[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 39 (Monday, October 4, 1993)]
[Pages 1918-1921]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks Announcing a National Export Strategy and an Exchange With
Reporters
September 29, 1993
The President. Thank you very much, and please be seated. I want to
thank, first of all, the members of the Trade Promotion Coordinating
Committee, all the members of my Cabinet and administration who are
here, and especially the Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown, who did such a
good job in chairing this effort.
I'd also like to thank the people who are involved in our national
security efforts who supported these changes, a marked change from times
past. And I'd like to thank the Vice President and the people who worked
on the National Performance Review for a lot of the work they did to
reinforce our efforts to develop a meaningful national export strategy.
Finally, I'd like to say a special word of thanks to people who are
here and people all across this country who have talked to me about this
issue for the last couple of years. Everywhere I went where there were
people who were trying to create the American economy of the future,
someone would take me aside and talk about the problems of the export
control laws, which may have been needed in a former period when the
technology was different and certainly the politics of the cold war were
different but were clearly undermining our ability to be competitive
today.
If I might just by way of general introduction say that I don't
believe a wealthy country can grow much richer in the world we're living
in without expanding exports. I don't believe you can create jobs--and
I'm absolutely convinced you can't change the job mix, which is
something we have to do in America with so many people stuck in jobs
that have had flat or declining real wages. I think we have to do that.
And I don't think it can be done unless we can increase the volume of
exports in this country.
And therefore, I have wanted to have a new export strategy that
would deal with a whole range of issues and that would galvanize the
energy, the imagination of the American private sector, not only those
who are waiting to export now and just held back by laws but those that
we need to go out and cultivate, especially small and medium sized
businesses that could be active in international markets--their
counterparts in other countries are active--but because of the system
or, if you will, the lack of the system that we have had in the past,
have not been so engaged.
So I want to emphasize that the announcements we make today are
designed to create jobs for Americans, to increase incomes for
Americans, and to create the future economy, even as we have to give up
on much of the past.
I also want to say that it's very important to see this announcement
today in the context of our administration's support for the NAFTA
agreement. It will also open up export opportunities, not just to Mexico
but throughout all of Latin America.
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I just came from the United Nations earlier this week, where I had
the opportunity to host meetings with the Latin American leaders who
were there. The first thing every one of them asked me about was the
NAFTA agreement. And every one of them said, ``Look, we want to do this,
too. We want to lower our barriers to American products. We want more
American products in our country.'' No one, even the most vociferous
opponents of NAFTA, would seriously urge that the proposition that if we
have lowered trade barriers with Chile or Argentina or any other
country, that will lead to massive loss of American jobs. It will
clearly lead to massive gains in American jobs.
This is an important part of a strategy to build a hemispheric
trading opportunity for Americans. I also would say that anyone who has
seriously looked at the NAFTA dynamics, the specifics of the NAFTA
agreement will actually alleviate all the complaints that people have
who are attacking it. It will raise the cost of labor in Mexico. It will
raise the cost of environmental protection in Mexico. It will lower the
trade barriers in Mexico that are higher than American trade barriers.
It will change domestic content rules in ways that will enable us to
produce in America, sell in Mexico. And that country, with a low per
capita income, already buys more American products per capita than any
country in the world except for Canada.
So I think that is a very important point to make. This export
strategy we announced today assumes that we have people to sell to, and
we have to also keep that in mind. We have to keep reaching out to tear
down these barriers, to integrate our economies in ways that benefits
Americans.
Let me just basically outline in some greater detail the strategy
that has been recommended by our counsel and that the Vice President
summarized.
As we all know, the export controls in American law today no longer
reflect the realities of the economic marketplace or the political
realities. The cold war is over, and the technologies have changed
dramatically. Therefore, today I am ordering sweeping changes in our
export controls that dramatically reduce controls on telecommunications
technologies and computers. These reforms will eliminate or greatly
reduce controls on $35 billion worth of high-tech products, ultimately
70 percent of all the computers. This one step alone will decontrol the
export of computers, the production of which support today--today--
600,000 American jobs and now more tomorrow.
Let me be clear. As I said at the United Nations earlier this week,
I am more concerned about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
than I was when I became President. Every day I have this job, I become
more worried about it. And we do need effective export controls to fight
that kind of proliferation. But streamlining unnecessary controls will
make the rest of the system more responsive and efficient in combating
proliferation. And we have on too many, many occasions, for too many
years, not had a coordinated, effective strategy against proliferation
but have had a broad-based, highly bureaucratic policy that, in effect,
cut off our nose to spite our face.
We also know we have to simplify the export process. There are 19
different export-related agencies in this Government. To say that we
need more effective coordination would be a dramatic understatement. The
TPCC found this, as did the Vice President's National Performance
Review.
We propose to begin by creating one-stop shops in four cities,
consolidating all Federal export promotion services in one place. And
eventually, there will be a national network of shops linked together by
computer technology. We also want to have one phone number that will
serve as an information clearinghouse for any exporter of any size to
learn about potential export markets.
Now, let me say why I think this is so important. Most of the job
growth in America is in small and medium sized companies. Now, many of
those, to be sure, are supplying bigger companies; many of those are in
high-tech areas where they're already attuned to exports. But many of
them are basically stand-alone operations that sell to companies in
America and could sell to companies overseas but don't know how to do
it, think it's too much hassle, haven't really figured out the
financing, the paperwork, the market-opening mechanisms.
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We have not done nearly as good a job as some countries in
mobilizing the energies of these countries. I have been immensely
impressed, for example, at the organization in Germany of the medium and
small sized companies to make them all automatically exporting. And
there's no question that the effort that they have made in that country
to mobilize small and medium sized companies for export is one reason
they've been able to maintain by far the most open economy in Europe and
the lowest unemployment rate at the same time. We must do the same
thing.
The third element of this strategy is meeting the challenge of tied
aid. Now, for the benefit of those here covering this event who don't
know what tied aid is, it basically is a strategy that many of our
competitors have followed who say, if you want our aid you'll have to
buy our products. We have worked hard to reach an agreement to limit the
practice of tied aid, and we have had some success in the last few
years. But unfortunately there is still way too much of it, in ways that
cost Americans way too many dollars in jobs and export opportunities
that we could win under any free market scenario imaginable.
Therefore, we propose to create a modest $150 million fund within
the Export-Import Bank, and with the support of Mr. Brody and others who
are here today, to counter the tied aid practices of our competitors. By
some estimates, our companies lose between $400 million and $800 million
in export sales every year because of tied aid practices.
Next, we want to focus the Government to promote private sector
exports. We want an advocacy network within the Government to facilitate
the efforts of our companies and to reinforce the one-stop shopping. We
want a commercial strategic plan in key foreign markets to coordinate
the work of Federal Agencies there, something I heard about over and
over again from the U.S. business community, for example, in Japan and
in Korea.
We want to ensure that our embassies play a much more aggressive
role in promoting our commercial interests in a uniform way around the
world. Some of our embassies, to be fair, do a very good job of this.
Some are not active at all. Most are somewhere in the middle. We need a
uniform policy and a deliberate mission on this, and I am very pleased
at the support the State Department has given to this effort.
We want to unify the budget of all export promotion-related
activities in the Government through a new process coordinated by the
Economic Council, OMB, and the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee.
Finally, let me say what we have today at long last is a
coordinated, targeted, aggressive export strategy. It means growth and
jobs and incomes for Americans. Compared to our competitors, we have for
too long had a hands-off approach to exports. We have paid for it. We
now will have a hands-on partnership, driven by the market, guided by
the private sector, limited where appropriate by governmental policy,
but clearly tailored to help Americans compete and win in the world of
today and tomorrow.
Many people when I started thought this would never happen,
especially those frustrated computer companies who have labored under
the burden of the past, because it required us to think and act anew. It
required disparate agencies to cooperate that had never really spoken to
each other about these matters. It required Congress to work with the
executive branch. It required everyone in our Government to listen to
our customers, in this case the American businesses who pay so much of
the tax bill. But it is working. And we have laid the foundation for a
future really worth having in this country. Now, you all have to go out
and make this work. We intend to support it. We intend to do what needs
to be done. And we believe that Government is now going to be a good
partner with the private sector in making tomorrow's economy. Thank you
very much.
I want to take a question or two. But before I do, since we have a
lot of folks from the private sector here, I just want to say that one
of the things we have really worked hard on in Government is getting all
these--look at all the Cabinet and agency heads we have here--we really
try to work together. I won't say it never happens, but we have got less
turfing and less infighting than any Government, I think, that's been in
this town in a very long time. And it's a great tribute to them, and I
want to thank them publicly
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in the presence of those of you who have complained about the
inadequacies of the approach in the past.
Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown
Q. Mr. President, are you satisfied with Secretary Brown's
explanations about his relationship to Vietnam?
The President. Well, let me say he's told me that he hadn't done
anything wrong, and he's done just about everything right as Commerce
Secretary. I think he's done a great job, and I have no reason not to
believe him.
Q. Mr. President, are you concerned that his effectiveness as
Commerce Secretary in selling programs that you're pushing, like this
one and NAFTA, are undermined by this grand jury investigation?
The President. Not if he hadn't done anything wrong, I'm not.
Business Week complimented him in an editorial today. I was glad to see
a Democrat get complimented in Business Week. [Laughter]
Q. [Inaudible]
The President. Yes. I hope it will happen a lot more as we go along.
Russia
Q. Mr. President, did the latest events in Moscow give you pause
about your previous support that you've expressed for Mr. Yeltsin?
The President. No. It is a tense and difficult issue, and how to
defuse what I understand to have been the circumstances around the
Moscow White House was a difficult call. I don't think that any of us
should be here basically armchair quarterbacking the unfolding events.
When I talked to Boris Yeltsin a few days ago, I told him very
strongly that I hoped that he would be able to manage this transition in
ways that really promoted democracy, respected human rights, and kept
the peace. And he said that would be exactly his policy. And so far he
has done that, under very, very difficult, intense circumstances. I
mean, a lot of you have talked about just the difficulty of managing
this and keeping up with what's going on in the countryside and the
pressures and all the various interest groups. And I think so far
they've done quite well.
Now, I'm going to have a meeting with Mr. Kozyrev later today, and
we'll have a chance to talk about this in greater detail. But he's
already made a statement that they're still committed to a peaceful
transition, and I have no reason to believe he's not. And I think that
the United States and the free world ought to hang in there with a
person that is clearly the most committed to democracy and market reform
of all the people now operating in Russia. Until I have some reason to
believe otherwise, I'm going to hang right where we are. I think we're
in the right place.
Q. What are your concerns about the human rights implications of
having the Parliament building there surrounded by armed troops?
The President. I think it depends on what the facts were. If there
were a lot of people armed in there and he was worried about civil
disorder and unrest and people being shot, I think that when you're in
charge of a government, your first obligation is to try to keep the
peace and keep order. So I think so far they seem to have acted with
restraint but with dispatch in trying to defuse what otherwise might
have become a very difficult situation.
Now, I don't have all the facts, and neither does anyone else. But
nothing has happened so far that has caused me to question the
commitment that was made to me by the President and to his own people.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 12:45 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the
White House. In his remarks, he referred to Kenneth D. Brody, President,
Export-Import Bank of the United States.