Our policies consistently received the strongest support of the late Congressman Dan Daniel of Virginia.  I’m sure all of you join me in expressing heartfelt condolences on his passing.

One of the greatest contributions the United States can make to the world is to promote freedom as the key to economic growth.  A creative, competitive America is the answer to a changing world, not trade wars that would close doors, create greater barriers, and destroy millions of jobs.  We should always remember:  Protectionism is destructionism.  America’s jobs, America’s growth, America’s future depend on trade—­trade that is free, open, and fair.

This year, we have it within our power to take a major step toward a growing global economy and an expanding cycle of prosperity that reaches to all the free nations of this Earth.  I’m speaking of the historic free trade agreement negotiated between our country and Canada.  And I can also tell you that we’re determined to expand this concept, south as well as north.  Next month I will be traveling to Mexico, where trade matters will be of foremost concern.  And over the next several months, our Congress and the Canadian Parliament can make the start of such a North American accord a reality.  Our goal must be a day when the free flow of trade, from the tip of Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange, when all borders become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been:  a meeting place rather than a dividing line.

This movement we see in so many places toward economic freedom is indivisible from the worldwide movement toward political freedom and against totalitarian rule.  This global democratic revolution has removed the specter, so frightening a decade ago, of democracy doomed to permanent minority status in the world.  In South and Central America, only a third of the people enjoyed democratic rule in 1976.  Today over 90 percent of Latin Americans live in nations committed to democratic principles.  And the resurgence of democracy is owed to these courageous people on almost every continent who have struggled to take control of their own destiny.

In Nicaragua the struggle has extra meaning, because that nation is so near our own borders.  The recent revelations of a former high-level Sandinista major, Roger Miranda, show us that, even as they talk peace, the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua has established plans for a large 600,000-man army.  Yet even as these plans are made, the Sandinista regime knows the tide is turning, and the cause of Nicaraguan freedom is riding at its crest.  Because of the freedom fighters, who are resisting Communist rule, the Sandinistas have been forced to extend some democratic rights, negotiate with church authorities, and release a few political prisoners.