Address in New Orleans at the Opening of the New Dockside Terminal.

Ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my thanks to Congressman Boggs for his generous introduction. He serves this District and the United States with distinction. He is the Majority Whip. He has breakfast every Tuesday with the leadership of the Congress and myself and the Vice President, and on those occasions he speaks with vigor for this State and the United States, and I appreciate his introduction.

He is joined today by a distinguished delegation-Senator Ellender, the senior Senator-if he would stand up, let's get a look at him; and Senator Russell Long of Louisiana--Congressman Hebert from this area, Congressman Willis, Congressman Morrison, Congressman Passman, Congressman Thompson, Congressman McSween, Congressman Waggonner. And we brought a Congressman all the way from Massachusetts to see this State, Congressman Boland--and Congressman Sikes from Florida. Everybody wanted to come on this trip, but we kept the list very exclusive.

I also want to express my appreciation to the Governor for his comments and for his welcome, and to your distinguished Mayor whose troubles are about to begin on Monday when he is inaugurated as the chief executive of this city. And we appreciate his welcome very much.

This port of New Orleans is the second leading port of the United States. I would like to say that Boston is the first, but nevertheless, this great port is symbolized by this great wharf, and I think it most appropriate to come to this city, and this pier, on this river, and say a word about the future trade of the United States. And I'm particularly happy to be in this city. For throughout its history, this happy city has symbolized and served our country and the world at large. Cosmopolitan by nature, tolerant in outlook, the product of many nations, and cultures, and creeds, and races, New Orleans has long represented the strength of diversity working in harmony--and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this city intend to see that this most valuable reputation and character are preserved.

After the battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson said that he was fighting for the re-establishment of the American character. And that, in our generation and time, is our responsibility: the re-establishment of the American character. And I speak today of one facet of that character and that is trade. Because trade and competition and innovation have long been a significant part of the American character.

The Founding Fathers--Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin--were men of trade as well as men of affairs. For trade represents widening horizons. This great river which reaches as far as the Rockies, and Pennsylvania in the East, connects this city with the farthest-most points of the world. It represents the spirit of liberty and the spirit of democracy, and the spirit of trade goes hand in hand with that great institution.

Today this Nation sells more goods abroad than any nation in the world--we buy more goods than any nation in the world--and we gain both from the buying and the selling. One-twelfth of all of our transportable goods--an amount larger than all we purchase for automobiles and auto parts--are bound up in foreign trade, which affects the livelihood of everyone who lives in this city. In 1960 we exported more than 50 percent of all the locomotives we built in this country; 49 percent of all the cotton we grew in the United States; 31 percent of the oil machinery; 57 percent of the rice; 31 percent of the construction and mining equipment; 29 percent of the tobacco; 23 percent of the metal-forming machine tools; and 41 percent of the soybeans. And in return we purchase goods without which there would be no coffee breaks, no banana splits, and no opportunity for us to use dozens of essential materials.

In this city more than in most, your feet are in the water. Last year two billion dollars worth of goods passed through these wharves around the world--feed from the Great Plains, cotton from the South, tobacco from the South, steel plate from Birmingham, automobiles from Detroit, and bananas and coffee from the South American countries. Trade has built New Orleans, trade will sustain New Orleans, trade will develop New Orleans in the coming months--not only on this pier but in your banks, your insurance companies, your oil industries, your chemical industries--your industries which mean the welfare of all of your people are bound up with that river which flows into the ocean.

Louisiana stands fifth, fifth, among all the States of the United States in the percentage of people in this State who work in foreign trade of local employment. And the other four States are Arkansas, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. The five States of the Union where more people, percentage wise, are engaged in occupations depending on foreign trade are all here in the South. In short, the five States which will benefit the most from our new trade legislation are here in your neighborhood. All this indicates we must go forward.

In May of 1962, we stand at a great dividing point. We must either trade or fade. We must either go backward or go forward. For more than a quarter of a century the Reciprocal Trade legislation fathered by Cordell Hull of Tennessee and sponsored by Franklin Roosevelt, has served this country well. And on eleven different occasions it has been renewed by Congresses of both parties. But that Act is no longer adequate to carry us through the channels and the locks of world trade today. For the whole pattern of trade is changing and we must change with it. The Common Market uniting the countries of Western Europe together in one great trading group indicates both a promise, or a threat, to our economy. Our international balance of payments is in deficit, requiring an increase in our exports. Japan has regained force as a trading nation, nearly 50 new nations of Asia and Africa are seeking new markets, our friends in Latin America need to trade to develop their capital--and the Communist bloc has developed a vast new arsenal of trading weapons, which can be used against us, and they are ready to take and fill any area in which we leave a gap, whenever American leadership should falter. And we do not intend to give way.

I believe that American trade leadership must be maintained and that is why I come to your city--I believe it must be furthered-and I have therefore submitted to the Congress the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

It is not a partisan measure--its provisions have been endorsed by leaders of both parties. It is not a radical measure--its newest features merely add force to the traditional American concepts. And it is not a measure favoring one section of our country over another--farm, labor, business and consumer groups, from every part of the nation, support this legislation. I am convinced that the passage of this bill is of vital importance to you and to every other American--not only to those vast numbers of people who are engaged in trade--but to every citizen: as a consumer who is concerned about the prices you must pay, as a patriot concerned about national security, as an American concerned about freedom. The basic economic facts make it essential that we pass this legislation this year.

Our businessmen, workers and farmers are in need of new markets--and the fastest growing market in the world is the European Common Market. Its consumers will soon be nearly 250 million people. Its sales possibilities have scarcely begun to be tapped. Its demand for American goods is without precedent--if only we can obtain the tools necessary to open the door.

Our own markets here at home expand as our economy and population expands. But think of the tremendous demand in the Common Market countries, where most consumers have never had the goods which we take so much for granted. Think of the opportunities in a market where, compared to the ratio of ownership in this country, only one-fourth as many consumers have radios, one-seventh television sets, one-fifth automobiles, washing machines, refrigerators!

If our American producers can share in this market it will mean more investment and more plants and more jobs and a faster rate of growth. To share in that market we must strike a bargain--we must have something to offer the Europeans--we must be willing to give them increased access to our markets. Let us not avoid the fact: we cannot sell unless we buy. And there will be those who will be opposed to this competition. But, let those who believe in competition-those who welcome the challenge of world trade, as our predecessors have done let them recognize the value that will come from this exchange of goods. It will enrich the choice of consumers. It will make possible a higher standard of living. It will help hold the lid on the cost of living. It will stimulate our producers to modernize their products. A few--a very few--may be adversely affected--but for the benefit of those few we have expanded and refined the safeguards of the Act.

As in the past, tariff reductions will take place gradually over a period of years. As in the past, import restrictions can be imposed if an industry undergoes undue hardship. Tariff policies on some items--such as textiles and oil--are already covered by special arrangements or agreements which give them the necessary assurances.

Finally, under this bill, for the first time, a constructive, businesslike program of adjustment assistance will be available to individual firms and workers, specifically tailored to help them regain their competitive strength. They will not stand alone, therefore, in the marketplace. There will be temporary aid in hardship cases with the creative purpose of increasing productivity, of helping labor and management get back in the competitive stream--instead of using tariff laws as a long-term federal subsidy or dole, paid by the consumer to stagnant enterprises.

With this variety of tools at our disposal, no one--and I say no one--is going to be sacrificed to the national interest with a medal and an empty grocery bag.

But let us not miss the main point: the new jobs opened through trade will be far greater than any jobs which will be adversely affected. And these new jobs will come in those enterprises that are today leading the economy of the country--our growth industries, those that pay the highest wages, those that are among the most efficiently organized, those that are most active in research, and in the innovation of new products. The experience of the European Common Market, where tariffs were gradually cut down, has shown that increased trade brings employment. They have full employment in the Common Market and an economic growth rate twice that of the United States. In short, trade expansion will emphasize the modern instead of the obsolete, the strong instead of the weak, the new frontiers of trade instead of the ancient strongholds of protection.

And we cannot continue to bear the burden that we must bear of helping freedom defend itself all the way, from the American soldier guarding the Brandenburg Gate to the Americans now in Viet Nam, or the Peace Corps men in Colombia. Unless we have the resources to finance those great expenditures which in the last year totaled over three billion dollars, unless we are able to increase our surplus of balance of payments, then the United States will be faced with a hard choice, of either lessening those commitments or beginning to withdraw this great national effort.

One answer to this problem is the negative answer: raise our tariffs, restrict our capital, pull back from the world--and our adversaries would only be too glad to fill any gap that we should leave. This Administration was not elected to preside over the liquidation of American responsibility in these great years.

There is a much better answer--and that is to increase our exports, to meet our commitments and to maintain our defense of freedom. I have every confidence that once this bill is passed, the ability of American initiative and know-how will increase our exports and our export surplus by competing successfully in every market of the world.

Third and last, the new Trade Act can strengthen our foreign policy, and one of these points, as Ambassador Morrison knows well, is Latin America. The Alliance for Progress seeks to help these Latin American neighbors of ours. That effort must, and will, continue. But foreign aid cannot do the job alone. In the long run, our sister republics must develop the means themselves to finance their development. They must sell more of their goods on the world market, and earn the exchange necessary to buy the machinery and the technology that they need to raise their standard of living. The Trade Expansion Act is designed to keep this great market as a part of the world community, because the security of the United States is tied up with the well-being of our sister republics.

And we have a concern for Japan which has maintained its freedom. Last year Japan bought a half a billion dollars more of goods from us than we bought from her, and it is important that she not be locked out of the world markets, because otherwise those who are opposed to freedom can win a victory in the coming years. To pay for her imports, Japan must sell. Many countries seek to discriminate against those goods, and we need the bargaining tools of the new Trade Expansion Act to bring Japan fully into the free World trading systems.

For we are moving toward a full partnership of all the free nations of the world, a partnership which will have within its area 90 percent of the industrial productive power of the free World which will have in it the greatest market that the world has ever known, a productive power far greater than that of the Communist bloc, a trillion dollar economy, where goods can move freely back and forth. That is the prospect that lies before us, as citizens of this country, in the year 1962.

Those who preach the doctrine of the inevitability of the class struggle and of the Communist success, should realize that in the last few years the great effort which has been made to unify economically the countries of the free World, offers far greater promise than the sterile and broken promises of the Communist system. Against the Communist system of iron discipline, the Atlantic partnership will present a world of free choice. Against their predictions of our collapse, it will present a challenge of free nations working in harmony, and it will provide economically an effective answer to those boasts of their ultimately overtaking us.

That is why the passage of the Trade Expansion Act is so important this year. And that is why I salute men such as Chairman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, of the Ways and Means Committee, and your own Congressman Hale Boggs who are preparing for its passage.

This is a great opportunity for all of us to move ahead. This city would never have developed as it has unless those who have preceded us had had a spirit of initiative and courage. That is what is asked of us today. This wharf demonstrates your confidence in the future. No section of the United States will benefit more in the coming months and years if we are successful.

In the life of every nation, as in the life of every man, there comes a time when a nation stands at the crossroads; when it can either shrink from the future and retire into its shell, or can move ahead--asserting its will and its faith in an uncertain sea. I believe that we stand at such a juncture in our foreign economic policy. And I come to this city because I believe New Orleans and Louisiana, and the United States choose to move ahead in 1962.