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George Bush Sr. on Free Trade
President of the U.S., 1989-1993; Former Republican Rep. (TX)
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1992 talks led to NAFTA agreement
The Bush administration held extensive discussions with Canada and Mexico that resulted in the approval of a draft North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992.
Source: Grolier’s Encyclopedia on-line: “The Presidency”
, Dec 25, 2000
Create new jobs through increases in exports
As the unemployment rate edged upward in 1991, Bush signed a bill providing additional benefits for unemployed workers. He aggressively sought to create new jobs through increases in exports, and to that end he visited Australia,
Singapore, South Korea, and Japan in January 1992. Despite hopes for a major agreement with Japan, he obtained only modest Japanese concessions to purchase American products.
Source: Grolier Encyclopedia on-line, “The Presidency”
, Dec 25, 2000
For NAFTA because exports critical to economy
PEROT: [to Bush]: You implement NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls, etc., and you're going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country.
We don't have good trade agreements across the world.BUSH: I am for the North American Free Trade Agreement. I think free trade is going to expand our job opportunity.
I think it is exports that have saved us when we're in a recession. We need more free trade agreements.
CLINTON: I say it does more good than harm if we can get protection for the environment so that the
Mexicans have to follow their own environmental standards, their own labor law standards, and if we have a genuine commitment to reeducate and retrain American workers who lose their jobs.
Source: The Third Clinton-Bush-Perot Presidential Debate
, Oct 19, 1992
Page last updated: Apr 28, 2013
