[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 15 (Monday, April 14, 1997)]
[Pages 477-479]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Prior to Discussions With Prime Minister Chretien and an 
Exchange With Reporters

April 8, 1997

    The President. Good morning, everybody. I'm delighted to have the 
Prime Minister here, and we're just about to start a conversation about 
NATO expansion, which is something of importance to both of us, and 
about some trade issues and a number of other matters. We have a lot of 
good agreements that we're going to have signed during this trip, so 
we're excited about that.
    And we're going to have a press conference afterwards, so we'll be 
able to answer questions about it all.

Chemical Weapons Convention

    Q. Jesse Helms called the Chemical Weapons Convention today 
destructive and defective and dangerous. The hearing is not off to a 
good start.
    The President. Well, I know he's not for it. All I want to do is try 
to get it on the floor of the Senate and persuade two-thirds of the 
Senators to be for it.
    I think it's obvious that it's the right thing to do for the world 
and critical for America's leadership that we do it. I do not believe 
that all those military leaders who were here with us earlier this week 
and the Republican leaders, including Senator Kassebaum Baker and former 
Secretary of State Jim Baker, would do something that was dangerous for 
America. I think it's critically important for America.
    If we don't ratify it, then the rest of the world will be compelled 
to treat us like they treat the rogue states, and it will--just 
basically to ostracize us and impose trade sanctions on our chemical 
companies. And we'll deserve it if we don't ratify it, because we won't 
be good citizens in the world.
    Q. Will you speak with Senator Helms between now and----
    The President. We're working with him. We've worked hard with him 
and we've worked through a lot of his objections and we'll keep working. 
But I'm going to focus hard on trying to--not only to persuade him but 
we have to have 67 votes. We've got to get it out of the committee, and 
then we've got to have 67 votes. That's what we've got to do. We're 
going to try to do it.

Middle East Peace Process

    Q. Any further words--[inaudible]--Prime Minister Netanyahu?
    The President. No, I don't have anything to add to what I said 
yesterday. We had a long, thorough, very frank conversation. I want 
these parties to do what they have to do to get this process up and 
going again. We've got to have an atmosphere of zero tolerance for 
terror, but we also have to have the kind of confidence building 
necessary to make peace. And he's got some good ideas and I think we 
have some good ideas and we want to talk to the Palestinians this week 
and see if we can get this going again. But the parties have got to do 
what it takes to get it going, and I think if we work together we can do 
it.
    Q. Did you ask him to stop building at Har Homa?
    The President. I don't want to say any more about what I did or 
didn't say.
    Q. [Inaudible]
    The President. The incident in Hebron? Well, all those things are 
troubling. But the main thing is we can't let them get in the way of 
moving the path toward peace forward. That's the ultimate resolution of 
all these things. We've just got to keep going. They have to decide 
they're going to keep going, and they've got to do it.

[At this point, one group of reporters left the room, and another group 
entered.]

    The President. Let me say again how pleased I am to have the Prime 
Minister here. We're going to have a chance to talk about our mutual 
interests in NATO expansion, in Bosnia, in Haiti, and a number of

[[Page 478]]

bilateral issues between us. And of course, we're going to have some 
good agreements signed on this trip, so I think this will be a very 
useful and productive trip. I know it will be for me, and I hope it will 
be for the Prime Minister and for Canada. And again, I want to welcome 
you.
    Prime Minister Chretien. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. 
I think it's going to be a very good meeting.
    You know, our relations are--you know, terms of trade, for example--
the biggest in the world. And when we look at it, we manage to solve 
most of the problems in a very nice way. And I hope that if the world 
were to work the way that Canada and United States manage to work 
together there would be more prosperity around the world. So you have to 
keep setting the example. We have to talk to each other to achieve it.

Extraterritorial Impact of Sanctions

    Q. Mr. President, what about the issue of Helms-Burton? Do you think 
there's any common ground to be found there?
    The President. Well, I think we have a difference of opinion. I 
think the real issue is how we manage our differences right now. And 
we'll talk about that.
    The Cuba issue is a difficult issue, but Canada has had a very solid 
position on human rights, generally. And we just have a different 
approach here, and we'll try to find a way to manage our differences. I 
think that's the best way we can do it.

Prime Minister Chretien's Visit

    Q. Mr. President, how unusual is it for you to invite a leader from 
another country to an unscheduled meeting the night before the scheduled 
meeting?
    The President. Well, fairly unusual, but we're friends, and besides 
that, I owed him a golf match, which I now cannot provide. So I thought, 
since we couldn't play golf together, we ought to visit and talk about 
golf and other things together.

[At this point, a question was asked and answered in French, and a 
translation was not provided.]

    Q. Mr. Prime Minister, is there a reason why you didn't want people 
to know about your first visit to the White House last night?
    The President. You're wrong--[laughter].
    Prime Minister Chretien. [Inaudible]--called me and said, ``Come and 
have coffee with me,'' and I went. But he didn't invite you. [Laughter] 
But Moscovitz [Jason Moscovitz, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] was 
there with his crew, and he filmed that and I wave at them. I didn't 
hide anything. You were not there, where were you?
    Q. I was looking for you, sir. [Laughter]
    The President. It wasn't his fault----
    Prime Minister Chretien. But I was not in a bar downtown; you were 
at the wrong place. [Laughter]
    The President. It was unscheduled, you see.
    Q. Have you rescheduled the golf game?
    The President. Well, I have about a minimum--a minimum--of 4 months 
and probably a couple more weeks before I can play golf. So it's a long 
way away.
    Q. Can you tell us, Mr. Prime Minister, what you talked about last 
night----
    Prime Minister Chretien. Oh, we talk about a lot of things. We talk 
about our relations and, as I mentioned earlier, that we have managed to 
resolve most of the difficulties. When we started we had 5 percent of 
our trade involved in dispute, and now it's down to 1 percent. And the 
fact that we have managed to talk to each other and very good relations, 
because we know and we believe--and we might discuss that--that the 
growth in the world will come if we have more free trade around the 
world.
    And we're talking about the progress in APEC. I will be the host of 
APEC in November. And we're talking about the expansion of free trade in 
the Americas as we decided, I think, in December '94 to ratify. And now 
we hope that they will be able to proceed quickly with the fast track, 
because when we met at that time, we had a goal to have an agreement 
with all these countries by the year 2005.
    But we have to--and Chile was to be the first one, and it was 
blocked. But now is the time to resume with them. We have signed a 
bilateral agreement with them. And look at free trade between the two of 
us--you

[[Page 479]]

know, 45 percent increase in the trade between Canada and United States. 
So we look at that, and we're both benefiting from that.
    And when we look at Asia, we know that this is the market of 
tomorrow. Imagine, you know, more than a billion--200,000 million people 
in China and India next door. And so when they start to become consumer, 
they will buy a lot of goods and services from America and I hope 
proportionately more from Canada. [Laughter] But it's fair competition.
    The President. Keep in mind, we'll have a press conference later, 
too. We'll answer more.

Note: The President spoke at 10:51 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of these 
remarks.