Continue Push for Free Markets, Reagan Urges

President Reagan acknowledged Wednesday that many items on his agenda will be left to his successor, and he urged the next Administration to continue his push for freer markets and more open trade.

“We must leave whatever part of our agenda is unfinished to those who will follow us, trusting that they will benefit from the lessons we have learned,” Reagan told a dinner gathering of the nation’s leading business executives.

The President used the speech to review the outcome of this week’s seven-nation economic summit in Toronto, but he also touched upon his legacy--an issue that has been creeping into his comments in recent weeks.

Reagan, who has less than seven months left in office, asserted that his philosophy of free enterprise and belief in the creative power of the individual must be allowed to flourish if the United States is to retain a robust economy and a position of leadership among the economic powers.

Trade’s ‘Free Flow’

The President spoke to the Business Roundtable, an organization of top executives of the nation’s leading 200 corporations.

In his speech, Reagan pointed to the U.S.-Canadian free trade agreement as an example of what remains left to be accomplished in his term, as well as something the nation’s future leaders should build on.

He called the pact one that “will show the better way” because it will do away with “all the bitterness--all the destructiveness--of round upon round of trade battles.”

“I would hope that those who follow me will not view it as an item of finished business, but rather as only a beginning,” Reagan said. “I would hope that America’s leaders will fix upon the vision of a day when all borders become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been: a meeting place, rather than a dividing line.”

He said he even hoped that “the free flow of trade” will come to envelop the entire Western Hemisphere “in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange.”

Reagan said his years in office have “done much . . . to act upon the vision of economic freedom” and the proof is that his Administration has paved the way to “new jobs, lower taxes, steady growth.”

Decisions Are Due

Saying the nation stands “on the verge of an economic and technological future of vast promise,” Reagan warned against “those voices that would construct barriers on this road of economic prosperity.”

And with a nod to November, Reagan intimated that the choice between a Democratic or Republican President may be a referendum on his beliefs.

“These are the decisions that will be made over the next several months--individual opportunity and incentive or renewed government restriction and burden,” he said.

His policies, Reagan asserted, have gotten attention even in the Communist Bloc.

Around the world, Reagan said, “state control of the economy is loosening in favor of freer markets. The lesson is clear. If you want economic growth, work for economic and individual freedom.”

He added: “After my visit to Moscow, it’s my belief that human creativity, expressed in economic freedom, can transform even the nations of the Soviet Bloc.”

But Reagan acknowledged that he didn’t always get his way during his three-day session in Toronto with the leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies. The President’s call for the total elimination of agricultural subsidies by the year 2000 was rejected.