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Economic Summit Williamsburg, VA 05/28/1983-05/30/1983 (Binder) (4)
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Economic Summit Williamsburg, VA 05/28/1983-05/30/1983 (Binder) (4)
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Records of the White House Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff (Reagan Administration)
Michael Deaver's Files on the 1983 Economic Summit
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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Deaver, Michael: Files
Folder Title: Economic Summit Williamsburg,
Virginia 05/28/1983-05/30/1983 (binder) (4)
Box: 64
To see more digitized collections
visit: https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
THEMES PAPER
I.
SUMMARY INTRODUCTION
This is a time of real improvement in economic circum-
stances. Recovery is underway, and this fact increases our
mutual confidence that it will soon spread to all countries,
industrial and developing. The challenge is to ensure that
this recovery endures and reverses a decade of cumulative
inflation and unemployment. In this effort, we are mindful of
the basic interrelationships that link our economies and the
world economic system:
-- The link between sustainable domestic growth and the
open trading system.
-- The link between convergence of domestic policies
towards non-inflationary sustainable growth and greater
exchange rate stability.
-- The link between open markets and the availability of
financing.
-- The link between international economic cooperation
and world progress.
To meet the challenge of an enduring recovery for
ourselves and future generations requires steady and purposeful
action over both the short and longer term, across a range of
policies that exploit and reinforce these interrelationships.
-- Promoting conditions for growth, employment and job
creation, structural adjustment, and acceptance of
technological development.
-- Maintaining the fight against inflation with the
objective of achieving lower interest rates and more
stable exchange rates while intensifying consultations on
economic policies and market conditions.
-- Supporting the international financial system and
strengthening world economic cooperation and institutions.
-- Reversing protectionism and beginning to work to
achieve further trade liberalization.
-- Recognizing that prosperity is more than material
gain, but also reflects our basic shared values of
political freedom, economic opportunity, cultural
creativity, and human dignity, and contributes to the
defense of these values which also guide our economic and
other relations with Eastern countries.
- 2 -
II.
ASSESSMENT: REALISTIC OPTIMISM
Improvements are undeniable:
-- Major successes have been achieved in reducing
inflation.
-- Interest rates have been significasntly reduced.
-- Productivity increases are being registered.
-- Some successes in controlling budget expenditures are
being achieved.
-- Consensus exists to reduce inflation and unemployment
on the basis of sustainble growth promoting policy conver-
gence, further reduction of interest rates and greater
stability of exchange rates.
-- Measures to reduce dependence on oil have helped to
bring about a decline in oil prices.
-- Recovery in our countries spreading to others will
help ensure the revival of world trade and easing of the
debt burden of many developing countries.
However, unemployment, especially among young people,
remains intolerably high and continues to increase in some
countries. It can be brought down only if an enduring recovery
is achieved. Serious problems remain which, if untended, will
endanger the prospect of an enduring recovery.
-- Differences in inflation among countries remain too
great.
-- Inflationary expectations, together with unacceptably
high current and future budget deficits and the possibil-
ity of excessive and volatile monetary growth, keep inter-
est rates too high, threatening to inhibit investment and
recovery and producing distortions and volatility in
exchange rates.
-- Protectionist pressures threaten our open trade and
financial system and prospects for recovery in both
industrial and developing countries.
-- Conditions in many developing countries remain much
more acute than in our own; in many of them, unprecedented
international debt burdens, exacerbated by high interest
rates and low commodity prices, continue to constrain
trade and, even in some cases, to threaten financial and
related political stability and create human hardship.
- 3 -
III. COMMON APPROACH TO A SUSTAINED RECOVERY
No single country, policy or immediate action can ensure
a quick or sustained recovery. Success requires a common
approach involving actions taken now across a broad range of
policy areas, anchored within a framework of longer-term policy
goals and decisions.
Actions Now:
-- Enhance the intensive consultation process initiated
at Versailles to promote convergence of economic condi-
tions in key currency countries and thereby contribute to
greater exchange rate stability.
-- Develop cooperative consultations on policies and
exchange market conditions and, while retaining the free-
dom to operate independently, be willing to intervene in
exchange markets in a coordinated manner in instances
where we agree such intervention would be helpful.
-- Encourage governments to reduce excessive budget defi-
cits, especially by reducing expenditures, thereby lower-
ing inflationary expectations and high interest rates.
-- Pursue appropriate non-inflationary growth of monetary
aggregates to achieve and maintain low inflation and
interest rates.
-- Halt and reverse protectionism and make use of
favorable conditions provided by recovery progressively to
relax and dismantle trade barriers and trade-distorting
domestic measures, including those related to trade in
high technology products.
-- Give new impetus to resolve current problems in
agricultural trade, conflicts of jurisdiction and the
need to achieve a safeguard agreement (by October 1983)
as mandated by the GATT Ministerial.
-- Agree to press forward with the GATT work program on
trade in services.
-- Begin work now to achieve further trade liberalization
in the GATT, focusing particularly on trade with and among
the developing countries, and on their ability to export
and so to service their debt.
- 4 -
-- Secure early ratification of the increase in IMF and
GAB resources and provide interim financing as
appropriate.
-- Reaffirm commitments to provide agreed funding levels
for IDA and the other multilateral development banks.
-- Continue with agreed strategy, and strengthen coopera-
tion, for managing current debt problems, including effec-
tive adjustment, adequate private and official financing,
and sustained, non-inflationary recovery in industrial
countries.
-- Welcome openness to dialogue expressed by developing
countries at New Delhi and Buenos Aires conferences and
engage constructively in UNCTAD VI, emphasizing our
program for a durable recovery and practical proposals to
manage debt problems, facilitate adjustment, promote
trade, revive commodity markets, encourage more private
investment in, and official assistance for, developing
countries and strengthen the dialogue with developing
countries in appropriate fora.
-- Agree to consult among each other and with other
countries to address interrelationships among growth,
trade, and finance in the world ecnomy and to encourage
better coordination among international economic
institutions.
-- Implement agreed conclusions for early action
reflected in the results of work programs on East-West
economic relations. (Identify significant results of
pre-Summit meetings.)
IV.
LONGER-TERM POLICY GOALS AND DECISIONS
-- Sustain fight against inflation and structural budget
deficits to encourage a higher level of investment and
new job creation.
-- Pursue the consultative arrangement agreed at
Versailles to promote economic convergence toward low
inflation and sustained growth and thereby achieve
greater exchange rate stability, continuing with our
agreement on exchange market intervention, in the context
of an open trading, investment and financial system.
-- Invite Ministers of Finance, in consultation with the
Managing Director of the IMF, to define the conditions for
improving the international monetary system and to consid-
er the part which might, in due course, be played in this
process by a high-level international monetary conference.
- 5 -
-- Promote technological development and trade, including
their public acceptance, and in particular the implementa-
tion of the specific projects included in the program for
cooperation initiated at Versailles.
-- Promote structural adjustment and its public accept-
ance, in order to enhance competition and the flexibility
of markets and to improve the allocation of resources, by
all appropriate means including revitalization of training
and the encouragement of mobility.
-- Invite Ministers of Trade, in consultation with the
Director General of the GATT, to define the conditions for
improving the open multilateral trading system, including
trade between developed and developing countries, and to
consider the possibility of more frequent Ministerial
meetings in the GATT to maintain urgency in this process.
-- Examine ways to improve the effectiveness of the
development process and structural adjustment by assuring
non-inflationary flows of public and private finance and
investment to the developing countries, with special
attention to an aequate flow of resources to the poorer
countries, both bilaterally and through IDA, the IBRD and
similar institutions.
-- Continue efforts to conserve energy and develop eco-
nomic alternative energy resources so as to ensure Western
energy security and enhance energy production in develop-
ing countries.
-- Find practical ways to promote increasing food
production in developing countries.
-- Work together to find ways, without discouraging
growth and technological development, to protect and
preserve natural resources and to reduce the threat of
pollution from industrial processes (e.g., acid rain).
-- Promote cooperation in the development of human
resources, including education and training and the
improvement of health.
-- Continue work in appropriate existing fora to develop
agreed analysis of our economic relations with the East,
with attention to our shared security concerns, and on
this basis pursue independent policy actions consistent
with agreed principles and common analysis reflecting the
fact that these relations should be compatible with the
basic values and security concerns of Western countries.
DRAFT STATEMENT
Strengthening Monetary Cooperation for Stability and Growth
I. We have examined in the light of our experience the proce-
dures outlined in the undertakings agreed at Versailles last
year which seek to ensure greater monetary stability in the
interest of balanced growth and progress of the world economy.
II. We reaffirm the objectives of achieving noninflationary
growth of income and employment, and promoting exchange market
stability through policies designed to bring about greater con-
vergence of economic conditions, in this direction.
III. We are reinforcing our multilateral cooperation with the
International Monetary Fund in its surveillance activities,
according to the procedures as agreed at Versailles, through
the following approach:
A. We are focusing on nearer-term policy actions leading
to convergence of economic conditions in the medium-term. The
overall medium-term perspective remains essential, both to en-
sure that short-term policy innovations do not lead to diver-
gence and to reassure business and financial markets.
B. In accordance with the mandate given to us at
Versailles, we are focusing our attention on issues in the
monetary and financial fields including interaction with
policies in other areas. We shall take fully into account the
interna- tional implications of our own policy decisions.
Policies and targets that will be kept under review include:
(1) Monetary Policy. Disciplined noninflationary growth
of monetary aggregates, and appropriate interest rates, to
avoid subsequent resurgence of inflation and rebound in inter-
est rates.
(2) Fiscal Policy. Discipline over government expendi-
tures, particularly transfer payments. We will aim to reduce
structural budget deficits and bear in mind the consequences of
fiscal policy for interest rates.
(3) Exchange Rate Policy. We will improve consulta-
tions, policy convergence and international cooperation to help
stabilize exchange markets.
(4) Policies Toward Productivity and Employment. While
relying on market signals as a guide to efficient economic de-
cisions, we will take measures to improve training and mobility
of our labor forces, and accommodating continued structural ad-
justment, especially by:
-- Enhancing flexibility and openness of
economies and financial markets.
-- Encouraging research and development as
well as profitability and productive investment.
-- Continued efforts in each country, and
improved international cooperation, where appropriate,
on structural adjustment measures (e.g. regional,
sectoral, energy policies).
IV. We shall continue to assess together regularly in this
framework the progress we are making, consider any corrective
action which may be necessary from time to time, and react
promptly to significant changes.
Glossary of Terms Likely to be Used at Williamsburg
Bank for International Settlement (BIS) : Multilateral Swiss-
based financial institution to promote international financial
cooperation, serve as Central Bank clearinghouse, and act as
agent for the European Monetary System. Dominated by European
central bankers. Just issued report highly critical of U.S.
economic policies. Has done bridge financing to some LDC
debtor countries.
Bretton Woods Conference or System: Conference held in
Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 which established the
fixed exchange rate system. But fixed parity could not be
reestablished for pound, because of underlying economic
conditions, and convertibility of currencies into dollars at
fixed parities was suspended until 1958.
"Cooperative Exchange Rate Policies": A term used by the
Europeans, especially the French, to refer to the willingness
of the U.S. to intervene in the foreign exchange markets
and/or adjust interest rates to influence exchange rates.
COCOM (Coordinating Committee) : A body made up of the U.S.
and our allies to coordinate policy on exports to the eastern
bloc countries.
Convergence Exercise: The cumulative process initiated at
Versailles among the five key currency countries making up the
IMF monetary unit, known as the Special Drawing Right (SDR)
Finance Ministers of these countries meet several times a year
with IMF Director to discuss convergence of their policies
around low inflation, higher productivity and disciplined
monetary and fiscal objectives in order to achieve greater
stability of exchange rates.
Credit Controls: Direct central bank controls over the amount
of loans that can be made by commercial banks and other
financial institutions.
Current Account Balance: The part of a country's balance of
payments which describes the difference between what a country
is able to export and what it imports in goods and services.
A "deficit" in the current account means that a country is
importing more goods and services than it is exporting. A
current account "surplus" means it is exporting more than it
is currently importing.
Energy Affiliate: Vaguely defined proposal to create an
institution, affiliated with the World Bank, that would assist
in financing energy projects in developing countries.
European Monetary System (EMS) : A European Community (EC)
arrangement to fix the values of EC currencies in terms of
each other and promote EC economic policy coordination.
Exchange market intervention is required to peg exchange
rates.
2
Exchange Market Intervention: Central bank purchase or sale
of its currency in the markets to increase or decrease its
value relative to other currencies.
Export Credit Subsidies: Government credit provided at below
market rates to promote exports; e.g. government export-import
bank borrows at 14 percent and lends at 9 percent to buying
countries.
Fixed Exchange Rates: Relative currency values that are
maintained at constant ratios by official exchange market
intervention. System in effect until 1973.
Flexible Exchange Rates: Daily movement of the value of one
currency in terms of another currency in response primarily to
market forces. System in effect since 1973.
GATT: The General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, an inter-
national organization established to promote an open trading
system. Seven major reductions in tariffs and other barriers
to trade have been negotiated in the GATT framework, following
GATT Ministerial meetings.
Global Negotiations: An effort led by developing countries to
launch centralized negotiations in the United Nations on a
broad range of international economic issues. The LDCs hope
that such negotiations, in a highly politicized forum such as
the U.N. where decision are taken on a one country vote basis,
would produce a "package" agreement leading to a "new interna-
tional economic order" of major benefit to them. (See
North/South Dialogue)
Incomes Policy: Government policy to make or guide private
sector wage and price decisions.
International Energy Agency (IEA) An organization of indus-
trial countries to coordinate international energy policy
(including an arrangement to share oil supplies in time of
crisis). Recent successful study on energy security was done
here.
International Monetary Conference: Conference urged by
President Mitterrand and also some other countries such as New
Zealand and India to establish new rules for the international
monetary system, principally fixed exchange rate parities as
applied in the Bretton Woods system.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) : The central monetary
institution for the world economy, responsible for guidance of
the operation and evolution of the international monetary
system, and the principal source of temporary official financ-
ing in support of balance of payments adjustment programs.
Multilateral Surveillance: See Convergence Exercise.
3
Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) : Completed in 1979, it
was the latest of the series of negotiations, since 1948,
under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to reduce
trade barriers. Tariffs were cut to an average of 2.3-6.5
percent for the Ottawa Summit countries. In addition, non-
tariff barriers were reduced by agreeing to rules covering
subsidies and countervailing duties, standards (technical
barriers to trade), government procurement, licensing, and
customs valuation.
Nominal Growth: Growth in the market value of the output of
goods and services [Gross National Product -- (GNP) ] produced
by the economy (see real growth).
North/South Dialogue: Discussions in numerous international
fora (primarily in the U.N. system) in which the developing
countries attempt to explain to the industrialized countries
their peculiar needs, and to convince the latter countries to
increase aid and restructure the international economic system
to benefit the developing countries.
OECD: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Real Growth: Growth in the market value of output (nominal
growth) after adjustment for inflation. The market value is
deflated by a price index (GNP deflator) to estimate the
physical quantity of goods and services produced (referred to
as "volume" or "real" output).
Real Interest Rates: Europeans tend to calculate real inter-
est rates as nominal rates minus current inflation. By that
standard, U.S. real interest rates are double historic rates
of 3 percent. For long-term money, the real interest rate
should be calculated as nominal rates minus expected
inflation. By that standard, with markets still expecting 6-7
percent future inflation, U.S. real interest rates are around
the historic average.
Safeguards Code: A safeguards code would specify conditions
under which a country could impose emergency import restric-
tions to provide temporary relief to an industry suffering
from a rapid influx of imports, e.g. Japanese auto. Although
the GATT contains some rules pertaining to safeguards, a
comprehensive safeguards code was one of the few major objec-
tives the U.S. failed to attain in the MTN.
Special Drawing Right (SDR) : The monetary unit of the Inter-
national Monetary Fund consisting of the weighted average of
five key currencies -- dollar, pound, franc, mark and yen.
Thus far, only small amounts of these units have been issued
for use in international transactions and reserves.
Swap Line: A standby agreement between two countries,
treasury or central bank, in which each agrees to loan its
4
currency to the other, on a short-term basis, for use in
foreign exchange intervention.
Third Oil Stock: A term used by the Europeans, particularly
by the French, to suggest that the rapid 1981 increase in the
dollar's value has had an effect on their economy
(particularly their oil import costs) equivalent to the shock
of the major OPEC oil increases.
Trade-weighted Exchange Rate: A weighted average of
individual exchange rate movements, with weights based on
bilateral trade shares.
Trigger Price Mechanism (TPM) : A system of steel import
prices based on cost of production of the most efficient
producer, Japan. Sales priced below TPM, unless pre-cleared
with Commerce, or surges in imports (even if priced above
TPM), may trigger antidumping or subsidy investigation.
UNCTAD: U.N. Conference on Trade and Development was estab-
lished in 1964 to express the desire of the developing coun-
tries for a greater role in international economic decision-
making than they have in the specialized agencies (IMF, World
Bank, GATT) where votes are weighted or industrial countries
tend to prevail. UNCTAD will hold its VI Plenipotentiary
Conference in Belgrade next month
PUBLIC SECTOR* DEFICITS AS SHARE OF GNP
Percent
Percent
IT
IT
IT
12
12
11
11
10
10
9
9
8
8
CA
7
7
6
6
CA JA
JA
GE
JA
5
5
UK
JA
GE
US
GE
4
US
US
4
GE
UK
3
UK
UK
3
FR
FR
2
FR
FR
2
CA
US
1
1
O
O
1981
1982
1983
1984
(Forecast)
(Forecast)
* Federal, State and Local
Legend: United States
Italy
United Kingdom
Canada
France
Japan
Germany
Treasury Department
SHORT - TERM INTEREST RATES
22
22
ITALY
20
20
CANADA
18
18
16
16
14
14
FRANCE
U.S.
12
12
U.K.
GERMANY
10
10
8
8
6
JAPAN
6
4
4
1981
1982
1983
NOTE: All short-term interest rates are monthly averages of three-month rates on Wednesdays,
except latest observation which is average of May 4 and 11. Short-term interest rates
are: U.S. - New York C.D.; U.K. - London Interbank; France - Paris Call Money; Germany -
Frankfurt Interbank; Italy - Milan Money; Canada - Finance Paper; Japan - Yen Call Money.
Data through May 11, 1983
Treasury Department
SUMMIT COUNTRY INFLATION RATES
PERCENT
PERCENT
(Year-over-year Change)
20
20
18
18
ITALY
16
16
FRANCE
14
14
12
12
CANADA
10
10
U.S.
8
8
U.K.
GERMANY
6
6
4
4
JAPAN
2
2
0
0
1981
1982
1983
Treasury Department
*
TRADE-WEIGHTED EXCHANGE RATE CHANGES
PERCENT
PERCENT
( From December 1980)
24
24
20
UNITED STATES
20
U.S.
16
16
UNITED KINGDOM
12
12
FRANCE
8
GERMANY
8
GERMANY
4
CANADA
4
ITALY
0
0
CANADA
JAPAN
-4 8
- 4
JAPAN
-8
ITALY
-8 -
-12
1
12
-16
16
FRANCE
-20
U.K.
20
-24
0
-24
1981
1982
1983
*
Positive slope indicates currency appreciation. Exchange rates
used are monthly averages through April.
Data through April 1983
Treasury Department
SUMMIT COUNTRY REAL GNP GROWTH
Percent
Percent
CA
5
5
JA
US
4
JA
4
CA
JA
JA
3
US
CA
3
UK
GE IT
UK
US
2
2
FR
FR
UK
1
GE
1
FR
IT
IT
0
O
GE
IT
FR
CODE
1
1
GE
- 2
US
2
-
3
UK
3
- 4
4
ONCINE 5
CA
5
1981
1982
1983
1984
(Forecast)
(Forecast)
Legend: United States
Italy
United Kingdom
Canada
France
Japan
Germany
Treasury Department
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: ARRIVAL IN WILLIAMSBURG
FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1983
It is a great pleasure to come to this picturesque site --
the cradle of so much American history. I look forward tomorrow
to welcoming the leaders of other industrialized democracies to
the Williamsburg Economic Summit. Our main purpose is twofold:
-- to discuss how we can broaden the economic recovery now
under way; and
-- to reinforce the enduring values on which our close
relationships with the other Summit nations rest.
My Summit partners and I approach this meeting -- the ninth
in as many years -- in a spirit of realistic optimism. We take
heart in the evidence that the U.S. and others are now recovering
from the most serious global recession since World War II.
Recovery is what this Summit is all about. We are convinced that
the growing convergence of domestic economic policies among the
countries to be represented here will help sustain recovery and
expand it to the rest of the world. With inflation increasingly
under control, we can turn our collective attention to solving
such problems as protectionism and unemployment. At the same
time, we can lay the basis for growth among the less developed
countries, in whose welfare and prosperity we all have an
important stake.
Our work will not, of course, begin or end here in
Williamsburg. We do not underestimate the nature or the
Page 2
magnitude of the problems that confront us, or the difficulties
such problems cause among the less fortunate sectors of our
populations. With 40 million people unemployed in the Summit
countries, we must not flag in our efforts to ensure a recovery
that is durable, non-inflationary, and rooted in the democratic
values we as free peoples cherish. These efforts are part of a
long-term process addressing the most pressing concerns of what
we have come to call the Successor Generation -- our children and
our children's children. Our work here in Williamsburg is
therefore not only for the present; in a very real sense it is
for posterity.
I am confident in the ultimate success of our task. The
leaders who will join me tomorrow have prepared extensively for
C
r Summit. I anticipate the closest and most candid discussions
with them on what we can do together to help the people in our
countries and throughout the world. Now as always in the long
history of democratic tradition, we confront the challenges
before us in a spirit of hope and confidence, a spirit that flows
most abundantly from free peoples living under freely elected
governments.
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: WELCOMING REMARKS
CARTER'S GROVE, WILLIAMSBURG
SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1983
I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all of you to
this latest in our series of "Economic Summit" consultations,
begun- so constructively eight years ago at Rambouillet.
I know that each of these meetings is the result of a great
deal of preparation by everyone involved. My thanks, and I am
sure that I speak for each of the delegation heads, go to all who
have done such a fine job laying the groundwork for this
occasion.
It is encouraging to note that in the year since we last met
in this forum, the underlying economic situation of the
industrialized countries has improved markedly. Although many
problems remain, we have made steady efforts to restore
conditions for growth in our national economies, and
international recovery is now underway. Against this background,
we can all look forward to a most productive session.
Let me review some of the basic themes and directions for
the Summit here at Williamsburg.
Rather than concentrating on a single issue, this summit
will take an integrated view of the domestic and international
aspects of the world economy. Broadly speaking, we would like to
see non-inflationary sustained growth, and continued improvements
in the international trading and financial system.
There are, in our view, several basic relationships in the
world economy, upon which we should focus: the relationship
Page 2
between growth and an open international economy; between
domestic economic policies and exchange rate stability; between
finance and trade; between enhanced access to markets and
long-term management of the international debt problem; between
investment, public and private, and economic growth in the
developing world; and between economic strength and security.
These are all matters of deep concern to our group of
countries. We look at the world economy against a background of
many common interests and shared values. These are invaluable
ties which I am sure this gathering at Williamsburg will serve to
strengthen and reinforce. And, in this spirit, I, like you, am
looking forward to the discussions of the next few days with
enthusiasm and confidence.
PRESIDENTIAL TOAST: OFFICIAL DINNER
ROCKEFELLER FOLK ART CENTER, WILLIAMSBURG
MONDAY, MAY 30, 1983
Our discussions over the last few days have been as
fruitful, useful, and enjoyable as I had hoped.
As I noted at the outset, our countries are linked by a
multitude of mutual interests and by a shared commitment to
freedom and democracy.
Williamsburg -- the site of the first representative
assembly and of the second university in the colonies that became
the United States -- has been a particularly appropriate place in
which to rededicate ourselves to these principles.
To preserve the values we share, we must strengthen our
domestic economies, seek the advantages of vigorous international
trade, and deal intelligently with the problems and crises of the
developing world. While doing this we must also give appropriate
attention to our security interests.
These objectives are complex, sometimes seemingly
contradictory, and always difficult to achieve. Our individual
perceptions about particular issues may sometimes differ. But
gatherings such as this give us the opportunity to work together
on a regular basis to address the problems we share. This
meeting has, in my judgment, achieved that objective. It has
left me more confident than ever of the basic health of our free
way of life, and our ability, in cooperation, to lay a sound
foundation for our children and our children's children.
Page 2
In that spirit, I want to toast all of you who, in the last
few days, have participated in this chapter of a vital and
unceasing effort.