead Asia out of this difficulty 
with the strength of its economy and the right moves.
    Q. With the recommendations that came up in Manila, there's some 
suggestion that maybe--that the leaders might have to go further than 
the ministers went to nip this in the bud, to really fix it.
    The President. Well, that's one of the things we're going to discuss 
here. We haven't really had the leaders meetings here. I mean, we're all 
talking one on one, but when we get into the APEC meeting, one of the 
things we want to discuss is, do we believe what happened at Manila will 
work? If so, what are we prepared to do to make it work? What are we 
prepared to do if we have to go beyond that?
    But I think if you look at the basic framework of Manila, it's quite 
an intelligent idea. Every country should have good economic policies on 
its own. The IMF should fashion a remedy appropriate to that country in 
these times. If that fails or is insufficient, then those of us in the 
region will come in and support it--to try to make so it's like a three-
level approach. I think it makes a lot of sense, and I don't think we 
should assume that it's not adequate until we give it a chance to work.

[At this point, one group of reporters left the room, and another group 
entered.]

International Agreement on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

    Q. Mr. President, on Kyoto, Secretary Albright today said that the 
U.S. would act first, which has been the policy. And then she said that 
well-off developing nations presumably should be the next up. Will you 
or will you not push for all developing nations to sign the treaty or to 
somehow make some sort of firm commitment to reductions?
    The President. Well, we believe the developing nations, as well as 
the developed nations, should be involved in the process. We also have 
always made clear that they should not be asked to adopt the same 
targets that we are but that what we want to do is to find a way for the 
largest possible number of nations to participate in Kyoto so that we 
can tell the developing nations, ``Look, we don't want you to give up 
your future economic growth, but we do want you to work with us to get 
there with a different energy path than we adopted, because the 
technology is there and you will actually benefit more from doing it 
right the first time than from paying for a big transformation after 
you've already developed in this way.''
    And keep in mind, we have to do this. Otherwise, 30 years from now, 
all of us in the developed nations will have lowered our greenhouse gas 
emissions, and increased emissions from other countries will mean we 
will not have made one bit of progress. So we have to find a way to do 
this and still reassure these developing nations they're not giving up 
future growth.
    I believe we can, and we're working on it. I'm lobbying as hard as I 
can here and have been, as you know, and did all through Latin America. 
I'm doing the best I can.

Note: The exchange began at 1:47 p.m. in the Princess Louisa Suite at 
the Waterfront Centre Hotel.