Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much. First of all, it's very good to see Prime Minister Miyazawa again. We had a fine meeting in…”

“Thank you very much. First of all, it's very good to see Prime Minister Miyazawa again. We had a fine meeting in Washington in April at the White House, and I was honored to have the opportunity to come here and meet with the Prime Minister before the beginning of the G-7 summit. It bears repeating again that the United States has no more important bilateral relationship than our relationship with Japan. We are strategic allies and our futures are bound up together. We have one of the world's most important trading partnerships. We have an array of regional and global alliances. And our historic relationship, as it undergoes change, must also maintain some continuity. I have invested a lot in both the change and the continuity because I think they are terribly important. And I was glad to have the opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues with the Prime Minister today. We discussed the need for a successful conclusion to the Uruguay round and our hope that we can agree, among the G-7 leaders, on market access, on a range of manufacturing products. We discussed the need to coordinate economic strategies of the world's wealthiest economies in the hope of restoring some growth and job opportunities to our own people and to the global economy. We discussed the issue which the Prime Minister mentioned on the framework of our own relationships, and I'll have a little more to say about that. But before I do, I want to say something about our security relationship which too often is overlooked. I emphasized to the Prime Minister that the United States intends to maintain our forward military presence, our presence in Japan, our presence in Korea, and our security agreements in this area. We intend to maintain a full engagement in this region. We discussed some of the difficulties that we face here, but we feel confident, looking toward the future, that our security partnership, which has kept us free of war and which has maintained a strict nonproliferation approach in this region, can continue, and we hope that it will. I also expressed my support for the extraordinary work Japan has done in supporting the process of reconciliation in Cambodia, in supporting United Nations efforts in Somalia and elsewhere. And I also want to say how much I appreciate the support that Japan has given to the efforts the United States has made with the G-7 to support democracy and market reforms in Russia. I believe that we will see a very positive outcome to those common efforts here at the G-7 meeting. The primary focus of our relationship was strengthening the economic relationships between our two nations. We are moving away, I hope, from continued tension toward greater shared benefits. The changes I seek in our relationship are not changes that I hope will benefit the United States at the expense of Japan but changes that I believe will benefit the people of both nations. We discussed this back in April. We discussed it again today. As the Prime Minister said, we reaffirmed our belief in the importance of creating a framework and establishing basic principles for our trading relationships. I remain convinced that we can conclude an important agreement on this issue. The negotiations have not been free of difficulty, but frankly, some significant progress has been made. And we agreed in our private meeting that our respective sides would continue to work in good faith and with real intensity during the next few days to see what we can do. The best way we can strengthen our historic friendship, as we must, is to make our trade and investment genuinely in the best interests of the peoples of both countries. I hope we will have more trade, not less, more openness, more growth, and more jobs in both Japan and the United States. And I believe we can achieve that with the proper framework. Finally, let me say that it's a great pleasure for Mrs. Clinton and I both to be back here in Japan. I came here several times when I was a Governor. I suppose, Mr. Prime Minister, I won't have quite the freedom of movement that I once enjoyed as a more private citizen, but on the other hand, I'm being treated to an enormous amount of Japanese hospitality, for which the United States is very grateful, and I look forward to the next few days. Prime Minister Miyazawa. Thank you very much. Now questions, please. Framework Agreement”