Bill Clinton: “It can indirectly, and let me tell you why. That's a very good question, and it's important. Let me explain, first of…”

“It can indirectly, and let me tell you why. That's a very good question, and it's important. Let me explain, first of all, from the point of view of these other nations that have basically caught up to the United States since World War II. That's not all bad; that's enabled them to buy more of our products. But in Asia, most nations have developed by willfully keeping their wages down, getting very high savings rates, plowing back the savings into new plant and equipment and new products all the time. That's what they've done. When you do that, you don't have enough money to buy other people's products. So Japan has a big trade surplus with us. They've been very good about investing in our country and putting our people to work, but they still don't buy as many of our products. This year, for the first time, we're selling some rice to them, for example, which is at least popular back where I come from. China has a $19 billion trade surplus with us-- we buy 38 percent of all the exports of China, all of us do--Taiwan this year about $9 billion, although it goes up and down. Europe will have a trade deficit or a trade surplus with us. Sometimes they buy a lot more from us than they sell us, but they have to be growing to do it. Now their economies are flat. Here's what I think will happen. I can't prom- ise you this, but here's what I think will happen. If we adopt NAFTA, the rest of the world, Europe and Japan will see, ``Well, America might have a whole trading bloc, from Canada down to the southern tip of South America, and we could be really at a disadvantage there. So we better adopt this new worldwide trading agreement they wanted, lower our tariffs, lower our barriers, let them sell into our markets so we'll have at least some access to the rest of the markets.'' So I think NAFTA will be a huge indirect incentive for Japan and for Europe to reach an agreement on a new world trading system by the end of the year that I've been pushing for hard and that we've been working for, for years and years. If that happens, you will see a very large increase in the number of manufacturing jobs in America in a short time, just because Europe and Japan have so much more money than Mexico does. I mean, there's more of them, and they've got more money. So I think that would really be a godsend, and I think there's a good chance that it will happen. [A participant asked about programs to help displaced American workers.]”