Now we stand at another moment of change and choice, and another time to be farsighted, to bring America 50 more years of security and prosperity.
In this endeavor, our first task is to help to build for the very first time an undivided, democratic Europe. When Europe is stable, prosperous, and at peace, America is more secure.
To that end, we must expand NATO by 1999, so that countries that were once our adversaries can become our allies. At the special NATO summit this summer, that is what we will begin to do. We must strengthen NATO’s Partnership for Peace with non-member allies. And we must build a stable partnership between NATO and a democratic Russia.
An expanded NATO is good for America, and a Europe in which all democracies define their future not in terms of what they can do to each other, but in terms of what they can do together for the good of all--that kind of Europe is good for America.
Second, America must look to the East no less than to the West.
Our security demands it. Americans fought three wars in Asia in this century.
Our prosperity requires it. More than 2 million American jobs depend upon trade with Asia. There, too, we are helping to shape an Asia Pacific community of cooperation, not conflict.
Let our--let our progress there not mask the peril that remains. Together with South Korea, we must advance peace talks with North Korea and bridge the Cold War’s last divide. And I call on Congress to fund our share of the agreement under which North Korea must continue to freeze and then dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
We must pursue a deeper dialogue with China for the sake of our interests and our ideals. An isolated China is not good for America. A China playing its proper role in the world is. I will go to China, and I have invited China’s president to come here, not because we agree on everything, but because engaging China is the best way to work on our common challenges, like ending nuclear testing, and to deal frankly with our fundamental differences, like human rights.
The American people must prosper in the global economy. We’ve worked hard to tear down trade barriers abroad so that we can create good jobs at home. I’m proud to say that today America is once again the most competitive nation and the No. 1 exporter in the world.