[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 45 (Monday, November 15, 1993)]
[Pages 2330-2332]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Telephone Conversation With Congressman Ed Pastor on NAFTA

 November 12, 1993

    Congressman Ed Pastor. Good morning.

    The President. Hello, Ed.

    Congressman Pastor. Yes, good morning, Mr. President.

    The President. How are you?

    Congressman Pastor. I'm doing well, sir, beautiful weather here in 
Arizona.

    The President. It's beautiful here, too.

    Congressman Pastor. The reason I called you was to let you know that 
November 17, we'll be supporting you on the free-trade agreement.

    The President. Thank you very much. We need your help.

    Congressman Pastor. And I give a lot of credit to this to 
Congressman Esteban Torres. As you know, he worked very hard to get that 
nat. bank. And I know that with it we can do some things along the 
border.

    I had a conversation yesterday with the EPA Administrator, and we 
talked about the resources that will be available. That was one of my 
concerns. So I look forward to working with her and with you to help the 
border communities along our Mexican-U.S. border.

    The President. Thank you very much, Ed. As you well know, these 
environmental difficulties are going to get a lot better if NAFTA passes 
now that we've got the development bank there. And it also means more 
jobs along the border on both sides working

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on environmental clean-up. So I'm very encouraged.
    I also want you to know that since you've been gone we've had a 
pretty good run in picking up some folks. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo from 
California came out yesterday, and we got five Congressmen from the Rust 
Belt. David Mann from Ohio became the first Democrat in Ohio to come out 
for NAFTA along with Congressman Hobson and Congressman Kasich. And then 
we got two Republicans from Michigan and two Members of Congress in the 
last week switched from no to yes, Marilyn Lloyd and Rick Lehman.

    Congressman Pastor. Well, Mr. President, you're doing very well.
    The President. Well, we're making progress anyway. And we got Gerry 
Studds and Steny Hoyer when they came out last week. I think that was a 
good sign because they'll work hard and try to help us pass this thing. 
So I'm feeling much better than I did a few days ago. But I'm glad to 
have this phone call from you, and I just want to encourage you to try 
to sway every vote you can. And let's keep working until we bring it in.

    Congressman Pastor. Well, I'm going to be working with Members of 
the Hispanic Caucus. I know that some are still undecided, so we'll be 
working with them.

    The President. We've got about four outstanding that I think we can 
still get if we all work hard.

    Congressman Pastor. Well, we're all going to work hard for you and, 
hopefully, at the final count we'll be past the 218 that we need. But 
I'm very happy to join you in this effort and at this time would like to 
ask you to consider coming to Arizona one of these days.

    The President. I'd like to come back. You know it's been a while 
since I was there. I was there during the campaign, and the State was 
actually very good to me. I was amazed as we came so close to victory 
there. And I'm anxious to come back, and I want to be your guest.

    Congressman Pastor. Well, you have a standing tee time, so let me 
know when you--and we've got a lot of mulligans. [Laughter] Let me know 
when you want to come out.

    The President. Thanks. I've played golf in Arizona, and it was a 
good round for me; so I have wonderful memories of that. I'll do that. 
Thank you.

    Congressman Pastor. Okay. Thank you Mr. President.

    The President. Bye.

    Congressman Pastor. Have a good day.

[At this point, the telephone conversation ended, and the President 
answered reporters' questions.]

    Q. Where does this put you, roughly, in terms of the number of votes 
you need now? Sunday you said you needed about 30.
    The President. Oh, no, we're much closer now. I think we'll get what 
we think we have to get on the Democratic side, and I'm working with the 
Republicans. I see all this stuff about their difficulties, but I don't 
buy that. I think that they've got some of the same problems our folks 
do.
    I think it's clear to everybody now--let me say this again, if there 
were a secret ballot, this would pass by 50 votes or more. And I think 
everyone knows that. So now it's a question of getting the people who 
are in there harder for NAFTA and who know it's good for American jobs 
and who know it's an important part of our foreign policy for the 
future, that it will develop America by reaching out to the world, that 
it will lead to a trade pact with all of Latin America, that it will 
help us with the Pacific and Europe. It's a matter of sort of bringing 
that conviction to the fore.
    And I will say again, I think that from the point of view of the 
Congress, the number one virtue of the debate between the Vice President 
and Mr. Perot is that Al Gore showed that if you are on the right side 
of an issue and if you believe it, you can convince your constituents 
that you're right and that it's in their interest. And so I'm still very 
upbeat about this. But I think there will be clouds around this issue 
right to the last.

    Q. Well, just in a ballpark idea, I mean, is it fair to say less 
than 20 votes away or----

    The President. It's fair to say that I've got a list that makes me 
think we can do what

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we always thought we'd have to do. In fast track, I think the Democrats 
only had--when they voted for the fast track negotiations here, I think 
they only had 95 votes. But I've always thought we could do our part and 
we could get 218 votes on Wednesday, and I still believe we're going to.

Note: The President spoke at 9:19 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House.