Bill Clinton: “Well, first, let me answer the first question. We have participated twice recently in interventions, and what we see is…”

“Well, first, let me answer the first question. We have participated twice recently in interventions, and what we see is that sometimes they work for a little bit and sometimes they can make a real difference. But over the long run, the economic fundamentals will have to work themselves out. And I think that the best thing to do to stabilize the dollar and the other currencies because, as you know, in the last few years we've had some terrible problems with other currencies which massive interventions have not reversed--the best way to do that is to send a signal to the markets that we are working on the economic fundamentals; that we are trying to build the economy, not just the economy of the United States but the economy of Europe, the economy of Canada, the economy of Japan and the global economy, that we're seriously working on Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. These things, it seems to me, together offer the promise of strengthening the dollar over the long run in a realistic way but also strengthening other currencies as well. Keep in mind what I wanted the United States to do when we drove the deficit down and we got our interest rates down for a time--very low, and they're still modest by historic standards, recent historic standards--was to be able not only to generate more jobs here in the United States, or back in the United States, but to also spark growth in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. So what I want our trading partners to consider and some of them have already mentioned to me is, we don't want to adopt a strategy in the short run that is just a short-run strategy and could choke off growth in the other G-7 countries and in other parts of the world. I very much want a reasonably priced dollar. I'm not for a weak dollar. We have not done this intentionally. No one has tried to talk down the dollar. But I think it's important not to overreact to these movements. We need to work on the economic fundamentals. Markets that involve some amount of speculation and calculation about the future need to, as far as possible, reflect long-term fundamentals. And that's one of the things I was encouraged about in my conversation with the Japanese Prime Minister today, when he reaffirmed his commitment to economic growth in his country, because that will help a lot. Russia”