[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 45 (Monday, November 10, 1997)]
[Pages 1731-1732]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Fast-Track Trade Legislation

November 4, 1997

    This week Congress has the opportunity to renew decades of 
partnership between the Congress and the President in building America's 
economic future and security through trade.
    That partnership has been a key component of this Nation's 
successful economic strategy, which has given America its strongest 
economy in a generation and helped build this country into the world's 
greatest trading nation. By working together for over 60 years, Congress 
and the President have provided a foundation for prosperity at home 
while bolstering democracy, security, and living standards around the 
world.
    Our predecessors learned the bitter lessons of protectionism 
firsthand during the Great Depression and wisely set the world on a path 
toward mutual prosperity. Today, with our economy and our workers, 
farmers, and firms the envy of the world, America can lead from 
strength. In a world where economic activity in one corner of the globe 
can affect economic activity in every other, America's leadership in 
international trade is more vital than ever.
    Over the past 5 years, American exports have helped power and 
sustain a U.S. economy of unparalleled productivity, strength, and 
vitality. From year to year, we have added hundreds of thousands of 
high-wage, high-productivity jobs in our dynamic export industries.
    Our challenge today, and for our children, is to sustain that growth 
and our standard of living well into the next century, while promoting 
worker rights and environmental protection at home and abroad. To secure 
our economic future, we must take advantage of quickly expanding market 
opportunities around the globe that are available for America's workers 
and firms--if we seize them. Some 96 percent of the world's consumers 
live outside our borders.
    Here at home, we have the world's most open and competitive 
marketplace. Americans thrive on fair competition, as the sustained 
growth in our economy has shown. But in some foreign countries, 
particularly in the new, emerging marketplaces around the world, 
American products and services are not given a chance to compete. Now is 
the time for us to unlock those markets and make them as open to fair 
competition as our own.
    Legislation is pending before the Congress this week that will allow 
us to do that, while addressing important labor and environmental 
concerns. It makes Congress a vital partner in shaping our trade 
strategies and strengthens the hand of our negotiators. It tells our 
trading partners that America is united at the negotiating table in 
securing the best possible market opportunities for our firms, farmers, 
and workers.
    American leadership has helped prompt tremendous progress towards 
democracy, stability, and economic security in our hemisphere and around 
the world. Our sustained efforts to bring about fair and open trade 
worldwide have been a major reason for our success.
    I am committed to pursuing not only more open markets for our 
companies and working people but more open societies that encourage 
respect for core labor standards and for the environment. To accomplish 
those goals,

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to build on our strength, and to sustain American leadership over the 
years to come, Congress must join me in a partnership for the future.