[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 37 (Monday, September 20, 1993)]
[Pages 1760-1766]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's News Conference With Prime Minister Paul Keating of 
Australia

 September 14, 1993

    The President. Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure for me to 
welcome the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Keating, to Washington and 
to have this opportunity to make a couple of statements and then answer 
some of your questions.
    Despite that vast ocean which separates us, Australia and the United 
States share essential values and interests rooted in our frontier 
heritages, our shared commitment to democracy, our status as Pacific 
trading nations, and our efforts across the years to ensure and 
strengthen our common security. It's a pleasure for me to have the 
opportunity to personally reaffirm those bonds today.
    The Prime Minister and I exchanged views on a wide variety of 
issues. I'd like to emphasize the importance of one in particular, the 
Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations. We agreed that 
strengthening GATT's trade rules is a top priority for both our 
countries. As a founder of the Cairns Group of free trading agricultural 
nations, Australia is working closely with us to bring the Uruguay round 
to conclusion this year. So that we can achieve agreement this year, the 
Prime Minister and I strongly urge the European Community not to reopen 
the Blair House accord on agricultural trade as has been suggested. We 
need to move forward, not backward, to complete the round and to give 
the world economy a much-needed boost.
    We also discussed the importance of economic relations in the new 
Pacific community that both our nations are committed to help build. We 
discussed the building blocks of that community: bilateral alliances, 
such as the one we share; an active commitment to supporting the spread 
of democracy; and support for open and expanded markets. We discussed 
the important role of the Organization for the Asian Pacific Economic 
Cooperation, APEC. Both the U.S. and Australia are members. Both of us 
have been active proponents of regional trade liberalization. And I look 
very much forward to working with Prime Minister Keating to make the 
November APEC ministerial meeting and the leaders conference in Seattle, 
Washington, a big success.
    Australia and the United States also share mutual security 
interests. Australia has been our ally in every major conflict of this 
century. Today we share an interest in bolstering the region's security 
and in supporting its movement toward democracy. I expressed my 
particular admiration for the crucial role Australia has played in 
fashioning and implementing the international effort to promote 
reconciliation in Cambodia. I told the Prime Minister that we look 
forward to many similar partnerships in the years ahead.
    This meeting was to have occurred yesterday, but Prime Minister 
Keating and I agreed that we should delay it because of the signing of 
the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. That historic breakthrough 
reminds us that we live in a momentous time when the old walls of 
division are falling and new vistas are opening. Our success in seizing 
these opportunities will depend in large measure on how well the 
community of democracies can respond to work together towards shared 
goals. Today this meeting with the Prime Minister reaffirms that our two 
nations will continue to work together closely to turn the promise of 
this era into reality.
    Mr. Prime Minister.
    Prime Minister Keating. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, I'd like to 
say firsthand that our meeting was most worthwhile, from my point of 
view and Australia's point of view,

[[Page 1761]]

for the quality of our discussions. And our close agreement on a wide 
range of issues I think demonstrates the vitality and the relevance of 
the Australia-U.S. relationship at a time of great change 
internationally. Let me say, I'm very favorably impressed by the vigor 
and imagination with which the President and his team are addressing the 
new challenges we now face in the world.
    Australia is a country which puts great importance on its 
relationship with the United States. Our longstanding friendship which 
the President has just referred to is based on shared values of 
democracy and freedom. And as he remarked, we fought in five major 
conflicts together over the course of this century. And in the post-
cold-war period, I'm happy to say that our alliance remains very strong, 
indeed. In commerce and diplomacy we do a great deal together.
    I was impressed in our discussions today by the priority which now 
attaches to fundamental questions of international trade structures. I 
welcome the strong support that President Clinton has given to APEC as 
an organization for promoting trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific 
area. I congratulated him on his truly historic initiative of inviting 
other APEC leaders to join him at an informal meeting in Seattle this 
November. This will allow APEC leaders to discuss ways of moving towards 
an Asia-Pacific community which brings benefits of closer economic 
integration to all members. This step also recognizes the increased 
importance of the Asia Pacific in world affairs.
    We agreed on the importance of achieving a successful and balanced 
outcome of the Uruguay round by the mid-December deadline. No other 
joint action by governments this year could do more to boost the 
prospects of world growth and jobs, both subjects which the President 
and I are intensely interested. We agreed that any move by the European 
Community to reopen the Blair House accord on agriculture seriously 
risks jeopardizing the whole Uruguay round. The Blair House accord 
already represents a minimum outcome acceptable to those countries 
seeking to establish fair rules of trade for agriculture.
    Finally, I should like to thank the President for his gracious 
hospitality and to congratulate him on the leadership he is showing on 
the United States international and domestic agendas.
    Mr. President, thank you very much for having us in the White House 
from Australia. And we appreciated the arrangements, particularly the 
difficulties of the--the opportunity presented by signing the Middle 
East accords and the arrangements today. It's been great to be here with 
you.
    The President. Terry [Terence Hunt, Associated Press], I'd like to 
call on you first, and then if we could, I'd like to alternate between 
one question from an American journalist and one question from an 
Australian journalist. So we'll have to go on the honor system, although 
I think most of the Australians are here on the right. Okay, Terry, go 
ahead.

NAFTA

    Q. Mr. President, you said today that you don't want to personalize 
the NAFTA fight, but I'd like to ask you about remarks made today in 
this room by Presidents Carter and Bush. They both spoke about 
demagoguery in NAFTA, and President Carter spoke about a demagog with 
unlimited financial resources, obviously Mr. Perot. Do you think that 
Mr. Perot is playing loose and fair with the facts?
    The President. Well, I'm going to reiterate what I said before. I am 
for this agreement because I think it will create more jobs. I think 
anyone who wants to enter the debate should do so. I think we should be 
very careful that if we make an assertion, that we know that it has some 
factual basis. And if any of us make a mistake we ought to say so.
    You know, my office has already put out a statement because I 
inadvertently made a factual error today, not a big one, but it was an 
error, and we corrected it. And I just think that the people of this 
country and of most of the wealthier countries in the world have seen 
such enormous pressure on the middle class--our folks have really been 
hurt--that they want this to be an open debate. But we don't need to 
prey on their fears, we need to really work through all the various 
arguments and the issues and the facts. And I'm going to do my best to 
do that, and I'll be glad to argue, debate, or discuss with anyone

[[Page 1762]]

who has a different opinion. But I think, as President, I should take 
the position that I'm going to try to bring this country along with this 
and leave that other business to others to fight.
    Someone from Australia. Yes?

Pacific Community and Human Rights

    Q. Mr. Clinton, could you comment on Australian concerns that the 
U.S. push on human rights in countries such as China and Indonesia could 
threaten Asia-Pacific economic cooperation? Could Mr. Keating also 
comment on that? And Mr. President, could you also flesh out exactly 
what you want to see coming out of the leaders summit in Seattle in 
November?
    The President. Let me mention, first of all, the United States does 
have a very strong position on human rights, and I think we should. I 
also think your government has a good position on human rights, which it 
has not been reluctant to express in dealing with other nations. But 
that has not undermined our relationships, commercial relationships and 
political relationships with countries that we think are making an 
honest effort to shoot straight with us and to work with us.
    You mentioned Indonesia. I went out of my way to ask President 
Soeharto to come to Japan and meet with me when I was there, because 
he's the head of the nonaligned nations. Indonesia, I think, is one of 
the most underestimated countries in the world. Most people have no idea 
how big it is, that 180 million people live there, that it is a vast, 
enormous potential partner in a global economy. We have questions about 
the issues of East Timor, as you know, and I think you do, too--your 
country does, too. But we have had good contact with Indonesia.
    With regard to China, the United States has, after all, an $18 
billion trade deficit with China. It would be hard to say that we are 
not doing our part to aid the Chinese economic revival. We have very 
strong commercial relationships with them. But it is our responsibility 
in the world in which we live, I think, to try to restrain the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to try to stand up for 
human rights, and to try to engage the Chinese across a whole broad 
range of issues, so that we can't simply have a commerce-only 
relationship.
    I am going to do what I can to build the Pacific community and not 
to undermine it, and that's what your Prime Minister spoke so eloquently 
about today.
    I think you wanted him to comment on this, too.
    Prime Minister Keating. Neither the United States nor Australia will 
ever compromise its shared sense of democracy, its commitment to human 
rights and the respect of human values. And we put them forthrightly 
wherever we see those values under threat or seeking to be compromised. 
And this is true in Australia's case with Indonesia. It's been true in 
respect of China, as has been the case with the United States. But I 
think it's true for me and I'm certain for the President that we see 
these issues as part of a total relationship where we seek to have an 
influence on these countries and where the influence may be diminished 
if the totality of the relationship only involves the human rights 
questions, and beyond that, that is on these other issues like 
proliferation and other issues and commercial questions, where the 
relationship must be seen in its totality.

Middle East

    Q. Mr. President, a day after the historic signing ceremony here on 
the South Lawn yesterday, the Israelis appear to be establishing a 
relationship with Morocco, a formal relationship, and there is this 
agreement between Israel and Jordan. What specifically are you doing 
now, to try to promote the establishment of formal diplomatic relations 
between Israel and other Arab nations, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, good 
friends of the United States? And do you think that is in the cards in 
the immediate future?
    The President. Well, let me first say that I am very, very pleased 
that Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Minister Peres have been received 
by King Hassan in Morocco. When we learned of this development 
yesterday, and we talked about it in some detail--Prime Minister Rabin 
and I talked about it--I was very pleased, because I think that the King 
may have set an example, which I hope other Arab states will consider 
following now, to try to continue now to just establish dialog.

[[Page 1763]]

    We are at this moment focusing on three or four aspects of what we 
can do to implement this relationship. One is, what about all the 
practical problems that are still out there? You know, elections have to 
be held. Economic endeavors have to be undertaken in the Gaza, and there 
are lots of things that just have to be done practically. So we have a 
team now looking at all these practical problems to see what can the 
United States do to facilitate this.
    The second thing we're doing is looking at what we can do to try to 
organize an appropriate level of investment. And in that regard, we're 
looking primarily at maybe having a donors meeting and trying to bring 
in the interested European countries and Asian countries and Arab 
countries to talk about how we can put together the kind of package we 
ought to have. Yesterday I met with a couple of hundred American Jewish 
and Arab leaders from around the country, and I asked them to 
participate from the point of view and private sector and partnerships 
and helping to develop these areas so we could really move this 
relationship forward.
    And then the third thing that we're going to do is to discuss on a 
political level what we should do to try to facilitate further political 
contacts. The announcement between Israel and Jordan today is very 
helpful. And I hope that will give further encouragement to other Arab 
countries.
    Is there another--yes?

Agricultural Subsidies

    Q. Mr. President, you made a very eloquent appeal for support for 
your NAFTA proposals today, asking for the middle class to understand 
what it could provide in jobs for your NAFTA initiative. Yet you're 
still providing massive subsidies, $90 billion a year, in the 
agricultural sector. When are we going to see some change in that? 
Because that is hurting free traders like Australia.
    The President. I'm sorry, I didn't hear--change in what?
    Q. Your agricultural subsidies, particularly the Export Enhancement 
Program.
    The President. Well, perhaps the Prime Minister would like to 
comment on this, too, but what we are trying to do with the Export 
Enhancement Program is to have it run, if you will, only against or in 
competition with countries that have done things that we believe 
constitute unfair trade by governmental action. That is, we intend to do 
what we can to avoid using the program in ways that undermine 
Australia's interests. And we're going to work very hard on that because 
Australia basically is a free trading country in agriculture. And in a 
larger sense, if we could get a new GATT agreement that includes 
agriculture, that would be of enormous benefit to Australia, to the 
entire Cairns Group, and to the whole principle of reducing subsidies in 
agricultural trade and opening up more competition.
    So I think if you will just watch the way that thing is applied, 
that program over the next year, you will see that we are going out of 
our way not to have it conflict with the trade targets and interests of 
Australia, which is a country that does practice what it preaches in 
terms of free trade and agriculture.

NAFTA

    Q. Mr. President, what is your estimate now of how many jobs would 
be lost, net jobs lost, under the North American Free Trade Agreement? 
Can you better describe your proposal for reemployment? Is it job 
training? Are they subsidies? What kind of proposal----
    The President. First of all, our administration is convinced that, 
net, more jobs will be gained than lost. If we didn't think that, we 
wouldn't be pushing it. But we know that some jobs will be lost. How 
many will be lost really depends upon things that are almost impossible 
to calculate. Let me just give you one example. We know right now that 
certain agricultural sectors will be helped and others over a period of 
time will lose some of their tariff protections in America over a period 
of several years. We know right now that certain manufacturing sectors, 
particularly high-end manufacturing sectors--higher wage, more 
sophisticated manufacturing will be helped. Other manufacturing will be 
subject to more competition and fewer import limits.
    What we don't know, and this is why it's hard to answer your net 
question, is how many jobs will move to Mexico from some- 

[[Page 1764]]

where else and will then use American products. Let me just give you one 
example. Someone told me yesterday about a company that's making toys 
now--no offense, Prime Minister--in China that intends to open a plant 
in Mexico because it will cost so much less to send the toys from Mexico 
to the U.S. than China to the U.S. And if they do, they will all of a 
sudden begin to buy all their plastic, which is over 80 percent of the 
component parts, from Du Pont or some United States company.
    So it is hard to know how many jobs will be lost. Net, we believe, 
there will be a big plus. But there will be jobs lost. There are now 
jobs being lost in defense cutbacks. And what I want to do is to 
completely reorganize the unemployment system into a reemployment system 
in which people who lose their jobs who are not likely to get that same 
job back within a reasonable amount of time can get a wide range of 
training opportunities based on two things: What do they want to do, 
first, and secondly, based on the best information we have, what are 
they most likely to get a job doing? And so we are now--the Secretary of 
Labor is designing a program. We intend to present it to the Congress, 
and I think it will have broad bipartisan support.
    Q. How will you finance it?
    The President. We plan to finance it now through economies 
associated with implementing the reinventing Government report.
    An Australian journalist. Yes, sir?
    Q. You've just acknowledged that some of the gains of NAFTA might be 
at the cost of East Asia. How do you see NAFTA, which seems to be 
essentially a preferential arrangement within the North American 
context, being able to operate within that broader APEC framework, which 
is meant to be nondiscriminatory?
    I would ask Mr. Keating to also respond, please.
    The President. If you look at it from our point of view, what we're 
trying to do is to further lower our trade barriers against Mexico and 
against Canada. They're going to lower more of theirs against us. That's 
not inconsistent with what my overarching goal is, which is to get a 
freer trading system worldwide, which is why we're pushing the GATT 
round. But meanwhile, it is very much in the interest of the United 
States to have a stronger, more stable, more democratic, and more 
prosperous Mexico on our southern border, able to buy more of our 
products. And most of what we do there would have marginal or no impact 
one way or the other on anything that could happen, for example, in 
Southeast Asia in the next 4 or 5 years. I would also say that if this 
works, what I think you'll see is more open trading systems and fewer 
tariffs in many other Latin American countries which are changing 
politically and economically as well.
    So I am not for a discriminatory system, but what I am trying to do 
is make those systems less closed in their relationships with us now in 
the hope that over the long run, the GATT round and the worldwide 
trading rules will really come to dominate the trading policies of all 
nations. And then, when we have regional groups like APEC, they'll be 
for the purpose of putting more arrangements together that create jobs 
rather than dealing with trade rules and regulations.
    Yes, would you like to answer that?
    Prime Minister Keating. I don't think that there is anything 
necessarily inconsistent between either the United States trading into 
the Asia Pacific, Canada trading with the Asia Pacific, or Mexico 
trading with the Asia Pacific individually or collectively as part of 
NAFTA. I think what is important in terms of the view of the Asia-
Pacific economies of NAFTA is that there is perhaps more flesh on the 
bones of APEC before NAFTA goes beyond Mexico, perhaps into South 
America. But the concept of NAFTA integrating with the Asia Pacific is 
one where I don't think there is any conflict of concepts. And as the 
President has said, both things are going to increase the velocity of 
trade, both within the Americas and within the Asia Pacific.

APEC Meeting in Seattle

    Q. Mr. Keating, could you tell us if you've determined who will 
represent China at the leaders conference that follows the ministerial 
meeting and if you've given the President any idea of other issues that 
might be discussed at that time and what the objectives actually are at 
that conference?

[[Page 1765]]

    Prime Minister Keating. Well, I think the President naturally is the 
host of this conference, and therefore, the invitees and the acceptances 
are primary a matter for him. But I know that China is now considering 
who they might send.
    The key thing about the conference is that it provides definition to 
a new world economic community, and that is the Asia-Pacific economic 
community. So by having a leaders conference, by the APEC member states 
attending at leadership level, it's providing a definition of that area 
that formerly wasn't so.
    APEC, in terms of its intrastate trade, is in fact more integrated 
than is the European Community or even NAFTA. So there's a great 
naturalness about APEC, and I think the President's historic initiative 
of inviting the leaders together gives it form, substance, and as we 
ourselves adopt an agenda, a work program for the trade-liberalizing 
agenda of APEC. Not only is that body having form and definition, but it 
will actually proceed along the path of trade liberalization, the very 
thing that the President is committed to.
    The President. If I might, let me just say, first of all, on the 
economic issues, Asia is the fastest growing part of the world. Latin 
America is the second fastest growing now. About 40 percent of our 
exports are now going to Asia. And more and more of our trade-related 
jobs are tied there. It is a very important thing that we are not only 
hosting this economic conference, that--and the Prime Minister has been 
too modest. He played a major role in convincing all these countries 
that their leaders should come to Seattle to be a part of this. But the 
fact that all these leaders are going to come here and we're going to 
have a chance to sit one-on-one and in groups with no sort of 
bureaucratic apparatus, no preset agenda, nothing to weigh us down, and 
talk through a whole range of economic and political issues, is an 
enormous opportunity for me to follow up on what we did at the G-7, 
where we reestablished clearly and publicly the dynamics of our 
relationship with Japan which we're working on now, our security 
obligations in Korea. Now we'll have a chance I'm not sure a United 
States President has ever had before, to talk to the leaders of all 
these countries at one time and to try to map out an agenda. But I don't 
want to prewrite what's going to happen there because it might get a 
little better as we go along.
    Q. Who will represent China, sir?
    The President. Well, we don't know yet. But I'm hoping that they'll 
be very well represented, and I kind of think they will be.
    We owe the last question to an Australian journalist because we 
promised 50/50. Go ahead.
    Q. I appreciate it. For both of you gentlemen, do you see that the 
NAFTA----
    The President. He's not an Australian journalist. [Laughter]
    Q. No, for the ABC, the Australian Broadcast Corporation.
    The President. Oh really? Okay, go ahead.
    Q. You talked a lot about----
    The President. I thought we'd get an American trying to mimic an 
Australian accent. [Laughter] I didn't realize we had--go ahead.

GATT Process

    Q. You've talked a lot about the NAFTA process and GATT. And for 
both of you, do you see any positive impact of having alternatives of 
NAFTA and APEC for the GATT process? Is there a certain political 
leverage that you get out of it? I believe Ambassador Kantor had talked 
about that during one of the congressional hearings. Is there a positive 
impact going back to the GATT process?
    Prime Minister Keating. Well, I think APEC and NAFTA, too, end up 
being GATT-plus options. They are GATT plus. But in the event that GATT 
did fail, they do define themselves as freer trade areas, in the case of 
NAFTA, in the case of APEC, defining an area which has got enormous 
mass, an enormous weight--economic mass and economic weight and economic 
growth. So the United States locking into that, all of us locking into 
that, lifting the velocity of that means that in defining a new economic 
and trading community, in getting that growth up, this is at least some 
alternative than where we'd have been in the unhappy position of the 
GATT round failing.
    Now, frankly, I don't think the GATT round will fail. I don't think 
the Europeans

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can let the French decide that the world's trading round should fail. I 
don't think the French will want to carry the odium of the round failing 
at their expense. And therefore, I believe there's much in the GATT 
round succeeding. But I do see NAFTA and APEC as GATT-plus overlays or 
overlays to the GATT. But you can also see them in place thereof, in 
part, as discrete area communities where we can all benefit by freer 
trade.
    Q. [Inaudible]
    Prime Minister Keating. Well, I think you've got to say this, that 
APEC equals growth, equals jobs. I think NAFTA equals growth, equals 
jobs. And that's the point the President was making earlier.
    The President. I couldn't give a better answer than that. Thank you 
very much.

Note: The President's 25th news conference began at 3:11 p.m. in the 
East Room at the White House.