Bill Clinton: “First, let me say I think the G-7 meeting will be a very important opportunity for the leaders of the major…”

“First, let me say I think the G-7 meeting will be a very important opportunity for the leaders of the major industrialized countries of the world to reaffirm their commitment to global growth, to democracy, and to security concerns. I believe there will be serious discussions about three issues on the economic front, one really perhaps for the first time. The first is that I think there will be a real discussion about how we can coordinate our economic policies in ways that will produce growth. From the first week I was in office, we have spent a lot of time working through the finance ministers, the foreign ministers, and others to talk about how we can coordinate our strategies. For many years, other nations have asked the United States, for example, to lower the budget deficit. And we're working very hard on that, first through this $500 billion deficit reduction program that has now been passed by both Houses of our Congress, then through taking on a health care problem which is the biggest source of our growing deficit. And we need to make sure we are coordinating those policies with things which will produce an overall higher level of growth than we now have. It's a big problem for the United States, because two-thirds of the new jobs we've created here in the last 5 years have come from increased trade with other nations. So if Europe is down economically, if Japan is down economically, it's hard for us to do well here. So I think there will be that. The second issue I think that we will discuss and, I hope, make some genuine progress on, creating a more open trading system and increasing the chances that we can successfully conclude GATT by the end of the year. The third thing that I hope to see a very serious discussion on is the microeconomic policies of each of our nations and how we can all do a better job of creating jobs within our economy. Even Japan, with its very low unemployment rate by western standards, is having some trouble now creating new jobs. But it's a very big problem for the United States and for every other country represented around this room today. And I think that increasingly in a global economy, national policy will have to focus on what the economists call microeconomic policies: What kind of labor support systems do you have; what kind of education and training systems do you have; how do you target investment to create jobs? The west, and increasingly Japan, are having difficulty creating new jobs, even in times of economic growth. It's quite interesting. If you trace the last 6 or 7 years you can see that in all the western nations, even when there is growth, there is some trouble creating new jobs. So I think that this will all be--we'll deal with this, and I hope in a very informal and forthright atmosphere. It will be an interesting summit, because there will be several of the people there attending their very first one, first G-7, all at the same time. The second point you made about Japan's role in the world, I'm going to do what I can while in Japan to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the United States and Japan. In many, many ways it is our most significant bilateral relationship and the key to what happens between the United States and Asia. It's interesting, even though we have incredibly important ties to Europe, economic ties, we have a huge--40 percent of our trade is now with the Pacific. It accounts for almost 2\1/2\ million jobs in America, trade with the Pacific. So it's a big issue. And we have major security concerns, as you know, with regard to Japan and with Korea. So I'm very hopeful that even though Japan is going through a period of political transition, which I hope the Japanese people will view with excitement and interest, not with too much concern, this is a normal thing for a democracy. And periodically you go through these periods of significant change, and I view it as a positive thing for a great country. I think it will leave you stronger and in a better position in the world. So I hope we will discuss a lot of our bilateral economic as well as strategic concerns there. And I hope that when I leave Japan, our relationship will be even stronger than it is when I enter. NAFTA”