[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 43 (Monday, October 30, 2000)]
[Pages 2608-2610]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Jordan-United States Trade Agreement

October 24, 2000

    The President. Thank you very much. Your Majesty and members of the 
Jordanian delegation; Senator Lugar; Senator Moynihan; Representatives 
Bonior and Levin; Secretary Cohen and other members of the 
administration.
    Let me begin by saying a special word of appreciation to Dr. 
Mohammad Halaiqa and to our Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky for the work 
they did on this agreement.
    The American negotiators, led by Catherine Novelli, and their 
Jordanian counterparts have labored hard over these last few months and 
around the clock this past weekend, something that seems to be the order 
of the day for us lately, to conclude this very important agreement.
    Most of all, it is a great honor to welcome King Abdullah to the 
White House again. He is a voice of reason and calm in a region urgently 
in need of both. His leadership has been especially important over these 
last difficult weeks, which have brought such suffering and loss in the 
Middle East, and thrown into sharp relief the choices facing all people 
in the region.
    Down one path lie the enormous challenges of building a lasting, 
secure peace and the concomitant enormous benefits. Down the other path 
lies more bloodshed, more hatred, more shattered lives and broken 
dreams.
    Though the path of peace is steep and has become steeper these last 
few weeks, in the long run it is the only path that offers the peoples 
of the Middle East hope for a normal

[[Page 2609]]

life as part of the modern world. That is the path Jordan has chosen 
consistently.
    It is critically important that the United States stand with Jordan 
and leaders like King Abdullah, struggling to give their people 
prosperity, standing for peace, understanding that the two pursuits go 
hand in hand.
    As hard as that may be, there must be an end to the violence, and 
the Israelis and Palestinians must find a way out of confrontation back 
to the path of peaceful dialog, and they must do it sooner rather than 
later. For in the Middle East, as we have all learned, time does not 
heal wounds, it simply rubs more salt in them. The issues do not change. 
They just get harder to resolve.
    The agreement we are about to sign will establish free trade between 
the United States and Jordan. It is a good and important agreement, one 
that I hope Congress will support on a bipartisan basis. It will be good 
for the United States, good for Jordan, good for the long-term prospects 
for peace in the Middle East. It will eliminate duties and break down 
commercial barriers to trade between our two nations in both products 
and services.
    Under King Abdullah's leadership, Jordan already has made impressive 
strides in modernizing its economy, opening its markets, promoting the 
well-being of its people. This agreement will help to accelerate that 
progress. It will also cement the bonds of friendship that already exist 
between Jordan and the United States.
    The record is clear that open trade creates opportunities, raises 
prosperity, and can lift lives in every country. Nowhere is this more 
apparent than here in the United States, where our exports in open 
markets have helped to fuel the longest expansion in our history. 
Nowhere are the benefits of trade more critically needed than in the 
Middle East. By opening markets, we can help to ease poverty that makes 
peace hard to achieve and harder still to sustain.
    Today's agreement is remarkable in another respect as well. Even if 
it didn't have a thing to do with peace, we would still be here, because 
it is the first free trade agreement ever signed by the United States 
which incorporates into the body of the text labor and environmental 
protections, a landmark achievement for which the negotiators on both 
sides deserve extremely high praise.
    For the United States, this follows through on our commitment to 
insure that the drive toward globalization reinforces protections for 
our workers and for air, water, and other natural resources. The first 
trade agreement to have undergone an environmental review under a new 
U.S. policy requiring such analyses. This trade agreement is one that 
all Americans can be proud of.
    For Jordan, it represents a farsighted commitment to worker and 
environmental protection that is very much in keeping with Jordan's 
visionary commitment to peace. In today's world, developing countries 
can achieve growth without making some of the mistakes developed nations 
made on our path to industrialization. In the information age, the 
byproduct of the industrial age, the idea that to grow more you had to 
exploit both workers and the environment, is simply no longer true.
    Today it is possible to grow an economy faster, while protecting 
air, water, and keeping children in school. This trade agreement 
embodies that big idea. Now we must turn our energies to implementing it 
as soon as possible. The insistent voices urging us to build a future 
that is healthier, more just, more prosperous, and more peaceful are not 
patient, nor should they be. This is a very good day.
    Again, let me extend my congratulations to the negotiators, my 
thanks to the King of Jordan and his Government and my great hope that 
this will be the beginning of even stronger bonds between our people and 
a real trend in modern commercial agreements among good people and good 
nations everywhere.
    Now, I'd like to invite His Majesty to come up here and make a few 
remarks.

Note: The President spoke at 6:52 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad 
Halaiqa of Jordan. The transcript released by the Office of the Press 
Secretary also included the remarks of King Abdullah II of Jordan.

[[Page 2610]]