Bill Clinton: “Good afternoon. I'm delighted that my first meeting as President with a foreign leader is with the Prime Minister of…”

“Good afternoon. I'm delighted that my first meeting as President with a foreign leader is with the Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney. On the day after I was elected, I spoke of the essential continuity of our country's foreign policy. Our steadfast relationship with Canada is an indispensable element of that continuity. Prime Minister Mulroney and the people of Canada should know that the United States is still their friend and their partner. It is worth noting that the United States and Canada share the world's longest undefended border and that we haven't had a battle between us since the War of 1812. Now having said that, Mr. Prime Minister, I will tell you that I look forward to winning back the World Series. [Laughter] Canada has long stood as our partner in promoting democracy and human rights around the world. Today Canada is demonstrating her international leadership for peace and freedom through her commitment of troops in peacekeeping efforts around the world, in Somalia, in Bosnia, and elsewhere. Canada is our largest trading partner. Both our nations benefit enormously from the immense river of goods and services flowing across our border, with an increase of $30 billion just since the free trade agreement went into effect. It is remarkable how relatively few disputes have attended the vigorous trading between us. Yet it is inevitable that there will be some disagreements even among close partners. And we agreed today to maintain high-level attention to that trading relationship, to ensure that the problems are addressed before they become crises. The Prime Minister and I discussed the North American Free Trade Agreement. I assured him that my administration intends to move forward with NAFTA while establishing a process to provide adequate protection to workers, to farmers, and to the environment. Canada was our partner in working with Mexico to negotiate NAFTA, and Canada will be our partner as we move forward to put it and its related agreements into effect. We've made a good start here today in setting the stage for working together. We also discussed the GATT agreement, and I reassured the Prime Minister that the United States will do what it can to secure an agreement at GATT that all the world can be proud of and can be a prosperous part of. We reviewed a broad range of global issues, including the developments in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, the crisis in the Balkans, the situation in Somalia and Haiti. We also discussed our participation in the Group of Seven and what the United States and Canada might hope to achieve this year, and especially this summer when the G-7 meets in Tokyo, to help move the global economy out of recession and into a strong recovery. This was a very good beginning. I want to thank Prime Minister Mulroney for coming down from Canada and tell him that he'll always be welcome here. And I look forward to visiting you on your home turf soon. Prime Minister Mulroney. Thank you, Mr. President. I'll simply say that, as the President indicated, we had a very full review of quite a large number of items in the few hours we spent together and a very productive working lunch. I thought it was a very good meeting and a very good beginning of the relationship of Canada with the new administration. The President has indicated the complex issues that we've touched on, tried to deal with, principally, of course, and I think you'll understand, the relationship between Canada and the United States itself. The relationship is by far the most important one the United States has in the world. This is the biggest trading relationship ever between two nations. And at the end of the year the important thing is it tends to be in rough balance, which indicates that you can have free trade and prosper. And so we're very concerned about the GATT, and we're very concerned about trading currents generally and very reassured by the President's strong commitments and strong positions in respect of the manner in which you bring back and reenergize prosperity around the world. So we covered our bilateral arrangements, and we covered a lot of the hot spots around the world. And I'm sure that the President and I would be happy to take a few questions. [At this point, the Prime Minister repeated his statement in French.] Thank you very much, Mr. President. NAFTA”