Bill Clinton: “Let me say, I'll take a few questions, but I intend to have the NAFTA legislation introduced next week, and we're hoping…”

“Let me say, I'll take a few questions, but I intend to have the NAFTA legislation introduced next week, and we're hoping for a vote in November right before the, well, before the recess and before I go out to Washington State to the meeting of the Pacific leaders. We're pushing right ahead on it. I feel good about that. I did have a conversation this morning with the Prime Minister-elect of Canada. I complimented him on his stunning victory and on the remarkable similarities between his campaign and the issues that he ran on and our campaign last year. And he said, ``Yes,'' he said, ``here they accuse me of copying you, but I told them that I had been in the Parliament longer than you've been around, so I figured you copied me.'' [Laughter] We had a great talk about it. We agree that we would see each other in Seattle. I'm looking forward to that. That will probably be our first opportunity to meet. I understand that a lot of you have questions about what impact this election means on NAFTA. From my point of view, it will have no impact at all. I see no reason to renegotiate the agreement, or any grounds or basis for it. And I think we should just go ahead, and I think that all the countries involved have a lot at stake in proceeding. So that's what we plan to do.”