Bill Clinton: “I believe on balance that both NAFTA and GATT will be a major boon to American agriculture. I was just out in California…”

“I believe on balance that both NAFTA and GATT will be a major boon to American agriculture. I was just out in California meeting with a lot of farmers there. And virtually all of them talked about how much stronger agriculture was as a result of it. With regard to NAFTA and Mexico, some of our livestock people have been concerned about how NAFTA would play and whether it would hurt them. With the GATT agreement, which is a worldwide trade agreement, there's no question that our farmers will be better off because other countries subsidize their farmers more than we subsidize ours. So if everybody has to reduce subsidies to an equal basis, American farmers will come out way ahead because we have the best, most competitive, most productive farmers in the world. If we can get a decent farm bill out of the Congress, that is, one that continues to reduce the cost of the farm programs but doesn't take us out of global competition and doesn't really wreck the family farm, then I think the future of agriculture is bright. In fact, I think we may have seen a bottoming out of the number of farmers. We may see the same or even a larger number of farms in the years ahead because global population would probably outstrip the ability of other countries to produce food. So farming should do very well in America for the next 20 or 30 years if we have a good farm bill and if these trade agreements are faithfully followed by all the countries. Unabomber [A participant questioned the decision to publish the Unabomber's tract in newspapers.] Mr. King. What did you think of what the Post and Times did?”