[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[April 18, 1998]
[Pages 585-587]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Opening Session of the Summit of the Americas in 
Santiago, Chile
April 18, 1998

    President Frei, distinguished heads of 
state, leaders of the Chilean Congress, Supreme Court, members of the 
diplomatic corps, President Wolfensohn, 
President Iglesias, Secretary General 
Gaviria, Secretary General Ruggiero, Director General Alleyne; 4 years ago in Miami, we, the democratic nations of this 
hemisphere, met in the historic Summit of the Americas and pledged 
ourselves to a common future rooted in shared values, shared burdens, 
shared progress, and embodied in our call for a free trade area of the 
Americas by 2005.
    I thank all my fellow leaders and their governments for their 
faithfulness to the summit process. I thank especially those who helped 
us to begin the Summit of the Americas in 1994.
    Now we come together in Santiago. What shall we do? First, we should 
celebrate a new

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reality in the Americas, the march of freedom, prosperity, peace, and 
partnership among our nations. Second, we should recognize that in all 
our nations too many people have not felt this new reality, and we 
should resolve to continue to work together until they do.
    As we look back on the 3\1/2\ years since the Miami summit, there is 
much to be proud of, as our report, ``From Words to Deeds'' documents. 
The economy of the region has grown 15 percent. Last year average growth 
was 5 percent, and inflation was the lowest in 50 years. Chile and 
Uruguay have set the standard for poverty reduction and fiscal 
responsibility. Brazil and Argentina have slowed inflation to a crawl. 
Mexico has overcome adversity, transformed its economy, broadened its 
democracy. Bolivia has attracted new foreign investments and given its 
citizens a greater stake in their future. Venezuela's Apertura program 
is drawing investment to develop its energy resources. Peru and Ecuador, 
with a little help from their friends, are working towards a peaceful 
end to their decades-long border dispute. Central America, after years 
of strife, is well on the way to achieving its long-held vision of 
democracy and integration and growth. Caribbean nations are joining 
forces to expand their economies and to defend their shores against 
drugs and crime.
    Together we have begun to create the free trade area of the 
Americas, a thriving market of 800 million people invested in each 
other's future, enriching each other's lives, weaving a tapestry of 
interdependence that strengthens every nation. The Americas have set a 
new standard for the world in the defense of liberty and justice through 
our collective commitment to defend democracy wherever it is at risk in 
our hemisphere. Concerted action by neighbors and friends already has 
helped to restore or preserve democracy and human rights in Haiti, 
Guatemala, and Paraguay.
    Our cooperation in the fight against drugs has intensified, based on 
an understanding that drugs are a problem for all of us and all of us 
must work together to attack both demand and supply. We've adopted tough 
new measures against money laundering, forged the first multilateral 
treaty in the world to fight corruption, so that our societies will be 
governed by the rule of law. We have signed an historic convention to 
stop the illegal trade in guns in our hemisphere. We're working to 
advance the environment and public health.
    Our people are healthier, our water safer, our air cleaner than 4 
years ago. We are wiping measles off our hemisphere's map, dropping from 
more than 23,000 cases in 1994 to less than 500 so far this year. We're 
phasing out lead from gasoline. In 1996, 12 nations achieved this goal; 
by 2001, there will be 20. We're working together to promote a clean 
energy future and to meet the challenge of climate change.
    I thank the efforts of many people in this regard, the Vice President and our Government and many in 
other governments throughout this hemisphere.
    The Miami summit was a watershed in the history of our hemisphere, 
as the leaders of free people embraced a common vision of the future and 
a common strategy for achieving it. The journey from Miami to Santiago 
has been filled with progress toward our goals. Now, here, and on the 
road forward from here, we must do more to ensure that the path of 
reform and democracy and integration actually lifts the lives of 
ordinary people in all our nations.
    Poverty throughout the hemisphere is still too high; income 
disparity is too great; civil society too fragile; justice systems too 
weak; too many people still lack the education and skills necessary to 
succeed in the new economy. In short, too few feel change working for 
them. Therefore, with democracy and free markets now in place, we must 
vigorously launch a second generation of reforms for the next generation 
of Americans. No priority is more important than giving our children an 
excellent education.
    The fate of nations in the 21st century turns on what all citizens 
know and whether all citizens can quickly learn. Too often, resources 
are spent primarily on higher education for the few. We must all 
redirect our focus toward higher quality education for all. I especially 
thank Presidents Frei, Cardoso, Menem, and 
Zedillo for their leadership to give all our 
children a good education, with well-equipped classrooms, well-trained 
teachers, high standards, and accountability. This is a goal we must 
vigorously embrace and work hard to realize.
    We will also work here to deepen democracy and respect for human 
rights. We know free elections are democracy's first step, not the last. 
We'll support the Organization of American States special rapporteur for 
freedom of expression; launch a regional justice center to train

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judges and prosecutors; strengthen local government institutions to 
bring power closer to people; and in its 50th year of the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights, we will redouble our efforts to protect the 
human rights of all people.
    We will also do more to defend democracy against its enemies, 
corruption, terrorism, and drugs. The new hemispheric alliance against 
drugs we will launch here will encourage, support, and improve all our 
national efforts to fight this common threat as partners. We'll continue 
to promote our common prosperity by launching negotiations for a free 
trade area of the Americas.
    I want to underscore the importance we attach to a special civil 
society committee that will allow a broad array of stakeholders, within 
all our societies, the opportunity to make their voices heard. If 
economic integration in a global economy is to work for all people, we 
must demonstrate that we can have economic growth and lift labor 
standards for all our workers. We must demonstrate that we can grow the 
economy and preserve, indeed, even improve the environment. This civil 
society committee will give the peoples of our nations the chance to 
make that argument, and we must prove that we can make the argument 
work.
    Let me reaffirm to all my colleagues, the United States may not yet 
have fast-track legislation, but we will. And I assure you that our 
commitment to the free trade area of the Americas will be in the fast 
lane of our concerns.
    We must do that. After all, more than one-third of the United States 
growth in the last few years has come from expanded trade. More than 40 
percent of our exports go to our neighbors seated on this platform. We 
can only continue to grow and create jobs in the United States if we 
continue to reach out to our neighbors for more open markets and freer 
trade. That is the fundamental observation that all of us share. Your 
prosperity lifts ours; our prosperity lifts yours. As more good jobs are 
created in any nation, as economies grow and people thrive, they become 
better partners for each other and for others around the world. Finally, 
we must take further steps to lift people from poverty and spread the 
benefit of progress to every member of society, from supporting women's 
full participation in the lives of our countries to providing loans to 
microentrepreneurs to broadening property ownership.
    Now, this Santiago agenda is ambitious, but it is imperative. Again, 
let me applaud President Frei for his 
leadership, for bringing us all here together and for supporting such a 
broad and deep agenda. If we are to seize the opportunities and meet the 
challenges of our time, we must pursue this agenda, and we must do it 
together.
    The first broad meeting of representatives from our hemisphere took 
place in 1889 in Washington, DC. Times were different and slower then. 
The delegates met for more than 6 months and toured around our Nation by 
train. The only bad thing was they had to listen to even more speeches. 
But in that meeting our predecessors, drawing on Bolivar's vision of 
hemispheric unity, set a precedent for cooperation that grew over 50 
years later from that seed into the OAS.
    Four years ago at Miami, we planted the seed of a new partnership 
for a new century. Now we can and must do what is necessary for that 
seed to grow--to grow in freedom and opportunity and cooperation. The 
Americas can be a model for all the world in the 21st century. That is, 
after all, the spirit of the Summit of the Americas and the promise of 
Santiago.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 9:35 a.m. in the San Cristobol Room at the 
Sheraton Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to James D. Wolfensohn, 
President, World Bank; Enrique Iglesias, President, Inter-American 
Development Bank; Cesar Gaviria, Secretary General, Organization of 
American States; Renato Ruggiero, Secretary General, World Trade 
Organization; Sir George A.O. Alleyne, Director, Pan American Sanitary 
Bureau; President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil; President Carlos 
Saul Menem of Argentina; and President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico.