Bill Clinton: “Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we have postponed the vote in the House of Representatives on renewing…”

“Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we have postponed the vote in the House of Representatives on renewing fast-track authority to strengthen our ability to expand exports through new agreements. I'm disappointed, of course, that this step was necessary because we worked very hard, and we're very close to having the requisite number of votes. But early this morning it became clear to me that if the matter were taken to a vote, there was a substantial chance that we would not get the votes necessary to pass the bill. Let me begin by saying a profound word of thanks to Speaker Gingrich and to the leadership team in the House who worked with us on this, and on the Democratic side, to Representatives Fazio and Matsui and the others who were helping them. This was a partnership for the national interests, and I am very grateful for what they are doing. I think most of you know what happened. We have been having a big debate in our party for several years on the question of trade and its role in our economic future. Even though we clearly have a majority of the Democratic mayors and Governors, and we had a majority in the Senate, we don't have a majority in the House who agree with the position that I have taken. We worked hard to overcome their objections, and we didn't succeed. And because we didn't have more Democratic votes, we then had to get a bigger share of the Republican vote. That brought into play the controversy over international family planning and the so- called Mexico City language. Had we been able to resolve that, I think we could have gotten enough votes on the Republican side to go with the Democrats' votes we had to pass the bill. Clearly, I think we could have. But we simply were not able to do that. And I say that without undue criticism of anyone. The people who took the position that they could not give their votes to the fast-track legislation believe very deeply in principle that we should change our family planning funding. I, on the other hand, believe that it would have been wrong for me to mix the two issues and to compromise what I believe in principle. And in the end, this matter could not go forward because of that disagreement. But what we're going to do now is to regroup a little bit and find a way to succeed, and I think we'll be able to do that. I also know, from my extensive work now in the House, that there are a large number of House Members who are interested in trying to find some constructive resolution of this matter, and I think we may well be able to do that. I expect that we will successfully press forward with this issue in this Congress and at the appropriate time. So I'm not particularly concerned about the long run; I think we'll be able to prevail. Today, let me say again, I think it's important that all of us do more to make the case. This country is in good shape. We have 13\1/2\ million more jobs; we have a 4.7 percent unemployment rate; we know that a third of that growth has come from trade. We know that the countries that are willing to enter into agreements with us in the kinds of areas of agreement that we need to push on a regional and a worldwide basis will lower barriers more in other countries than they will in our country. But we also know that the benefits of trade are often not seen as directly tied to trade. When a plant expands or a new contract is signed, and whenever a plant closes down, generally it's easy to tie it to trade whether trade had anything to do with it or not. So we have some more work to do. But on balance, based on where we are now, I'm quite optimistic that we will ultimately prevail in this Congress. And I'm very pleased again with the good partnership that we had with Speaker Gingrich and the House leadership team and with the Democrats who helped us. And so we're just going to go forward. I think it's clear to everybody that America's leadership in the world depends upon America's continuing economic leadership, and this, therefore, has to be only a temporary obstacle because, in the end, we always find out a way to do what's right for America, to maintain our leadership, and maintain our economic growth. Situation in Iraq”