[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[October 24, 2000]
[Pages 2307-2308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Signing the Jordan-United States Trade Agreement
October 24, 2000

    The President. Thank you very much. Your Majesty and members of the Jordanian delegation; Senator 
Lugar; Senator Moynihan; Representatives Bonior 
and Levin; Secretary Cohen and other members of the administration.
    Let me begin by saying a special word of appreciation to Dr. 
Mohammad Halaiqa and to our Ambassador 
Charlene Barshefsky for the work they 
did on this agreement.
    The American negotiators, led by Catherine Novelli, and their Jordanian counterparts have labored hard 
over these last few months and around the clock this past weekend, 
something that seems to be the order of the day for us lately, to 
conclude this very important agreement.
    Most of all, it is a great honor to welcome King Abdullah to the White House again. He is a voice of reason 
and calm in a region urgently in need of both. His leadership has been 
especially important over these last difficult weeks, which have brought 
such suffering and loss in the Middle East, and thrown into sharp relief 
the choices facing all people in the region.
    Down one path lie the enormous challenges of building a lasting, 
secure peace and the concomitant enormous benefits. Down the other path 
lies more bloodshed, more hatred, more shattered lives and broken 
dreams.
    Though the path of peace is steep and has become steeper these last 
few weeks, in the long run it is the only path that offers the peoples 
of the Middle East hope for a normal life as part of the modern world. 
That is the path Jordan has chosen consistently.
    It is critically important that the United States stand with Jordan 
and leaders like King Abdullah, struggling 
to give their people prosperity, standing for peace, understanding that 
the two pursuits go hand in hand.
    As hard as that may be, there must be an end to the violence, and 
the Israelis and Palestinians must find a way out of confrontation back 
to the path of peaceful dialog, and they must do it sooner rather than 
later. For in the Middle East, as we have all learned, time does not 
heal wounds, it simply rubs more salt in them. The issues do not change. 
They just get harder to resolve.
    The agreement we are about to sign will establish free trade between 
the United States and Jordan. It is a good and important agreement, one 
that I hope Congress will support on a bipartisan basis. It will be good 
for the United States, good for Jordan, good for the long-term prospects 
for peace in the Middle East. It will eliminate duties and break down 
commercial barriers to trade between our two nations in both products 
and services.
    Under King Abdullah's leadership, Jordan 
already has made impressive strides in modernizing its economy, opening 
its markets, promoting the well-being of its people. This agreement will 
help to accelerate that progress. It will also cement the bonds of 
friendship that already exist between Jordan and the United States.
    The record is clear that open trade creates opportunities, raises 
prosperity, and can lift lives in every country. Nowhere is this more 
apparent than here in the United States, where our exports in open 
markets have helped to fuel the longest expansion in our history. 
Nowhere are the benefits of trade more critically needed than in the 
Middle East. By opening markets, we

[[Page 2308]]

can help to ease poverty that makes peace hard to achieve and harder 
still to sustain.
    Today's agreement is remarkable in another respect as well. Even if 
it didn't have a thing to do with peace, we would still be here, because 
it is the first free trade agreement ever signed by the United States 
which incorporates into the body of the text labor and environmental 
protections, a landmark achievement for which the negotiators on both 
sides deserve extremely high praise.
    For the United States, this follows through on our commitment to 
ensure that the drive toward globalization reinforces protections for 
our workers and for air, water, and other natural resources. The first 
trade agreement to have undergone an environmental review under a new 
U.S. policy requiring such analyses, this trade agreement is one that 
all Americans can be proud of.
    For Jordan, it represents a farsighted commitment to worker and 
environmental protection that is very much in keeping with Jordan's 
visionary commitment to peace. In today's world, developing countries 
can achieve growth without making some of the mistakes developed nations 
made on our path to industrialization. In the information age, the 
byproduct of the industrial age, the idea that to grow more you had to 
exploit both workers and the environment, is simply no longer true.
    Today, it is possible to grow an economy faster, while protecting 
air, water, and keeping children in school. This trade agreement 
embodies that big idea. Now we must turn our energies to implementing it 
as soon as possible. The insistent voices urging us to build a future 
that is healthier, more just, more prosperous, and more peaceful are not 
patient, nor should they be. This is a very good day.
    Again, let me extend my congratulations to the negotiators, my 
thanks to the King of Jordan and his 
Government and my great hope that this will be the beginning of even 
stronger bonds between our people and a real trend in modern commercial 
agreements among good people and good nations everywhere.
    Now, I'd like to invite His Majesty to 
come up here and make a few remarks.

Note: The President spoke at 6:52 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad 
Halaiqa of Jordan. The transcript released by the Office of the Press 
Secretary also included the remarks of King Abdullah II of Jordan.