Oakland, California Remarks at a Reception for East Bay Area Community and Civic Leaders.

When I asked Mayor Wilson who was going to be at this meeting, he said, "Just a few city officials." [Laughter] I think there are almost as many officials in the East Bay/Oakland area as there are around the Oval Office in Washington. [Laughter]

I know, however, that there have been a good many other community leaders to join us this afternoon, and I'm very delighted to be the first President, really since 1904, to come here to Oakland on an official visit and to meet with people who are important to this community and to make a few brief remarks. A couple of other Presidents have kind of passed through, but I don't see how they could possibly have passed through this place and not stopped and stayed and meet the wonderful people who are here.

It's an exciting thing to see and to know and to learn about what has happened in this tremendous, fast-growing, dynamic, beautiful area. Three and a half years ago when I became President of our great country, the thing that I was determined to do was to form a partnership between your government in Washington, your government in Sacramento, and your government here in the Oakland/Bay area. We've been successful, far beyond what we ever thought. And what I have seen this afternoon and what I've learned this afternoon is a vivid demonstration of what I mean.

In the last 3 1/2 years, we have had a net increase of 110,000 jobs in the bay area. This is good progress. And although we are now suffering from economic adversity and problems which are very serious, the unemployment rate in January of 1977 was 60 percent higher than it was the last figures we had for May 1980. This is a great tribute to you and to the forceful attitude and the forward-looking attitude that's typical of this region of our country.

There've been a lot of reasons for it. First of all, is a better partnership, a close consultation, which is a vivid reminder to me that every one of the constituents Of Lionel Wilson is also a constituent of mine. And I'm determined to sustain this growth and the progress that you have made, not by interference in your affairs but by mutual consultation on how we can work together to meet common problems and to take advantage of common opportunities.

We wrote and passed into law not many months ago a remarkable trade bill, an historic occasion when we agreed with foreign countries to minimize protectionism and to increase trade among our countries. This has been good for our whole Nation, and it's also, of course, been good for American workers, because it's provided a lot of new jobs.

Oakland and your port, which I've just had a chance to visit, has demonstrated this in a remarkable way. Containerized shipping is something relatively new. You have been in the forefront in developing this means by which American products could be transported efficiently and quickly to foreign markets. This helps everybody in Iowa and everybody in Nevada who's interested in the production of goods that are attractive to foreign buyers.

We've had a remarkable increase in total export shipping from the west coast because of that landmark legislation, and also from the fact that we have now formed diplomatic relationships with the People's Republic of China, comprising in their population one-fourth of the total people who live on Earth.

It's been good already to see this change made, but the prospects for the future are exciting indeed. There are a group, as you know, of port managers here, observing how well you perform your shipping duties, from the People's Republic of China. And in this process, which was a highly sensitive and controversial decision that I had to make a little more than a year and a half ago, we have also increased dramatically our trade with Taiwan and the people who live there.

In the entire west coast area, as a matter of fact, exports the first quarter of this year were 32 percent higher than they were last year, and in the bay area, I'm sure it won't surprise you, it was 39 percent, more even than the tremendous growth on the west coast. I want to see this kind of progress continue not only in trade and exports but also in the revitalization of communities which you're so eager to help yourselves.

I was looking down the list at some of the things that EDA has done and the UDAG program has done. This UDAG program, for instance, is designed to have minimal paperwork, quick return—if a proper request is made—and a maximum input of private investment and private capital and local initiative and local control, with just a little bit of Federal seed money. And it's worked far beyond what we had ever thought. The mayors proposed it; the Federal Government decided to do it after the Congress acted.

The Oakland downtown revitalization program is one example of what can be done with this kind of cooperation. The Judson Steel Company has been really a remarkable project, with private and government cooperation, the Richmond Marina—and the Stewart Street Project in San Francisco is another example. The EDA program has been in effect now for 15 years; it started in 1965. But over 60 percent of the total EDA funds used for the benefit of the American people have been expended in the last 3 1/2 years, because the local people now feel that when they make an application, it will be addressed and approved—if it's worthy-without delay and with a maximum amount of partnership and cooperation.

We have made good progress in the last few months in dealing with the high inflation and the high interest rates. The prime rate now is exactly the same as it was 12 months ago, and I hope and I believe that the inflation rate is going to continue to drop throughout this summer. It's still going to be too high. We have been getting discouraging news on unemployment. This time it did level off a little compared to last month, but the problems are not over. But I'm determined that we will focus the very highly tuned job opportunity programs on communities like yours as we see these high unemployment figures come in. The bay area will get about 1,600 new jobs, for instance, in the next few weeks, to help compensate for the loss of jobs because of the adverse effect of excessive oil imports and the extremely high inflation rate and interest rates that we experienced earlier this year.

This year, for instance, we will send to foreign countries to pay for their oil $90 billion of American money, money that could be used to make investments in facilities like yours, to make our communities better, to build American factories, to put American people back to work. And when we import that much money [oil], we also import inflation and unemployment. It's hard to imagine what $90 billion amounts to, but what it amounts to is this: $400 for every man, woman, and child in the United States of America goes to pay for oil bought from foreign countries. That's what we've worked on for the last 3 1/2 years, to try to get a comprehensive energy policy for our Nation that can let us save energy in this Nation and not waste it, and at the same time produce more energy from all sources in our country so we can keep the money and the jobs here at home and to help to control inflation.

Well, I feel good about this country; I feel good about the future. My prime responsibility is to keep our Nation at peace, at peace through strength—military strength, economic strength, political strength and, I pray God, moral and ethical strength based on principles that never change. That's not an easy thing to do in a time of world turmoil, and the close interrelationship among nations, and the violation of the international spirit brought about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the unwarranted and inhumane capture and holding of 53 innocent Americans in Iran. But all of us need to look to the future with determination, with a maximum degree of unity, and with confidence.

We've got the greatest nation on Earth, and I don't have any doubt that in the future, with your help, it's going to be even greater.

Thank you very much for letting me be with you.