Bill Clinton: “Thank you. I'm glad you didn't let a little rain and a change of venue dampen your spirits. You may all still be excited…”

“Thank you. I'm glad you didn't let a little rain and a change of venue dampen your spirits. You may all still be excited after the Saints game last week. But I'm glad to be here. I want to thank Mr. Brinson and Senator Breaux and Congressman Jefferson for what they have said. I'm glad to be here again with your Governor, your Lieutenant Governor, your State treasurer, and others, and Mayor Barthelemy. And I want to thank the Members of Congress who came here from other States, took time out of their busy schedules in Washington just to travel down to express their support on a bipartisan basis and from States all across this country for the North American Free Trade Agreement. It really is, I think, not only a job winner for the United States but the opportunity for us to get off the defensive in our economic policies and go on offense and try to build a world in which there are more opportunities for Americans not only for good jobs but for growing incomes. For 20 years we have been buffeted by the fortunes of global competition and mechanization and all the things that you know about, and more and more working people have been pressured in their daily lives, finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. It is obvious that what we have been doing has not worked very well. We know what makes more jobs in a wealthy country: Expanding trade makes more jobs; educating your people better makes more jobs; providing more investment makes more jobs. These are the things that I am committed to. There have been a lot of things said about the North American Free Trade Agreement. We came down here to New Orleans today to listen to people who know how the trade with Mexico works and who will be affected by it, talk about it. But I want to just say one or two general things to all of you today. Three decades ago this port was dedicated by President Kennedy, a person who had a vision of America that knew no limits, who believed that we ought to face our challenges, that we ought to look outward to the world, that we shouldn't hunker down, that we could compete and win with any people anywhere on Earth. It is time that we reestablish that belief, that conviction, that commitment. Today we come to New Orleans because I believe you face the rest of the world with confidence. We heard Senator Breaux and Congressman Jefferson talk about the Port of New Orleans. We heard Mr. Brinson say it's the most important thing in strategic planning for the future of this port to pass this new trade agreement with Mexico. Well, yesterday I signed a couple of side agreements that strengthen that, agreements that do the following things: number one, that commit the Government of Mexico, as well as the Government of the United States to invest more money in environmental cleanup. Now, that means two things: number one, more opportunities for American companies who do that kind of work. Number two, it means that there will be less difference in the cost of production on either side of the border because of different environmental regulations. The second agreement commits the Mexican Government to enforce its own labor laws. And you should know what that really means. It means that for the first time in history a government has committed itself to raise the minimum wage as its economy grows, thereby raising the wage structure throughout the country, because the President of Mexico has made a personal commitment to me, to the United States, and to this process that Mexico from now on will raise its minimum wage every time its economy grows on a regular basis, which means that more rapidly than before and much more rapidly than if we don't pass this trade agreement, the wage gap between their workers and ours will close, and there will be less incentive to move our plants to Mexico but more ability by the Mexicans to buy American products that we ship from places like the Port of New Orleans. Why do I believe this will work? Well, for a couple of reasons. First of all, because in the last few years Mexico has begun to lower its tariffs and open their markets to more American products. You know that because you've been shipping more out of here. In 1986--these boxes basically represent where we are--but in 1986 our exports to Mexico were a little over $12 billion, represented by this first crate here. At that time we had about a $5.7 billion trade deficit with Mexico. Because they've lowered tariffs, already we've got a $5.6 billion trade surplus with them now. And we estimate that by 1995, just a couple of years after the pact goes into effect, we'll have about $60 billion in trade with Mexico, represented by this big crate. You don't have to be Einstein to figure out if you're an American it's better to have four crates than one. That's what this is all about. Let me just say a couple of other things. It's not just Mexico, especially for the Port of New Orleans. If we can make this trade pact work, and we will, because keep in mind--I want to make one other point to all those people that say this is a job-loser--that tariffs in Mexico, in spite of our trade surplus, are still 4 times as high as the tariffs in America against Mexican products. The average Mexican spends $450 a year buying American products, more than anybody in the world except the Canadians, more than the Japanese, more than the Germans, more than a lot of countries where the people are much wealthier. This will work be- cause their tariffs are still higher than ours. If you lower the tariffs down to where they're as low as ours and then we eventually eliminate them, again it just stands to reason that we're going to have more sales and more products and more opportunities. What I want to say to you finally is that this is the beginning of this process, because I can tell you that I have heard from the leaders of countries all over Latin America. They are looking at the Congress; they are looking about whether we're going to adopt this trade agreement. And if we do, then Chile, then Venezuela, then Argentina, then many other countries that are becoming more democratic and more free-market, free-enterprise oriented are going to want to have more trade with the United States and have more of our products. And that means still more, more trade going out of the Port of New Orleans because there are hundreds of millions of people in Latin America committed to democracy now, committed to free markets, and hungering for the benefits of a free economy. We can help them to get it and put the American people to work as well. And we know that trade-related jobs pay, on the average, higher wages than jobs not related to trade. So I ask all of you to support this. Now, let me just say that--thanks. [Applause] There was a time when all the working people in America were for more trade, when people realized that if you didn't expand trade you couldn't keep expanding jobs. I want to say as a word of respect and partial regret, as we're here, there's a funeral going on in New Orleans for a labor leader named Lindsey Williams who helped to build this port. And Lindy Boggs, your former Congresswoman, wrote me a note about it, because I think she is there today. But she was reminding me in this note about how New Orleans had always been a place that pushed for more trade and a place where labor and management and Republicans and Democrats, African-Americans and whites and Hispanics and everybody got together because they looked outward to the world. I'm telling you, folks, we cannot afford to look inward. We cannot repeal the force that is driving the world economy together. We can run away from it and get beat by it, or we can embrace it, do what we have to do, and win with it to create more jobs, more incomes, and more opportunity. That's what I think we want to do. And as I sit down, I want to thank these men and women who are behind us. They work for and run companies that benefit from trade with Mexico today and who would flourish even more if we pass NAFTA. They ship their products through this port every day. And I thank them for coming here. They're not professional politicians or seasoned speakers, but they're the people that really count. They're the people that really count. They're the people who represent the future of this economy. And all the people who are arguing around this thing in politics, a lot of them won't be affected one way or the other. You need to assess who is going to be affected. Are they going to win or lose? The answer is this is a good deal. It's a winner. We ought to take it. And these folks are about to tell us why. Thank you very much. [At this point, a participant stated that NAFTA will create 15 to 20 more jobs in a local rice mill.]”