Bill Clinton: “Good evening--or good morning, to the people who are watching this back in America. At our meeting in Bogor today, the…”

“Good evening--or good morning, to the people who are watching this back in America. At our meeting in Bogor today, the Asian- Pacific leaders pledged to achieve free and fair trade and investment between our nations by the year 2020, with the industrialized countries reaching this goal by 2010. This agreement is good news for the countries of this region and especially good news for the United States and our workers. I want to thank President Soeharto for hosting this meeting and for his leadership in crafting the agreement. When the United States brought the APEC leaders together in Seattle for the very first time last year, we agreed on a common vision of a united, open trading system. At this year's meeting, we have committed to make that vision real through free and fair trade and to do it by a date certain. We'll meet again next year in Osaka. Meanwhile, we'll develop a detailed action agenda, a blueprint, for achieving our goal of free and fair trade, which I hope and believe will be approved when we meet in Osaka. APEC is primarily an economic organization, and today's talks focused on those issues. While I believe stronger trade ties also will lead to more open societies, I remain committed to pursuing our human rights agenda, as I did in my individual meetings with the leaders this week. This is an agenda we must be willing to pursue with both patience and determination, and we will. From the beginning of this administration, we have worked to create high-wage jobs and a high-growth economy for the 21st century by expanding our ability to trade with and do business with other nations. The Asia-Pacific region is key to the success of this strategy because it's the fastest growing region in the world, with rapidly expanding middle classes who are potential American customers. Already a third of our exports go to these nations, with 2 million American jobs tied to them. And we know that export-related jobs on average pay much higher than regular jobs in America. These free and fair trade agreements will benefit Americans for a simple reason: Our Nation already has the most open markets on Earth. By opening other markets, our products and services become more competitive, and more sales abroad create more high-wage jobs at home. Under this agreement, individual APEC nations will have to tear down trade barriers to reap trade benefits. And no country will get more in benefits than it gives; no free riders. Today's agreement will lower barriers even further than the historic GATT world trade agreement. Let me just give you one example. Even after the GATT world trade agreement takes effect, tariffs on American automobiles in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines will still be between 30 and 60 percent, lower than they are today but very high. By contrast, our tariffs on automobiles are 2.5 percent. The market in just these four countries alone in 6 years will be as great as the total market in Canada and Mexico combined. This APEC agreement will knock down Asian tariffs even further, and American autos will, therefore, be more affordable. That means for an autoworker in Detroit or Toledo more secure jobs and factories with more workers, factories that are growing, not shrinking. I'm proud of the leadership of the United States in creating a post- cold-war world that is both safer and more prosperous, a better place for Americans to live and work in. Trade agreements like NAFTA, the GATT agreement, and now the Bogor Declaration, along with the Summit of the Americas next month, are important in their own way just as are the agreements we've made with the Russians and Ukraine on nuclear missiles, the North Korean nuclear agreement, and the agreement on missile deployments with China. I'm convinced this declaration will prove to be of historic importance. Americans may hear about this declaration and think, well, 2010 is a long time to wait for any benefits. That is--let me emphasize--the completion date for the process. The benefits will begin for America as soon as we begin to implement the blueprint, which we will develop in this coming year. But first things first. Our first meeting in Seattle last year created the conditions that helped make it possible to get agreement among the nations of the world on the GATT world trade agreement. Without the meeting in Seattle, we might well not have had a GATT agreement. Now, when we return to Washington, our first order of business must be for Congress to pass the GATT. Every leader I spoke with here, every leader I spoke with here asked me about United States leadership on GATT and on world trade issues generally. America's opportunities and our responsibilities demand a spirit of bipartisanship, especially when it comes to keeping our country strong abroad. That cooperation was demonstrated in the historic NAFTA victory and in the encouragement I received from the Republican leaders before I left for this trip. Now, I call upon the Congress, members of both parties, to use this momentum from this trip to pass the GATT. The economic recovery going on in our country and taking hold in the world depends upon the passage of GATT and our continued leadership. At the end of the Second World War, the United States had a bipartisan effort to create an enduring partnership with our allies that helped keep the peace and helped spawn an era of global prosperity, that created enormous opportunities for the American people. Now, at the end of the cold war, we are building a new framework for peace and prosperity that will take us into the future. It is imperative that the United States lead as we move toward this new century. That is our great opportunity, and that is the best way we can help all Americans toward a more prosperous future. East Timor”