[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[May 2, 2000]
[Pages 813-817]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Council of the Americas 30th Washington Conference
May 2, 2000

    Thank you very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And thank 
you, Buddy MacKay, for that fine 
introduction. That introduction was a classic example of Clinton's third 
law of politics: Whenever possible, be introduced by someone you have 
appointed to high office. [Laughter] They will always make you look good 
in good times and bad, whether you deserve it or not.
    I want to thank the Ambassadors of Argentina, Colombia, 
Venezuela, and Brazil, who are here, for their interest and their presence; 
and all the people in the State Department who work on the Americas. 
David Rockefeller, I want to thank you for 
taking the lead 35 years ago now in establishing the Council of the 
Americas. And I want to thank the Council for its support of our 
efforts, beginning with NAFTA, alleviating the financial crisis in Latin 
America, the free trade area of the Americas, and the Caribbean Basin 
Initiative, as well as our efforts with Colombia.
    I want to thank Buddy MacKay 
for his work as my Special Envoy and especially for the work he's doing 
now on Capitol Hill as our point person for the Caribbean Basin 
Initiative. I'd also like to thank my former Chief of Staff and the 
first Special Envoy to Latin America, Mack McLarty, for the work he has done. And let me say, the two of 
them together, I hope, will convince the next President and all future 
Presidents, without regard to party, that we have made a change in the 
configuration of the White House which ought to continue. I think that 
for decades to come, every President should have a Special Envoy to the 
Americas, because we have a special relationship with the Americas. And 
I hope those of you in this room of both parties who agree with that 
will do what you can to see that it happens after next January. I think 
it's a very, very important thing to do.
    Let me say to all of you, especially to you, David, and to all of you who have been involved in this 
endeavor for a long time, you had the vision to see that North and 
South, in this increasingly small globe of ours, could come together, 
and that free trade could be a force for peace as well as prosperity, 
the basis of our partnership across the whole range of other areas in 
this hemisphere. You saw that in the middle of the cold war when most 
people only saw the world divided by East and West here

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in the United States. Developments have proved that you were visionary, 
and we are grateful.
    We are also grateful today in the United States for the 
extraordinary success that our economy has enjoyed and for the ability 
it has given us to play a positive role in the world for peace and 
freedom and prosperity, for democracy and open markets.
    I think it is very important today that we ask ourselves what we 
propose to do with this prosperity and whether we really understand the 
role that our engagement in the world and our trade with other nations 
clearly has played in our prosperity and what responsibilities that 
imposes upon us in terms of our future.
    We have benefited immensely from trade. There is no question that we 
have the longest economic expansion in history because we got rid of the 
deficits, and we've run 3 years of surpluses in a row and paying off 
$335 billion of our debt, and we've got low interest rates. There is no 
question that our investment in science and technology, our reform of 
our telecommunications system, and our continued commitment to education 
is important. But everyone should understand that our commitment to 
expanding trade, including not just NAFTA and joining the WTO but 270 
other agreements, has helped us not only to find new markets for our 
products and services but, by keeping our own markets open, has kept 
inflation down as our economy has grown.
    The two most significant things that have allowed the longest 
economic expansion in history for America to be long has been the 
enormous increase in productivity because of technology and the fact 
that we have permitted ourselves to have inflation-free growth because 
we've kept open markets with a responsible financial policy.
    I hear--so many times people talk about trade only in terms of 
exports, because that sounds good politically, and when you say you're 
importing a lot, that doesn't sound good politically. But our imports 
have helped us a lot. They've kept inflation down, and they've made our 
people's dollars go further. And they've enabled us to keep growing 
without inflation. And along the way, they've helped our trading 
partners to lift their own well-being. Our two top trading partners 
today are our neighbors to the north and to the south. And during most 
of the last decade, our trade with Latin America grew faster than any 
other region of the world.
    So we have been very fortunate. During the period since NAFTA 
entered into force, our exports to Canada and Mexico have gone up almost 
80 percent. Our employment has skyrocketed. Canadian employment has 
jumped by more than one million overall, and Mexico's employment has 
climbed by one million. NAFTA played a major role in this.
    It has set the stage for much of what has followed. During the 
Mexican financial crisis in 1995, we offered a loan package that wasn't 
too popular at the time. I always laugh about it. When Bob Rubin came to see me about it with Larry 
Summers, as I remember there was a poll 
in the paper that day that said by 81 to 15, the American people thought 
it was a bad idea for us to give financial assistance to Mexico. And I 
thought to myself, this is what's wrong with polls. If we don't help 
Mexico, and Mexico and Brazil and Argentina and the rest of Latin 
America and half the other developing economies of the world go in the 
tank, and our economy nose-dives, it will be 100 to nothing, people 
think it's a bad idea that we let the world economy go to pieces. And I 
am very glad that what we did worked. I think the Mexican Government and 
the Mexican people deserve a lot of credit for a painful recovery, in 
which they paid back their loans with interest and ahead of schedule.
    Then 3 years later, our hemisphere was hurt by a crisis half a world 
away in Asia, but I'm glad that we worked to keep our markets open. And 
I still believe our choice for more trade, not less, contributed to 
minimizing the impact of the Asian financial crisis and enabling those 
countries to pull out of that crisis more quickly.
    That doesn't mean that the size of our trade deficit is not a source 
of concern to me; it is. But I'm convinced the only way it will get 
smaller is when our partners, both to the south and around the world, 
grow wealthier and stronger, so that they can consume more of their own 
production and buy more of ours. I think the decision we made for open 
markets has plainly been the right decision, not simply for the United 
States economy but for the rest of the world. And I am absolutely 
confident it's the right decision going forward.
    Right now I think we're making very good progress in moving the 
Caribbean Basin initiative through Congress. It is tied, as all of you 
know, to the Africa trade bill, which is also, I believe, very, very 
important to us in terms

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of our long-term security interests and very important in terms of our 
fulfilling our responsibility to Africa. I think there is every 
likelihood now that that bill will be on my desk for signature by the 
end of the month. And I think it is high time.
    I know I don't need to plug that legislation here, but the nations 
of the Caribbean have suffered quite a lot economically and have come 
under enormous pressure to become way-stations for narcotrafficking. And 
we need to do more for them. I believe this bill is a good bill, much 
better than it was about to be a few weeks ago. I hope you will all 
support it, and if you can help me pass it quickly, I'd be grateful.
    I also want to affirm that we are still determined to meet the goal 
we set at the Miami Summit of the Americas in December of 1994, to 
achieve a free trade agreement by 2005 that will embrace the entire 
Americas--the world's largest trade zone, 800 million people investing 
in each other's future, enriching each other's lives, advancing each 
other's interests.
    Negotiators are on schedule to complete and present a draft 
agreement to the trade ministers next April in Argentina. It will also 
be presented then to the heads of state at the Summit of the Americas in 
Quebec. We must stay on track to do this by 2005. The date should not 
slip, and I am confident we will do so.
    I think a lot of people over-read the meaning of the failure of 
Congress to renew fast-track authority. The truth is, there was a fight 
largely along partisan lines over the content of that authority and 
whether the President should be given explicit authority to negotiate 
trade agreements that included environmental and labor conditions. I 
thought that fast-track authority was a lousy vehicle on which to wage 
that fight, even though I was sympathetic with the substance of the 
argument. I still believe that.
    But you should not believe that because the legislation didn't pass 
over philosophical and partisan differences on that issue, that the 
United States is any less committed to finishing the free trade area of 
the Americas, or that because it didn't pass, any agreement we make in 
the context of the free trade area of the Americas is less likely to 
pass Congress. That is not true.
    And you know that we're having an election this year. You may have 
noticed that. And there will be a lot of differences between the 
nominees and the parties over a lot of issues, but I am very gratified 
that there is no difference on this. You are going to have an American 
President committed to a free trade area of the Americas by 2005. And if 
it doesn't happen, it will not be the fault of the executive branch of 
the Government of the United States of America. We know this is the 
right thing to do.
    And I just want you to know that. And I will try to find other ways 
to manifest that before I leave office. And there are some, but the most 
important one, I think, would be the passage of the CBI-Africa trade 
bill. But I ask you to--you know, we're having the same argument now 
with China and the WTO, where there are people who have honest 
differences over the way the World Trade Organization operates. They 
think it's too closed, too undemocratic, too private, and I agree with 
them. But voting against this is a lousy way to litigate that issue.
    So parliamentary processes are often uneven and awkward, and many 
times people in parliaments throughout the world find the only forum 
they can for the fight they think that needs to be waged. But I think 
it's very important that you understand that what that fast-track battle 
was about. It was about the philosophical differences in our country 
over whether trade agreements should include labor and environmental 
conditions and whether the President should be given explicit authority 
to negotiate on that basis. It didn't have anything to do with people 
not really wanting a free trade area of the Americas.
    I don't agree with the fact that it wasn't extended, and I am 
sympathetic, as all of you know, to the idea that if the world becomes 
closer knitted, we don't live by bread alone. It's inconceivable to me 
that we will have a global economy without having more and more of a 
global society. That will happen in some way, in some form, at some 
pace. But it shouldn't turn us against trade.
    Similarly, it's inconceivable to me that the WTO, as it becomes more 
important, won't have to become more open and more democratic. But 
that's not an excuse for sticking it to China after China has made good-
faith efforts to open its economy and to give access to the other 
members of the world trading community.
    So I think it's important to understand these debates are going on, 
but this does not mean

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that the United States is not committed to a free trade area of the 
Americas. It is profoundly important. It is important economically. It 
is also important politically.
    One of the things that I'm very concerned about in Latin America is 
that, with all the triumph of democracy--34 of 35 leaders democratically 
elected, people now expecting to choose their leaders and chart their 
future and shape their destinies--there are too many people and too many 
places who have still not benefited from the global economy in ways that 
they can touch and feel. The answer is not to turn back; the answer is 
to keep going forward to spread the benefits to more people. And we have 
to continue to push that.
    I am afraid democracy itself could be made far more fragile if more 
and more people grow more and more frustrated about the circumstances of 
their own lives. And it would be a terrible mistake for the United 
States ever to send a signal that we have any policy other than full 
steam ahead, more engagement, more support, more commitment. I think 
that is very, very important.
    We've worked hard to uphold the rule of law in this hemisphere. We 
upheld that principle in Haiti. Haiti is still desperately poor and 
wracked with problems and facing new elections. We will do everything we 
can to help them stay with their democracy. But eventually, real people 
are going to have to feel real benefit. The answer is not for the United 
States, with the strongest economy, to withdraw. The answer is to deepen 
our engagement.
    We acted again on the principle of the rule of law and democracy 
when we stood with the people of Paraguay to preserve democracy there 
when it was threatened in 1996. We attempted to uphold that policy every 
time it was threatened: in Ecuador, earlier this year; last month 
through the Organization of American States, when the countries of the 
hemisphere, thankfully, voiced strong support for a fair and open 
electoral process in Peru.
    But most important, I think, today we are called upon to stand for 
democracy under attack in Colombia. Drug trafficking, civil conflict, 
economic stagnation combine everywhere they exist--and explosively in 
Colombia--to feed violence, undercut honest enterprise in favor of 
corruption, and undermine public confidence in democracy. Colombia's 
drug traffickers directly threaten America's security, but first they 
threaten Colombia's future.
    In the United States, 90 percent of the cocaine and two-thirds of 
the heroin seized on our streets comes from or through Colombia. Fifty-
two thousand Americans die every year from drugs, about as many as died 
in the wars in Vietnam and Korea. It costs us more than $110 billion a 
year in crime, accidents, property damage, and lost productivity.
    But the price to Colombia is even higher. Last year, drug 
trafficking and civil conflict led to more than 2,500 kidnappings; a 
murder rate 10 times ours, which is virtually the highest of any country 
in the advanced world; terrorist activity that is now probably the worst 
in the world. Thirty-five thousand people have been killed and one 
million more made homeless in the last decade alone. Drugs fund 
guerrillas on the left and paramilitaries on the right.
    Honest citizens, the vast majority of the people of Colombia, are 
simply caught in the middle. Eight hundred to nine hundred passports are 
issued every day--every day--as engineers, architects, and doctors take 
their families, their wealth, their talent out of Colombia. And yet, 
thousands upon thousands of courageous Colombians choose to stay and 
fight, because they love their country, and they want to save their 
freedom.
    President Pastrana came to office with a 
record of risking his own life to take on drug traffic. He was kidnapped 
by the Medellin cartel. As mayor of Bogota, he saw them kill three 
Presidential candidates. Then he became a Presidential candidate--he 
used to joke that maybe that meant he was certifiably mentally unstable 
enough to serve--a very brave decision.
    Once in office, he worked with experts 
in Colombia and elsewhere to put together Plan Colombia. It's a 
comprehensive plan to seek peace, fight drugs, build the economy, and 
deepen democracy. The plan costs about $7\1/2\ billion. It includes 
contributions from the Government of Colombia, international financial 
institutions, and other donors. And I've asked our Congress to give it 
$1.6 billion over 2 years. That will be a tenfold increase in our U.S. 
assistance to promote good government, judicial reform, human rights 
protection, and economic development. It will also enable Colombia's 
counterdrug program to inflict serious damage

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on the rapidly expanding drug production activity in areas now dominated 
by guerrillas or paramilitary groups.
    We know this approach can succeed. Over the last 5 years working 
with the Governments of Peru and Bolivia, we have reduced coca 
cultivation by more than 50 percent in those countries, reduced overall 
cocaine production in the region by 18 percent. Drug traffickers, driven 
from their old havens, unfortunately now are consolidating operations in 
Colombia. But we have an historic opportunity and an historic 
responsibility to do serious and lasting damage to the international 
drug trade if Congress approves our package. I am convinced the rest of 
the world will follow suit. If we show that we are prepared to pay our 
fair share of this, the rest of the world will help.
    We need to help train and equip Colombia's counterdrug battalion, 
enhance its interdiction efforts, provide intelligence and logistic 
supports to the counterdrug mission, including force protection. They 
need this support. We can provide it, and we ought to provide it. We 
must not stand by and allow a democracy elected by its people, defended 
with great courage by people who have given their lives, be undermined 
and overwhelmed by those who literally are willing to tear the country 
apart for their own agenda.
    And make no mistake about it: If the oldest democracy in South 
America can be torn down, so can others. Every one of you here has a 
deep and abiding interest in helping to see that the fight for freedom, 
democracy, and good government in Colombia is successful. I urge 
Congress to pass this package now. The Colombians waging this campaign 
are fighting not just for themselves; they are fighting for all of us, 
all of us in this room and the hundreds of millions of people we 
represent, and for our children.
    As we know, the globalization of our societies is presenting us a 
lot of new challenges. The issue in Colombia is just the beginning. You 
will see, more and more, drug cartels, organized criminals, gunrunners, 
terrorists working together. The Internet will make it easier for them 
to do so, just as it makes it easier for you to work together to pursue 
your legal endeavors. But we have every reason to be optimistic, if we 
meet our common challenges--our common security challenges, our common 
environmental challenges, our common educational and health care 
challenges.
    The mission you have championed for 35 years in this Council is 
closer than ever before to being successful. We have a chance to 
completely rewrite the future for our children because of the revolution 
in information, because of the biomedical revolution, because of the 
material science revolution. All these things together enable us to grow 
an economy and improve the environment, to expand trade and deepen 
democracy.
    But when we have an opportunity like a free trade area of the 
Americas, we have to take it. And when we have a challenge, like the 
challenge in Colombia, we have to meet it.
    The United States wants to do its part. It's very much in our 
interest to do so. We have benefited more than any other country in the 
world from the last decade, and we need to stand up here and do our part 
to be good neighbors and to help other people benefit as well.
    But we need all your help. We have to win in Colombia. We have to 
win the fight for the free trade area of the Americas. We have to prove 
that freedom and free markets go hand-in-hand. That's what you believe, 
and we're going to be given a chance to prove it.
    Thank you very much.

 Note:  The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. in the Loy Henderson Auditorium 
at the State Department. In his remarks, he referred to Assistant to the 
President and Special Envoy to the Americas Kenneth H. (Buddy) MacKay; 
David Rockefeller, founder, Council of the Americas; Ambassadors 
Guillermo Gonzalez of Argentina, Luis Alberto Moreno of Colombia, 
Alfredo Toro of Venezuela, and Rubens Antonio Barbosa of Brazil; former 
Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin; and President Andres Pastrana 
of Colombia.