    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2005, Book II)]
    [July 15, 2005]
    [Pages 1222-1229]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free
    Trade Agreement in Dallas, North Carolina
    July 15, 2005

        Thank you. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. It's great
    to be back in North Carolina. It's always good to get outside the
    beltway and into NASCAR country. [Laughter]
        Laura called me--she was in Africa for the
    past week. She called me. She's fixing

    [[Page 1223]]

    to arrive in Washington this evening, but yesterday she said, ``Where
    are you going on Friday?'' I said, ``I'm going to North Carolina.'' I
    said, ``I'll be down there in that area where the Lowe's Motor Speedway
    is.'' She said, ``Don't get any ideas.'' [Laughter] ``You're having
    enough trouble staying on your mountain bike.'' [Laughter] She sends her
    very best to you all. She's doing great. I'm a lucky man when she said
    yes, when I asked her to marry me.
        I appreciate the chance to stand with some of the finest workers in
    America, the men and women of Stowe Mills. I appreciate you all being
    here. And I thank you for giving me the chance to come and discuss an
    important topic, and that is, how do we make sure our job creation
    continues. And one way to do so is to make sure the trade we have is
    fair trade. That's what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about
    making sure that people treat us the way we treat them. I want to talk
    to you about what they call CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade
    Agreement.
        CAFTA is important for job creation. It's important for your jobs.
    CAFTA is important to help secure the democracies in our own
    neighborhood. And so, for the sake of our economic security and for the
    sake of national security, the United States House of Representatives
    should follow the lead of the United States Senate and pass CAFTA and
    get that bill to my desk.
        I appreciate our Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, flying with me today. You know, I love America. I
    love the fact that people--a person like Carlos, born in Cuba, worked
    hard all his life, was able to succeed and is now sitting in the Cabinet
    with the President. What a fantastic country we have, where opportunity
    is open to all people.
        I want to thank Congresswoman Sue Myrick for
    her leadership, for her strength of character, for working hard on
    textile customs enforcement activity. She has been a leader in making
    sure the North Carolina and the United States textile industry is
    treated fairly. I appreciate you, Sue.
        You've got two fine United States Senators from North Carolina--that
    would be Senator Dole and Senator Burr. I enjoy working with them, and I appreciate both
    Members of the United States Senate from North Carolina voting for the
    CAFTA agreement. They understand this is good for working people here in
    this State.
        I want to thank Dr. Pat Skinner, the
    president of Gaston College. Thanks for having me. I am a big believer
    in the community college system. I think--and I appreciate the good work
    the community college system does here in North Carolina. This isn't the
    first time I have ever been to a community college in your State. I've
    been to a lot of community colleges. And one reason why is because your
    State is on the leading edge of helping people find new skills, the
    skills necessary for the jobs of the 21st century. And this is a good
    place and an important place. And so, Dr. Skinner, thanks for having me.
        I want to thank the Stowe boys--[laughter]--that would be
    Robert, Harding, and Richmond. Now, I
    don't know which one of you all is the boss, but I'm interested in
    figuring out how you figured out who was the boss. I've got a lot of
    brothers, myself. [Laughter] But I appreciate their entrepreneurial
    spirit. I thank you for having me. I know they care a lot about the
    people who work in their mills. And they're--I would call them
    ``employee-friendly.'' They're people who care about the people who work
    with them. And so I want to thank them for coming. Thanks for letting me
    go by the plant.
        I want to thank the mayor, Rick Coleman, of
    the town of Dallas. That would be Dallas, North Carolina. [Laughter] And
    I want to thank Mayor Billy Joye of
    Belmont. Where's Billy? Billy, you here? Billy, yes. See, Billy, they
    don't know our connection, do they? Billy and I flew F-102s at Ellington
    Air Force Base in Houston, Texas. Thank you, Billy. As we used to

    [[Page 1224]]

    say, ``He was a heck of a stick''--[laughter]--which means you're
    probably a heck of a mayor, Billy. Thanks for coming. Appreciate you
    being here.
        I want to thank Allen Gant, chairman
    of the National--I'm not talking State--I'm talking National Council of
    Textile Organizations. He's here because the National Council of Textile
    Organizations has analyzed the CAFTA legislation and realized that this
    piece of legislation is good for American textile industry. And so I
    want to thank you for coming, Allen.
        And finally, I flew down on the airplane today with one heck of an
    entrepreneur, somebody who has made Carolina a place of business
    interest, and he tells me he's slowly but surely falling in love with
    Charlotte, and that is Bob Johnson, head
    of the Charlotte Bobcats NBA basketball team. Thank you for coming, Bob.
    How about that story--from being raised in Mississippi to getting a good
    education to building his own business and now the owner of a sports
    team that means a lot to the people. And by the way, I think he's pretty
    wise. He drafted--or his club drafted, I'm sure at his insistence, two
    University of North Carolina Tarheels.
        I met Janice Bozardt at Air Force One.
    She is a volunteer at Moore's Chapel United Methodist Church in
    Charlotte. She's been volunteering for 40 years. She leads a team of
    volunteers that delivers meals to families within the church and the
    local community. The reason I bring up Janice is because I want to
    remind you all that the strength of the United States of America lies in
    the hearts and souls of our citizens, that if you really want to--if you
    analyze our country to determine our greatest strength, you'll find that
    it exists because people hear a universal call to love a neighbor just
    like they'd like to be loved themselves and take time out of their lives
    to volunteer. Janice represents millions of people across the United
    States of America who are helping to change our country, one heart and
    one soul and one conscience at a time.
        For those of you who might be listening and are interesting in
    serving our country, find somebody who hurts and surround them with
    love. Feed the hungry. Find shelter for the homeless. Teach a child to
    read. Love somebody like you'd like to be loved yourself, and you'll be
    making a significant contribution to our country. Janice, thank you for coming. Thanks for volunteering.
        My most solemn obligation is to protect the American people. That's
    my most important duty as your President. Today, we are fighting in a
    global war on terror. We didn't ask for it. It came to our shores, and
    we're responding. We're doing our duty to not only protect our country
    but to put the conditions in place that will protect generations from--
    come. We're fighting against people who celebrate the suffering of the
    innocent.
        I thought it was really interesting that the terrorists chose to
    attack in London, England, at the same time that the United States and
    other nations were trying to figure out how to help alleve [alleviate]*
    HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa or how to help people that are
    starving to death or how to help make sure young girls get educated
    around the world.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        *White House correction.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        We were talking about a society of compassion. And these killers
    killed indiscriminately, men and women. They didn't care who they were.
    They didn't care about their religion. They murdered in the name of a
    totalitarian ideology. These are ideologues. They hate freedom. They
    reject tolerance. They despise all dissent. They have objectives. Their
    aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny.
    They want to topple governments. They want to export terror. They want
    to force free nations to retreat.
        These people will not be stopped by negotiations. They're not going
    to be--they

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    won't change their mind because of concessions. There is no appeal to
    their reason. There is only one course of action. We will take the fight
    to the enemy, and we will stay in the fight until this enemy is
    defeated. [Applause] Thank you all.
        We have a comprehensive strategy in place. First, we're doing a lot
    to protect the homeland. There's a lot of really good folks at the
    State, local, and Federal level who are working long hours to protect
    us. We're improving our intelligence gathering, and the only way to deal
    with and find people that are willing to hide in caves or in the shadows
    of our cities is to have as good of intelligence as possible. So
    intelligence sharing within our Government is getting better, and
    intelligence sharing with other governments is getting better.
        And we're going to stay on the offense. And we can do all we can to
    protect the homeland. As I like to tell people, we have to be right 100
    percent of the time, and they've got to be right once. And so therefore,
    you do everything you can to protect the home, but you stay on the
    offense against them, and you stay on the hunt. And you call people to
    account, free nations to account, say, ``Join us in this cause of
    protecting ourselves.''
        And we are on the hunt. And we've helped change societies for the
    better. Iraq is a central part of this war on terror. People are heading
    into Iraq to try to defeat us. They can't win, militarily. The only
    thing they can do is to try to shake our will, is to murder in such
    horrific terms--like killing all those kids the other day--that the
    United States will say, ``Well, you know, let's get out of there,''
    before we complete our mission. They're going to fail. They don't
    understand the United States of America. We will not be driven out of
    Iraq by a bunch of thugs and assassins. We will complete the mission.
        And our mission--just like in Afghanistan, our mission is to help a
    democracy flourish. This August you'll see the Iraqis write a
    constitution. And then they'll ratify the constitution. And then there
    will be elections for a permanent government in December. See, democracy
    is taking hold. A lot of people said it couldn't happen. A lot of people
    said, ``There's no way democracy is going to take place in a place like
    Iraq.'' But the Iraqis defied the cynics, didn't they? Given a chance to
    vote, millions showed up to the polls. Millions defied the suiciders.
        It just reminds me how universal the fuel of freedom is. See, I
    don't believe--I do not believe that freedom is America's gift to the
    world. I believe that freedom is the Almighty God's gift to each man and
    woman in this world, and if given a chance, people choose freedom over
    tyranny, hope over despair.
        The second part of our mission is to train these Iraqi troops so
    they can do the fighting. The way I put it is this: As the Iraqis stand
    up, America will stand down. I know a lot of you have got relatives--
    who've had a loved one in Iraq. And I want to thank you on behalf of a
    grateful nation. You thank them on behalf of our Nation too. The
    American people are standing with our troops, and our troops understand
    what they're doing in Iraq. They're helping lay what I call the
    foundation of peace, because in the long run, the long run, the best way
    to secure the peace for generations to come is to spread freedom, and
    that's exactly the policy of this Government.
        Here at home, we've got reason to be optimistic. This economy of
    ours is growing faster than any other major industrialized nation in the
    world. We've now had 25 consecutive months of job gains. We've recovered
    from the shocks of the attack and the recession and the market
    correction. Our unemployment rate in the United States of America is now
    5 percent. That's the lowest since September of 2001, and that's lower
    than the average rate of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. More
    Americans are working today than ever before in our Nation's history.

    [[Page 1226]]

        That's good progress. But there's more we can do. We've got to keep
    your taxes low. If you want to keep this economy growing, we've got to
    make sure that the Government doesn't run up your taxes. We've got to
    make sure we're wise about how we're spending your money. I don't know
    if you noticed the news the other day, but it turns out that when you
    cut taxes, the economy grows. When the economy grows, it yields more tax
    revenues. Over the past 5 months, the revenues have increased $94
    billion greater than anticipated, which means our deficit will be $94
    billion less, so long as Congress is wise about how they spend your
    money. And part of my job is to make sure they are wise about how we
    spend your money.
        This economy is strong. And so the fundamental question is, what do
    we do to make it stronger? And that's why I'm here to talk about the
    Central American-Dominican Republican Free Trade Agreement. See, I think
    this presents us with an historic opportunity to keep this economy
    growing, and I'll tell you why.
        First, Central American businesses and farmers can ship most of
    their products to America without paying any tariffs. In other words,
    over the past years, the Congress has decided to say, ``Okay, if you
    grow something or make something in a Central American country, you can
    ship it to America duty-free.'' But guess what? We don't have the same
    rights. We can't do the same thing. We can't grow or manufacture many
    goods here in the United States and ship our goods to their countries
    duty-free. That doesn't make any sense to me. That's what I would call
    a--not a level playing field.
        See, I told the people when I was running, ``I am for free trade,
    but I'm also for a level playing field.'' And so I took a look, as did
    Members of the Senate and now Members of the House, at the playing
    field. It's not level. It's not fair to say to a farmer here in North
    Carolina, ``You can't sell what you grow, in Central America duty-free,
    but they may be able to sell what they grow, here duty-free.''
        Last year we exported more than $15 billion--$15 billion--of goods
    to Central America. That's--but products are facing a heavy tariff.
    That's--in other words, that's what they've done; they've slapped a tax
    on our goods coming in.
        For example, Costa Rica has a 15-percent tax on dump trucks and
    mobile cranes. If you're a dump truck manufacturer and a worker in a
    dump truck manufacturing plant, the product you're manufacturing is at a
    competitive disadvantage because they put a tax on it when it comes into
    the country.
        Guatemala has a 20-percent tax on luggage. El Salvador has a 20-
    percent tax on polyester fabric. Nicaragua has a 10-percent tax on
    shrimp. Those are just some of the examples of where there is a barrier
    to entry. These foreign taxes on American-made products sold in the
    region hurt businesses, which really means they hurt jobs.
        See, it makes it harder to have a job when these countries have
    tariffs. And yet, we don't have the tariffs in our country. And so one
    of the things CAFTA would do will eliminate these one-way tariffs on
    American products and open up a market of 44 million consumers to
    America's goods, services, and crops. That's what the American people
    have got to understand.
        This deal is a good deal for workers. This basically says, ``If you
    make a good product, it's going to be easier to sell your product to 44
    million new customers.'' By eliminating these tariffs, CAFTA will keep
    this economy going. CAFTA helps American textile workers by keeping
    textile jobs in the U.S., and here is how: Central America is the second
    largest market in the world for our textile products. I don't know if
    people here in North Carolina know that. Think about what I just said:
    It is the second largest market for textile products. So if you're a
    textile worker, it seems like to me that one of the questions you ask,
    ``Where do we sell our products? And if

    [[Page 1227]]

    we sell our products, are we being treated fairly for the products we
    manufacture?''
        Garment factories in Central America buy yarn and fabric. That's how
    they operate. They buy the yarn and--I just saw some yarn and fabric
    made. You do a fine job, by the way. And they buy that yarn and fabric.
    But it's taxed before it gets into the country. In other words, it makes
    the product made in your plant less competitive with products made in
    other plants. These Central American factories are competing with Asian
    garment workers. And Asian--generally, they use Asian materials. See, so
    Central American companies need to have an incentive to continue to buy
    our product, and the best way to do it is to get rid of those tariffs on
    U.S.-made yarn, the yarn right--made in your plant.
        If we can get rid of the tariffs, it is more competitive, which
    makes it more likely that we'll be able to--in our neighborhood--compete
    with Asian manufacturers. That's why it's a good deal for textile
    workers. It means the products you produce will be cheaper, less
    expensive in a part of the world--the second largest place where we--the
    second largest market for our products. And that means jobs here in
    America. CAFTA is good for U.S. jobs. CAFTA means textile jobs will stay
    right here in the United States of America.
        In 2004, North Carolina exported more than $1.7 billion worth of
    manufactured goods to CAFTA nations, most of it textiles and apparel.
    Without CAFTA, the market for these textiles in Central America would
    likely disappear and so would thousands of jobs here.
        This bill is important for North Carolina. It's important for every
    State. But it's--see, one of the reasons why we asked the workers to sit
    up here is because I want people to connect this legislation with jobs.
    That's what we're talking about, really. People at Stowe Mills
    understand this. That's why the CEO, Harding Stowe, one of the Stowe boys, and other textile
    manufacturers are urging Congress to pass CAFTA. That's a pretty
    interesting observation, isn't it, by people who know the business
    pretty well. In other words, they've analyzed this piece of legislation.
    They understand the significance. They understand that when you drop
    tariffs, it will help increase exports. And when you increase exports,
    that means more sales, which means more jobs. They know this. These are
    the people who have a vested interest in this piece of legislation--
    those are the textile manufacturers. And the textile manufacturers agree
    with me that the United States House of Representatives, for the good of
    American workers, ought to pass CAFTA legislation. And I want to thank
    them for being here today.
        Eighty percent--80 percent of U.S. exports of consumer and
    industrial products will become duty-free--80 percent of what we produce
    here going down there. CAFTA nations bought a million dollars of
    American goods, including semiconductors, electronic components from
    Oregon, petroleum and coal from Texas, plastics from Colorado, cars
    trucks and autoparts from Michigan. In other words, this bill is going
    to have effect beyond textiles. It's going to help people who are
    working in manufacturing facilities all over the country.
        The National Association of Manufacturers estimates that the
    elimination of tariffs on these goods will result in an extra billion
    dollars worth of U.S. manufactured exports to the region each year.
    That's a billion dollars more goods going into those markets, which
    means somebody's more likely to keep a job, or maybe somebody is more
    likely to find a job. In other words, this is a jobs program we're
    talking about.
        The increase of sales is important all across our country. It
    provides additional opportunity. And I'm going to tell you something,
    this bill helps our farmers, and that's important for people to
    understand. Fortunately, we don't have a national security issue when it
    comes to agriculture. We produce more than we consume, and I want to
    thank our farmers for that.

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        I can't say the same about energy, by the way, which--that means we
    have a national security problem, when you're importing more energy than
    you produce. That's why Congress is going to get me an energy bill. I
    want to warn you, by signing that bill, it's not going to drop your
    gasoline prices, but it's finally going to put in place a strategy that
    will help us diversify away from foreign sources of energy, which we
    need to do.
        But if you produce more than you consume, therefore, you've got to
    figure out ways to sell what you produce to somebody else. In other
    words, exports are really important for our farm community, and so we
    ought to be working to open up markets for the farmers. That's how you
    avoid surplus here at home.
        Today, our agriculture trade with CAFTA is nearly $1.8 billion a
    year. That's a lot. And the American Farm Bureau Federation, they got
    their economists on this deal. They looked at the CAFTA agreement, and
    they think it would increase farm exports by additional $1.5 billion a
    year. If you're selling 1.8 now, and you get rid of those tariffs on
    your farm products, which means you're more likely to sell more product,
    and it goes up to 1.5 billion, that's a hefty increase, by signing this
    agreement. Feed grains and wheat and rice and soybeans and poultry and
    beef and pork and dairy and fruits and vegetables are all going to
    benefit from this agreement.
        You mentioned--you heard me--you did hear me say pork. [Laughter] In
    North Carolina, the leading farm product is pork. You grow a lot of hogs
    here. [Laughter] And you're good at it; you're really good at it. And
    you grow more than we eat. Do you realize in CAFTA nations, pork now
    faces duties as high as 47 percent? If you're a pork producer here in
    North Carolina and you're looking for a place to sell your product, you
    want to get rid of that 47 percent tariff. You want to reduce tariffs.
    You want your product to be able to go into countries duty-free. You
    want to be treated just like we treat other nations. That's what you
    want, and the CAFTA bill will do just that. CAFTA is going to be good
    for American agriculture.
        And I happen to be a person who believes that it's important to have
    a strong agricultural sector. And if it's good for our America
    agriculture, it's good for America.
        I want to tell you something else about CAFTA. It will help advance
    a key part of our foreign policy. In the seventies and eighties, most of
    the CAFTA nations suffered under military dictatorships. The region was
    not stable. There was a lot of turmoil. And then those nations began to
    embrace freedom and democracy. And so we've got some young democracies
    right in our own neighborhood. And it's in our interest that those
    democracies be strong and viable.
        But there's still forces that oppose democratic government there and
    who seek to limit economic freedom. And there are forces in the
    neighborhood who are hostile to our interests. Now, these small nations
    of CAFTA--I just met--by the way, met with the President of El
    Salvador today--they have made a
    big commitment for CAFTA. They say, ``We want to do CAFTA. We'll lower
    our tariffs.''
        By the way, it makes sense for them to lower their tariffs. After
    all, it will help their people. It will mean that North Carolina pork
    will be less expensive at the stores for somebody trying to feed their
    family. But they've made this commitment. They said, ``We want to stand
    with America through the CAFTA agreement.'' And it's really important we
    pass that agreement to help stabilize those countries.
        We got to help the young democracies develop--deliver a better life
    to their own citizens. That's what this agreement means for them. It
    means products are less expensive. It means their businesspeople will be
    more likely to be able to buy plant and equipment at a better price,
    which will mean more jobs for the people there living in Central
    America. That's what that means.

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        It will improve--boost demand for our goods. It will help them
    reduce poverty. See, as wealth spreads out through the neighborhood, it
    will help create a vibrant middle class, and that's important. That's
    important. It will mean somebody is more likely to find a job close to
    home than trying to sneak into the United States of America to find a
    job. CAFTA is important foreign policy. It will help stabilize
    democracies, and it will help our friends grown and prosper, and that's
    good. That's in our interests that we do just that.
        And so I'm calling on the Congress to pass CAFTA. It's a pro-jobs
    bill. It's a pro-growth bill. It's a pro-democracy bill. We cannot turn
    our backs on our friends. We cannot say to them, ``For pure political
    reasons, we're not going to support a treaty that will not only help our
    own businesses, but that will help stabilize young democracies.''
        And so I want to thank you for giving me a chance to come by and
    visit with you about an important piece of legislation. I can't tell you
    what an honor it is to come down to North Carolina, and it's a huge
    honor to be the President of the United States of America.
        May God bless you, and may God bless our people.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:01 p.m. at Gaston College. In his
    remarks, he referred to Robert L. Stowe III, chairman, D. Harding Stowe,
    president and chief executive officer, and Richmond H. Stowe, secretary
    and treasurer, R.L. Stowe Mills, Inc.; Robert L. Johnson, owner and
    governor, National Basketball Association's Charlotte Bobcats; and
    President Elias Antonio Saca Gonzalez of El Salvador.