[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 20 (Monday, May 22, 2000)]
[Pages 1142-1145]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Trade and Development Act of 2000

May 18, 2000

    The President.  I would like to, first of all, welcome all of you 
here to the South Lawn on this beautiful day for this important 
occasion. I thank the members of the Cabinet and the administration who 
are here. I thank the very large number of Members of Congress who are 
here from both parties, the mayors and other public officials who 
supported this legislation. I want to thank our Special Envoy for the 
Americas, Buddy MacKay, my point person on the Caribbean Basin 
Initiative, and our former and first Special Envoy to the Americas, Mack 
McLarty.
    I'd like to say a special word of appreciation to Senator Roth and 
Senator Moynihan, to Representative Rangel and Representative Archer, to 
Senator Lott and to Speaker Hastert, who supported this legislation, and 
to all the Members who worked so hard to get this bill passed, including 
Representatives Crane, Jefferson, McDermott, Payne, Royce, and so many 
others who are here, too numerous to mention. I want to thank the 
members of the diplomatic corps who are here, who also supported this 
initiative.

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    The votes in the House and the Senate for the Trade and Development 
Act of 2000, what is commonly known as Africa-CBI, were bipartisan and 
overwhelming, because they reflect the judgment that the results of this 
legislation will be good for the United States, good for Africa, good 
for Central America, and the Caribbean.
    This day has been a long time coming, but it is here. It is clear 
that by breaking down barriers to trade, building new opportunities, and 
raising prosperity, we can lift lives in every country and on every 
continent. Nowhere is that more apparent than here in the United States, 
where our exports and our open markets have given us the longest 
expansion in our history with low inflation.
    This bill reaffirms that position. And I hope it will be reaffirmed 
next week when Congress votes on permanent normal trade relations with 
China. Congress will have another opportunity in considering the ``Trade 
Preference Act for the Balkans,'' another poor region of the world that 
is important to our future.
    Today I want to focus, though, on the areas that are affected by 
this legislation, on the Caribbean Basin and Africa.
    Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than 700 million people, one of 
our biggest potential trade partners. I say potential because American 
exports now account for only 6 percent of the African market. This bill 
will surely change that as it expands Africa's access to our markets and 
improves the ability of African nations to ease poverty, increase 
growth, and heal the problems of their people. It promotes the kinds of 
economic reform that will make sub-Saharan nations, on the long run, 
better allies, better trade partners, and stronger nations.
    Closer to home, in the Caribbean Basin, we already have strong trade 
relations. Last year our exports to the region exceeded $19 billion, 
making it the sixth largest market for our goods, larger than France or 
Brazil. That is remarkable but not as remarkable as the transformation 
of Central America and the Caribbean as a whole.
    Despite the aftermath of war, the devastation of natural disasters, 
the region has made great strides toward recovery, democracy, peace, and 
prosperity. On all my visits to the region, I have marveled at these 
changes.
    Trade is one of the most powerful engines driving development in the 
region, and the Caribbean Basin Initiative has played a part. It's a key 
building block to a free trade area of the Americas, which I hope we 
will have in the next few years.
    What we see in the Caribbean Basin and in Africa is that trade can 
broaden the benefits of the global economy and lift the lives of people 
everywhere. But it is not enough, and our agenda for the developing 
world must be multifaceted, recognizing that trade must work for all 
people and that spirited competition should lift all nations. I am 
pleased, for example, that this bill contains important child labor 
protections authored by Senator Harkin.
    I'd also like to say that there's another big issue I hope we'll 
take up, as the Congress had been willing to do last year and again in a 
bipartisan fashion. Too many nations, developing nations, are still 
forced to choose between paying interest on their debts and meeting 
basic human needs for clean water, shelter, health, and education. Last 
year the wealthiest nations pledged faster and deeper debt relief to 
developing nations that make needed reforms, countries like Honduras, 
Nicaragua, many in sub-Saharan Africa. In September I pledged to go even 
further and make it possible to forgive all the debt of the poorest 
countries--that the poorest countries owe to the United States. And I am 
pleased that since then, every other wealthy nation has made the same 
commitment.
    Now, we're here today because so many Members of Congress and those 
who talk to them dedicated themselves to trade, to development, to the 
future of the Caribbean Basin and Africa. Today I ask that we apply that 
same energy to our debt relief efforts.
    I would also just like to take a few moments to remind you of what 
we all know, which is that there are enormous health challenges in the 
developing nations, which threaten their prosperity, their future, and 
could threaten their democracy. We know the massive human and economic 
costs the AIDS epidemic exacts in Africa, where every

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day 5,500 people die. Last week I took executive action, building on the 
work of Senator Feinstein, to make AIDS-related drugs more affordable 
there. I've asked the Congress to enact tax incentives to speed the 
development and delivery of vaccines for AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis 
and to contribute to a global fund for the purchase of such vaccines so 
that they will go where they're most needed. And I hope again we will 
have a strong bipartisan level of support for this.
    Finally, let me say that the legislation I sign today is about more 
than development and trade. It's about transforming our relationship 
with two regions full of good people trying to build good futures who 
are very important to our own future.
    During the cold war, to many Americans, Central America was a 
battleground and Africa was a backwater. All that has changed. We have 
worked hard the last few years to build genuine partnership with both 
regions, based on not what we can do for them, not what we can do about 
them but on what we can do with them to build democracy together.
    Let me finally say just a couple of words about Africa, because the 
good news this week comes against the backdrop of some tragic 
developments on the continent. Two of Africa's poorest but most 
promising nations, Ethiopia and Eritrea, resumed their senseless war. 
For over 2 years we've worked with the OAU to resolve that dispute. We 
won't abandon the effort. But Ethiopia and Eritrea must first see that 
backing away from self-destruction is not the same thing as backing 
down. Giving your people a future is not cowardice; it's common sense 
and courage.
    We are also working with our African partners to support the people 
of Sierra Leone and the U.N. forces there, and we will do what is 
necessary to provide military transport and other support so the U.N. 
will get the reinforcement it needs.
    We need to see the problems of Africa plainly and do our best to 
meet them. But that must not obscure the promise of Africa, which is 
also profoundly clear. It is the home to three of the world's fastest 
growing economies--three of the four fastest growing economies in the 
world are African economies--the progress of democracy, from Nigeria to 
South Africa; the proof offered by countries like Uganda that AIDS and 
other diseases can be arrested, and the rates can be reduced where the 
governments care to try and work with people to do the hard things. Even 
in Sierra Leone, we see signs of hope, and we have been working with 
other nations in Africa to increase the capacity to meet the challenge 
there.
    We must not avoid our neighbors in Central America and the Caribbean 
or our friends half a world away in Africa. We must build a better 
future together with both. That's what this is all about. That's the 
ultimate message of this trade bill.
    I could not be prouder that over 70 percent of both Houses votes for 
this legislation, that majorities in both parties supported this 
legislation.
    Again, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you and Senator Lott for the 
role you played. I want to thank the members of the Congressional Black 
Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus and the others whom I have just mentioned 
and everyone else who is here. This is a happy day for America. And 5 
years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, as we grow closer 
and closer and closer to our neighbors in the Caribbean and Central 
America and to our friends in Africa, we will look back on this day and 
say this was a big part of how it all began.
    Thank you very much.
    And now I'd like to call up here a gentleman who worked very, very 
hard for this day, the minority leader of the Democrats on the House 
Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Charles Rangel from New York.

 [At this point, Representatives Rangel and Bill Archer, Senators 
William V. Roth, Jr., and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and U.S. Trade 
Representative Charlene Barshefsky made brief remarks.]

    The President.  I would like to invite all the Members of Congress 
who are here to please come up and join us on the stage for the signing, 
along with Ambassador MacKay, wherever he is. Come on up here.

 Note:  The President spoke at 3:08 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House. H.R. 434, approved May 18, was assigned Public Law No. 106-200.

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