Bill Clinton: “If I thought the treaty were bad for the American economy, of course, I would do that. But let me tell you, there's…”

“If I thought the treaty were bad for the American economy, of course, I would do that. But let me tell you, there's another provision of the treaty that we negotiated that I also want to emphasize because it goes more to the heart of what many Americans are worried about. It deals with the so-called surge problem. That's a term of art which in common language means, well, what if this is a good deal for America and a good deal for Mexico, but some part of our economy, or theirs, to be fair, has an overwhelmingly negative impact? If something that nobody ever dreamed happened, there's also a provision that allows us to slow the agreement down as it applies to that. So there's no question that we have the protections we need. We can get out in 6 months if it's bad for us, and we can stop anything horrible and unforeseen. This treaty is going to make the problems with Mexico of the last 15 years better. It will raise labor costs in Mexico; it will raise the environmental investments in Mexico; it will reduce the trade barriers to our selling products in Mexico. It means more sales and more jobs. And also keep in mind, Mexico is just 5 percent of the American economy. It will improve our relationships with our biggest neighbor and thereby help us to take this kind of deal to the rest of Latin America so that we can establish a 700-million-person trading bloc. That's real jobs for America. APEC Meeting and NAFTA Mr. Russert. The day after the vote November 17th, the next day, on the 18th, you leave for Seattle to meet with 14 other nations, China, Japan. If you go there having lost NAFTA, what does it do to your standing?”