Bill Clinton: “Well, if you take the economic issues--first of all, the volume of imports into our country is the function of the…”

“Well, if you take the economic issues--first of all, the volume of imports into our country is the function of the strength of our economy combined with the weakness of the other Asian economies which would normally be markets for China's products. And our people have chosen to buy those products, and it has not weakened our economy. After all, we had the lowest unemployment rate in 28 years. So that is not, for me, the source of the problem. And we knew that the trade deficit would worsen this year because of the weakness in Asia. But I am concerned about the fact, even though our exports overall, notwithstanding the April figures, our exports were up 7 percent in '97 over '98, and they're running about 17 percent--excuse me, '97 over '96; they're running about 17 percent higher in '98 over '97. I do think that the United States should have greater market access. And I think if we had greater market access, then our exports would be increasing at least proportionately to our imports. However, my preference would be for China to take those steps that would enable it to come into the WTO, not to give America any special deals or special preference but to simply adopt a rigorous plan for opening new markets. I think Americans would do just fine in a fair and free and open market, competing with all other people who would like to sell to China. And that's what I hope we can achieve. And I hope we'll make some progress on that. But in the meanwhile, I have to continue to press for more access for American products, and I do have a strategy on it. But we will be more vulnerable to those criticisms in this year for the simple reason that our economy is especially strong and the problems in Asia are especially acute. And the intersection of those things mean we're taking on a lot more imports than we ordinarily would. Asian Economic and Nuclear Crises”