[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 44 (Monday, November 8, 1993)]
[Pages 2254-2255]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Message to the Congress Transmitting the NAFTA Legislation

 November 3, 1993

To the Congress of the United States:

    I am pleased to transmit today legislation to implement the North 
American Free Trade Agreement, an agreement vital to the national 
interest and to our ability to compete in the global economy. I also am 
transmitting a number of related documents required for the 
implementation of NAFTA.
    For decades, the United States has enjoyed a bipartisan consensus on 
behalf of a free and open trading system. Administrations of both 
parties have negotiated, and Congresses have approved, agreements that 
lower tariffs and expand opportunities for American workers and American 
firms to export their products overseas. The result has been bigger 
profits and more jobs here at home.
    Our commitment to more free and more fair world trade has encouraged 
democracy and human rights in nations that trade with us. With the end 
of the Cold War, and the growing significance of the global economy, 
trade agreements that lower barriers to American exports rise in 
importance.
    The North American Free Trade Agreement is the first trade expansion 
measure of this new era, and it is in the national interest that the 
Congress vote its approval.
    Not only will passage of NAFTA reduce tariff barriers to American 
goods, but it also will operate in an unprecedented manner--to improve 
environmental conditions on the shared border between the United States 
and Mexico, to raise the wages and living standards of Mexican workers, 
and to protect our workers from the effects of unexpected surges in 
Mexican imports into the United States.
    This pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-exports agreement--if adopted by the 
Congress--will vastly improve the status quo with regard to trade, the 
environment, labor rights, and the creation and protection of American 
jobs.
    Without NAFTA, American business will continue to face high tariff 
rates and restrictive nontariff barriers that inhibit their ability to 
export to Mexico. Without NAFTA, incentives will continue to encourage 
American firms to relocate their operations and take American jobs to 
Mexico. Without NAFTA, we face continued degradation of the natural 
environment with no strategy for clean-up. Most of all, without NAFTA, 
Mexico will have every incentive to make arrangements with Europe and 
Japan that operate to our disadvantage.
    Today, Mexican tariffs are two and a half times greater than U.S. 
tariffs. This agreement will create the world's largest tariff-free 
zone, from the Canadian Arctic to the Mexican tropics--more than 370 
million consumers and over $6.5 trillion of production, led by the 
United States. As tariff walls come

[[Page 2255]]

down and exports go up, the United States will create 200,000 new jobs 
by 1995. American goods will enter this market at lower tariff rates 
than goods made by our competitors.
    Mexico is a rapidly growing country with a rapidly expanding middle 
class and a large pent-up demand for goods--especially American goods. 
Key U.S. companies are poised to take advantage of this market of 90 
million people. NAFTA ensures that Mexico's reforms will take root, and 
then flower.
    Moreover, NAFTA is a critical step toward building a new post-Cold 
War community of free markets and free nations throughout the Western 
Hemisphere. Our neighbors--not just in Mexico but throughout Latin 
America--are waiting to see whether the United States will lead the way 
toward a more open, hopeful, and prosperous future or will instead 
hunker down behind protective, but self-defeating walls. This Nation--
and this Congress--has never turned away from the challenge of 
international leadership. This is no time to start.
    The North American Free Trade Agreement is accompanied by 
supplemental agreements, which will help ensure that increased trade 
does not come at the cost of our workers or the border environment. 
Never before has a trade agreement provided for such comprehensive 
arrangements to raise the living standards of workers or to improve the 
environmental quality of an entire region. This makes NAFTA not only a 
stimulus for economic growth, but a force for social good.
    Finally, NAFTA will also provide strong incentives for cooperation 
on illegal immigration and drug interdiction.
    The implementing legislation for NAFTA I forward to the Congress 
today completes a process that has been accomplished in the best spirit 
of bipartisan teamwork. NAFTA was negotiated by two Presidents of both 
parties and is supported by all living former Presidents of the United 
States as well as by distinguished Americans from many walks of life--
government, civil rights, and business.
    They recognize what trade expanding agreements have meant for 
America's economic greatness in the past, and what this agreement will 
mean for America's economic and international leadership in the years to 
come. The North American Free Trade Agreement is an essential part of 
the economic strategy of this country: expanding markets abroad and 
providing a level playing field for American workers to compete and win 
in the global economy.
    America is a Nation built on hope and renewal. If the Congress 
honors this tradition and approves this agreement, it will help lead our 
country into the new era of prosperity and leadership that awaits us.
                                            William J. Clinton
The White House,
November 3, 1993.

Note: This message was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on 
November 4.