Thank you very much. On behalf of Hillary and myself, I want to say how glad we are to be in Japan and how much we appreciate Ambassador and Mrs. Armacost inviting all of you to come here and to meet us.
I want to keep my remarks brief because I hope we can have more time for personal visiting. I do want you to know that I just had a very good meeting with Prime Minister Miyazawa, and we discussed a whole range of issues. I would say, the most important are that I was able to reaffirm the commitment of the United States to the security relationship that exists between our two nations and the continuing involvement of the United States in a security relationship in Japan and Korea and across a whole broad range of issues that face us as a people.
Secondly, we had a good discussion about our efforts at the upcoming G-7 summit to promote a higher rate of economic growth throughout the globe, to open more markets to trade through the Uruguay round, and finally, to try to secure a democracy and market reforms in Russia, something that Japan has been very helpful to the United States on and for which we are very grateful.
And lastly, we discussed negotiations which are still ongoing in our attempt to establish a framework of basic principles for a new agreement about our trading relationships. Perhaps we can have more to say about that in our personal conversations.
The United States thinks it is absolutely critical for the imbalances to be reduced. We think it is in the interest of both countries for that to happen. We have worked very hard in our Nation on increasing our productivity and our ability to compete in the last several years. And now, as you know, we are taking very, very strong steps to do what our Japanese friends have asked us for years to do, which is to bring down our Government's deficit.
So we come here with an outstretched hand and the hope that all of the ferment and change and political debate going on in Japan will be a very positive thing for your people and for our relationship. Many of the issues you're debating from political reform to economic issues are also being debated in our country and, frankly, in most other advanced democracies. I think this period of change should be viewed by all of us with hope, with the view that we're going to make something very good come out of it, not only in the election process but in the aftermath.
And there is no more important relationship to the United States than our relationship with Japan. And I intend to keep it on a firm footing, and I hope that our relationship with all of you will contribute to that and, most importantly, to the welfare of the people of Japan and the people of the United States.
Thank you very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 6:42 p.m. at the residence of U.S.. Ambassador Michael H. Annacost.
William J. Clinton, Remarks at a Reception for Japanese Leaders in Tokyo Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/219585