[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 28 (Monday, July 18, 2005)]
[Pages 1164-1170]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement in 
Dallas, North Carolina

July 15, 2005

    Thank you. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. It's great 
to be back in North Carolina. It's always good to get outside the 
beltway and into NASCAR country. [Laughter]
    Laura called me--she was in Africa for the past week. She called me. 
She's fixing to arrive in Washington this evening, but yesterday she 
said, ``Where are you going on Friday?'' I said, ``I'm going to North 
Carolina.'' I said, ``I'll be down there in that area where the Lowe's 
Motor Speedway is.'' She said, ``Don't get any ideas.'' [Laughter] 
``You're having enough trouble staying on your mountain bike.'' 
[Laughter] She sends her very best to you all. She's doing great. I'm a 
lucky man when she said yes, when I asked her to marry me.
    I appreciate the chance to stand with some of the finest workers in 
America, the men and women of Stowe Mills. I appreciate you all being 
here. And I thank you for giving me the chance to come and discuss an 
important topic, and that is, how do we make sure our job creation 
continues. And one way to do so is to make sure the trade we have is 
fair trade. That's what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about 
making sure that people treat us the way we treat them. I want to talk 
to you about what they call CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade 
Agreement.
    CAFTA is important for job creation. It's important for your jobs. 
CAFTA is important to help secure the democracies in our own 
neighborhood. And so, for the sake of our economic security and for the 
sake of national security, the United States House of Representatives 
should follow the lead of the United States Senate and pass CAFTA and 
get that bill to my desk.
    I appreciate our Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, flying 
with me today. You know, I love America. I love the fact that people--a 
person like Carlos, born in Cuba, worked hard all his life, was able to 
succeed and is now sitting in the Cabinet with the

[[Page 1165]]

President. What a fantastic country we have, where opportunity is open 
to all people.
    I want to thank Congresswoman Sue Myrick for her leadership, for her 
strength of character, for working hard on textile customs enforcement 
activity. She has been a leader in making sure the North Carolina and 
the United States textile industry is treated fairly. I appreciate you, 
Sue.
    You've got two fine United States Senators from North Carolina--that 
would be Senator Dole and Senator Burr. I enjoy working with them, and I 
appreciate both Members of the United States Senate from North Carolina 
voting for the CAFTA agreement. They understand this is good for working 
people here in this State.
    I want to thank Dr. Pat Skinner, the president of Gaston College. 
Thanks for having me. I am a big believer in the community college 
system. I think--and I appreciate the good work the community college 
system does here in North Carolina. This isn't the first time I have 
ever been to a community college in your State. I've been to a lot of 
community colleges. And one reason why is because your State is on the 
leading edge of helping people find new skills, the skills necessary for 
the jobs of the 21st century. And this is a good place and an important 
place. And so, Dr. Skinner, thanks for having me.
    I want to thank the Stowe boys--[laughter]--that would be Robert, 
Harding, and Richmond. Now, I don't know which one of you all is the 
boss, but I'm interested in figuring out how you figured out who was the 
boss. I've got a lot of brothers, myself. [Laughter] But I appreciate 
their entrepreneurial spirit. I thank you for having me. I know they 
care a lot about the people who work in their mills. And they're--I 
would call them ``employee-friendly.'' They're people who care about the 
people who work with them. And so I want to thank them for coming. 
Thanks for letting me go by the plant.
    I want to thank the mayor, Rick Coleman, of the town of Dallas. That 
would be Dallas, North Carolina. [Laughter] And I want to thank Mayor 
Billy Joye of Belmont. Where's Billy? Billy, you here? Billy, yes. See, 
Billy, they don't know our connection, do they? Billy and I flew F-102s 
at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, Texas. Thank you, Billy. As we 
used to say, ``He was a heck of a stick''--[laughter]--which means 
you're probably a heck of a mayor, Billy. Thanks for coming. Appreciate 
you being here.
    I want to thank Allen Gant, chairman of the National--I'm not 
talking State--I'm talking National Council of Textile Organizations. 
He's here because the National Council of Textile Organizations has 
analyzed the CAFTA legislation and realized that this piece of 
legislation is good for American textile industry. And so I want to 
thank you for coming, Allen.
    And finally, I flew down on the airplane today with one heck of an 
entrepreneur, somebody who has made Carolina a place of business 
interest, and he tells me he's slowly but surely falling in love with 
Charlotte, and that is Bob Johnson, head of the Charlotte Bobcats NBA 
basketball team. Thank you for coming, Bob. How about that story--from 
being raised in Mississippi to getting a good education to building his 
own business and now the owner of a sports team that means a lot to the 
people. And by the way, I think he's pretty wise. He drafted--or his 
club drafted, I'm sure at his insistence, two University of North 
Carolina Tarheels.
    I met Janice Bozardt at Air Force One. She is a volunteer at Moore's 
Chapel United Methodist Church in Charlotte. She's been volunteering for 
40 years. She leads a team of volunteers that delivers meals to families 
within the church and the local community. The reason I bring up Janice 
is because I want to remind you all that the strength of the United 
States of America lies in the hearts and souls of our citizens, that if 
you really want to--if you analyze our country to determine our greatest 
strength, you'll find that it exists because people hear a universal 
call to love a neighbor just like they'd like to be loved themselves and 
take time out of their lives to volunteer. Janice represents millions of 
people across the United States of America who are helping to change our 
country, one heart and one soul and one conscience at a time.
    For those of you who might be listening and are interesting in 
serving our country, find somebody who hurts and surround them with 
love. Feed the hungry. Find shelter for

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the homeless. Teach a child to read. Love somebody like you'd like to be 
loved yourself, and you'll be making a significant contribution to our 
country. Janice, thank you for coming. Thanks for volunteering.
    My most solemn obligation is to protect the American people. That's 
my most important duty as your President. Today, we are fighting in a 
global war on terror. We didn't ask for it. It came to our shores, and 
we're responding. We're doing our duty to not only protect our country 
but to put the conditions in place that will protect generations from--
come. We're fighting against people who celebrate the suffering of the 
innocent.
    I thought it was really interesting that the terrorists chose to 
attack in London, England, at the same time that the United States and 
other nations were trying to figure out how to help alleve [alleviate] * 
HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa or how to help people that are 
starving to death or how to help make sure young girls get educated 
around the world.
    * White House correction.
    We were talking about a society of compassion. And these killers 
killed indiscriminately, men and women. They didn't care who they were. 
They didn't care about their religion. They murdered in the name of a 
totalitarian ideology. These are ideologs. They hate freedom. They 
reject tolerance. They despise all dissent. They have objectives. Their 
aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny. 
They want to topple governments. They want to export terror. They want 
to force free nations to retreat.
    These people will not be stopped by negotiations. They're not going 
to be--they won't change their mind because of concessions. There is no 
appeal to their reason. There is only one course of action. We will take 
the fight to the enemy, and we will stay in the fight until this enemy 
is defeated. [Applause] Thank you all.
    We have a comprehensive strategy in place. First, we're doing a lot 
to protect the homeland. There's a lot of really good folks at the 
State, local, and Federal level who are working long hours to protect 
us. We're improving our intelligence gathering, and the only way to deal 
with and find people that are willing to hide in caves or in the shadows 
of our cities is to have as good of intelligence as possible. So 
intelligence sharing within our Government is getting better, and 
intelligence sharing with other governments is getting better.
    And we're going to stay on the offense. And we can do all we can to 
protect the homeland. As I like to tell people, we have to be right 100 
percent of the time, and they've got to be right once. And so, 
therefore, you do everything you can to protect the home, but you stay 
on the offense against them, and you stay on the hunt. And you call 
people to account, free nations to account, say, ``Join us in this cause 
of protecting ourselves.''
    And we are on the hunt. And we've helped change societies for the 
better. Iraq is a central part of this war on terror. People are heading 
into Iraq to try to defeat us. They can't win, militarily. The only 
thing they can do is to try to shake our will, is to murder in such 
horrific terms--like killing all those kids the other day--that the 
United States will say, ``Well, you know, let's get out of there,'' 
before we complete our mission. They're going to fail. They don't 
understand the United States of America. We will not be driven out of 
Iraq by a bunch of thugs and assassins. We will complete the mission.
    And our mission--just like in Afghanistan, our mission is to help a 
democracy flourish. This August you'll see the Iraqis write a 
constitution. And then they'll ratify the constitution. And then there 
will be elections for a permanent government in December. See, democracy 
is taking hold. A lot of people said it couldn't happen. A lot of people 
said, ``There's no way democracy is going to take place in a place like 
Iraq.'' But the Iraqis defied the cynics, didn't they? Given a chance to 
vote, millions showed up to the polls. Millions defied the suiciders.
    It just reminds me how universal the fuel of freedom is. See, I 
don't believe--I do not believe that freedom is America's gift to the 
world. I believe that freedom is the Almighty God's gift to each man and 
woman in this world, and if given a chance, people choose freedom over 
tyranny, hope over despair.
    The second part of our mission is to train these Iraqi troops so 
they can do the fighting.

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The way I put it is this: As the Iraqis stand up, America will stand 
down. I know a lot of you have got relatives--who've had a loved one in 
Iraq. And I want to thank you on behalf of a grateful nation. You thank 
them on behalf of our Nation too. The American people are standing with 
our troops, and our troops understand what they're doing in Iraq. 
They're helping lay what I call the foundation of peace, because in the 
long run, the long run, the best way to secure the peace for generations 
to come is to spread freedom, and that's exactly the policy of this 
Government.
    Here at home, we've got reason to be optimistic. This economy of 
ours is growing faster than any other major industrialized nation in the 
world. We've now had 25 consecutive months of job gains. We've recovered 
from the shocks of the attack and the recession and the market 
correction. Our unemployment rate in the United States of America is now 
5 percent. That's the lowest since September of 2001, and that's lower 
than the average rate of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. More 
Americans are working today than ever before in our Nation's history.
    That's good progress. But there's more we can do. We've got to keep 
your taxes low. If you want to keep this economy growing, we've got to 
make sure that the Government doesn't run up your taxes. We've got to 
make sure we're wise about how we're spending your money. I don't know 
if you noticed the news the other day, but it turns out that when you 
cut taxes, the economy grows. When the economy grows, it yields more tax 
revenues. Over the past 5 months, the revenues have increased $94 
billion greater than anticipated, which means our deficit will be $94 
billion less, so long as Congress is wise about how they spend your 
money. And part of my job is to make sure they are wise about how we 
spend your money.
    This economy is strong. And so the fundamental question is, what do 
we do to make it stronger? And that's why I'm here to talk about the 
Central American-Dominican Republican Free Trade Agreement. See, I think 
this presents us with an historic opportunity to keep this economy 
growing, and I'll tell you why.
    First, Central American businesses and farmers can ship most of 
their products to America without paying any tariffs. In other words, 
over the past years, the Congress has decided to say, ``Okay, if you 
grow something or make something in a Central American country, you can 
ship it to America duty-free.'' But guess what? We don't have the same 
rights. We can't do the same thing. We can't grow or manufacture many 
goods here in the United States and ship our goods to their countries 
duty-free. That doesn't make any sense to me. That's what I would call 
a--not a level playing field.
    See, I told the people when I was running, ``I am for free trade, 
but I'm also for a level playing field.'' And so I took a look, as did 
Members of the Senate and now Members of the House, at the playing 
field. It's not level. It's not fair to say to a farmer here in North 
Carolina, ``You can't sell what you grow, in Central America duty-free, 
but they may be able to sell what they grow, here duty-free.''
    Last year we exported more than $15 billion--$15 billion--of goods 
to Central America. That's--but products are facing a heavy tariff. 
That's--in other words, that's what they've done; they've slapped a tax 
on our goods coming in.
    For example, Costa Rica has a 15-percent tax on dump trucks and 
mobile cranes. If you're a dump truck manufacturer and a worker in a 
dump truck manufacturing plant, the product you're manufacturing is at a 
competitive disadvantage because they put a tax on it when it comes into 
the country.
    Guatemala has a 20-percent tax on luggage. El Salvador has a 20-
percent tax on polyester fabric. Nicaragua has a 10-percent tax on 
shrimp. Those are just some of the examples of where there is a barrier 
to entry. These foreign taxes on American-made products sold in the 
region hurt businesses, which really means they hurt jobs.
    See, it makes it harder to have a job when these countries have 
tariffs. And yet, we don't have the tariffs in our country. And so one 
of the things CAFTA would do will eliminate these one-way tariffs on 
American products and open up a market of 44 million consumers to 
America's goods, services, and

[[Page 1168]]

crops. That's what the American people have got to understand.
    This deal is a good deal for workers. This basically says, ``If you 
make a good product, it's going to be easier to sell your product to 44 
million new customers.'' By eliminating these tariffs, CAFTA will keep 
this economy going. CAFTA helps American textile workers by keeping 
textile jobs in the U.S., and here is how: Central America is the second 
largest market in the world for our textile products. I don't know if 
people here in North Carolina know that. Think about what I just said: 
It is the second largest market for textile products. So if you're a 
textile worker, it seems like to me that one of the questions you ask, 
``Where do we sell our products? And if we sell our products, are we 
being treated fairly for the products we manufacture?''
    Garment factories in Central America buy yarn and fabric. That's how 
they operate. They buy the yarn and--I just saw some yarn and fabric 
made. You do a fine job, by the way. And they buy that yarn and fabric. 
But it's taxed before it gets into the country. In other words, it makes 
the product made in your plant less competitive with products made in 
other plants. These Central American factories are competing with Asian 
garment workers. And Asian--generally, they use Asian materials. See, so 
Central American companies need to have an incentive to continue to buy 
our product, and the best way to do it is to get rid of those tariffs on 
U.S.-made yarn, the yarn right--made in your plant.
    If we can get rid of the tariffs, it is more competitive, which 
makes it more likely that we'll be able to--in our neighborhood--compete 
with Asian manufacturers. That's why it's a good deal for textile 
workers. It means the products you produce will be cheaper, less 
expensive in a part of the world--the second largest place where we--the 
second largest market for our products. And that means jobs here in 
America. CAFTA is good for U.S. jobs. CAFTA means textile jobs will stay 
right here in the United States of America.
    In 2004, North Carolina exported more than $1.7 billion worth of 
manufactured goods to CAFTA nations, most of it textiles and apparel. 
Without CAFTA, the market for these textiles in Central America would 
likely disappear and so would thousands of jobs here.
    This bill is important for North Carolina. It's important for every 
State. But it's--see, one of the reasons why we asked the workers to sit 
up here is because I want people to connect this legislation with jobs. 
That's what we're talking about, really. People at Stowe Mills 
understand this. That's why the CEO, Harding Stowe, one of the Stowe 
boys, and other textile manufacturers are urging Congress to pass CAFTA. 
That's a pretty interesting observation, isn't it, by people who know 
the business pretty well. In other words, they've analyzed this piece of 
legislation. They understand the significance. They understand that when 
you drop tariffs, it will help increase exports. And when you increase 
exports, that means more sales, which means more jobs. They know this. 
These are the people who have a vested interest in this piece of 
legislation--those are the textile manufacturers. And the textile 
manufacturers agree with me that the United States House of 
Representatives, for the good of American workers, ought to pass CAFTA 
legislation. And I want to thank them for being here today.
    Eighty percent--80 percent of U.S. exports of consumer and 
industrial products will become duty-free--80 percent of what we produce 
here going down there. CAFTA nations bought a million dollars of 
American goods, including semiconductors, electronic components from 
Oregon, petroleum and coal from Texas, plastics from Colorado, cars 
trucks and autoparts from Michigan. In other words, this bill is going 
to have effect beyond textiles. It's going to help people who are 
working in manufacturing facilities all over the country.
    The National Association of Manufacturers estimates that the 
elimination of tariffs on these goods will result in an extra billion 
dollars worth of U.S. manufactured exports to the region each year. 
That's a billion dollars more goods going into those markets, which 
means somebody's more likely to keep a job, or maybe somebody is more 
likely to find a job. In other words, this is a jobs program we're 
talking about.

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    The increase of sales is important all across our country. It 
provides additional opportunity. And I'm going to tell you something, 
this bill helps our farmers, and that's important for people to 
understand. Fortunately, we don't have a national security issue when it 
comes to agriculture. We produce more than we consume, and I want to 
thank our farmers for that.
    I can't say the same about energy, by the way, which--that means we 
have a national security problem, when you're importing more energy than 
you produce. That's why Congress is going to get me an energy bill. I 
want to warn you, by signing that bill, it's not going to drop your 
gasoline prices, but it's finally going to put in place a strategy that 
will help us diversify away from foreign sources of energy, which we 
need to do.
    But if you produce more than you consume, therefore, you've got to 
figure out ways to sell what you produce to somebody else. In other 
words, exports are really important for our farm community, and so we 
ought to be working to open up markets for the farmers. That's how you 
avoid surplus here at home.
    Today, our agriculture trade with CAFTA is nearly $1.8 billion a 
year. That's a lot. And the American Farm Bureau Federation, they got 
their economists on this deal. They looked at the CAFTA agreement, and 
they think it would increase farm exports by additional $1.5 billion a 
year. If you're selling 1.8 now, and you get rid of those tariffs on 
your farm products, which means you're more likely to sell more product, 
and it goes up to 1.5 billion, that's a hefty increase, by signing this 
agreement. Feed grains and wheat and rice and soybeans and poultry and 
beef and pork and dairy and fruits and vegetables are all going to 
benefit from this agreement.
    You mentioned--you heard me--you did hear me say pork. [Laughter] In 
North Carolina, the leading farm product is pork. You grow a lot of hogs 
here. [Laughter] And you're good at it; you're really good at it. And 
you grow more than we eat. Do you realize in CAFTA nations, pork now 
faces duties as high as 47 percent? If you're a pork producer here in 
North Carolina and you're looking for a place to sell your product, you 
want to get rid of that 47 percent tariff. You want to reduce tariffs. 
You want your product to be able to go into countries duty-free. You 
want to be treated just like we treat other nations. That's what you 
want, and the CAFTA bill will do just that. CAFTA is going to be good 
for American agriculture.
    And I happen to be a person who believes that it's important to have 
a strong agricultural sector. And if it's good for our America 
agriculture, it's good for America.
    I want to tell you something else about CAFTA. It will help advance 
a key part of our foreign policy. In the seventies and eighties, most of 
the CAFTA nations suffered under military dictatorships. The region was 
not stable. There was a lot of turmoil. And then those nations began to 
embrace freedom and democracy. And so we've got some young democracies 
right in our own neighborhood. And it's in our interest that those 
democracies be strong and viable.
    But there's still forces that oppose democratic government there and 
who seek to limit economic freedom. And there are forces in the 
neighborhood who are hostile to our interests. Now, these small nations 
of CAFTA--I just met--by the way, met with the President of El Salvador 
today--they have made a big commitment for CAFTA. They say, ``We want to 
do CAFTA. We'll lower our tariffs.''
    By the way, it makes sense for them to lower their tariffs. After 
all, it will help their people. It will mean that North Carolina pork 
will be less expensive at the stores for somebody trying to feed their 
family. But they've made this commitment. They said, ``We want to stand 
with America through the CAFTA agreement.'' And it's really important we 
pass that agreement to help stabilize those countries.
    We got to help the young democracies develop--deliver a better life 
to their own citizens. That's what this agreement means for them. It 
means products are less expensive. It means their business people will 
be more likely to be able to buy plant and equipment at a better price, 
which will mean more jobs for the people there living in Central 
America. That's what that means.
    It will improve--boost demand for our goods. It will help them 
reduce poverty. See,

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as wealth spreads out through the neighborhood, it will help create a 
vibrant middle class, and that's important. That's important. It will 
mean somebody is more likely to find a job close to home than trying to 
sneak into the United States of America to find a job. CAFTA is 
important foreign policy. It will help stabilize democracies, and it 
will help our friends grown and prosper, and that's good. That's in our 
interests that we do just that.
    And so I'm calling on the Congress to pass CAFTA. It's a pro-jobs 
bill. It's a pro-growth bill. It's a pro-democracy bill. We cannot turn 
our backs on our friends. We cannot say to them, ``For pure political 
reasons, we're not going to support a treaty that will not only help our 
own businesses, but that will help stabilize young democracies.''
    And so I want to thank you for giving me a chance to come by and 
visit with you about an important piece of legislation. I can't tell you 
what an honor it is to come down to North Carolina, and it's a huge 
honor to be the President of the United States of America.
    May God bless you, and may God bless our people.

Note: The President spoke at 1:01 p.m. at Gaston College. In his 
remarks, he referred to Robert L. Stowe III, chairman, D. Harding Stowe, 
president and chief executive officer, and Richmond H. Stowe, secretary 
and treasurer, R.L. Stowe Mills, Inc.; Robert L. Johnson, owner and 
governor, National Basketball Association's Charlotte Bobcats; and 
President Elias Antonio Saca Gonzalez of El Salvador.