Clinton Grabs Trade Issue by the Handlebars in Pa.
President Clinton sought Wednesday to rev up consensus among factory workers in favor of global commerce, as his administration enters potentially pivotal negotiations with China and the opening of controversial talks to lower international trade barriers.
At the same Harley-Davidson motorcycle factory here 12 years ago, a very different president, Ronald Reagan, delivered much the same message. Reagan, who had just lifted export quotas, said then that American workers need not hide behind tariffs and quotas any longer because selling overseas and letting foreign companies have open access to American markets would only add to their winning bottom line.
Clinton likewise told cheering workers: “If I cannot convince the decision makers in Washington and ordinary people like you all across America that a key part of the economic success we’ve enjoyed in the last seven years and the economic success Americans can enjoy in the years ahead requires us to continue to break down barriers to trade, then in the future, when I’m not around anymore, you won’t have the economic prosperity that I think you deserve.”
Clinton has been trying to build public support for trade policies that have been at the center of his economic agenda for seven years but, year after year, continue to face skepticism among members of the core Democratic coalition.
Dave Gordon, 48, waiting to catch a glimpse of Clinton as the president inspected the assembly line, said that he and other workers--members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union--were fearful about the tumbling trade barriers that accompanied the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade pacts.
But Harley-Davidson is now doing 25% of its business overseas and, he has realized, the trade agreements have given American companies “a lot more places to sell to,” he said.
With such concerns in mind, the president told the workers--most of the plant’s 2,700 employees crowded into a tent erected in a parking lot where Clinton spoke--that expanded trade “is what is in the interest of Harley-Davidson and that is what is in the interest of the 21st century American economy.”
“If we can’t convince people like you that we’re right about this trade issue, then we are going to shrink America’s future prospects,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
The backdrop to the president’s visit were talks that began Wednesday in China on that nation’s proposed admission to the World Trade Organization and a meeting of the WTO in Seattle in three weeks. It will open the next round of global negotiations focused on lowering, or removing, tariffs and other trade barriers.
