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Show . Tike economic simmit suad. Niearagra By RONALD REAGAN Seven years ago, as a newly elected President, I traveled to Canada for my first economic summit sum-mit w.th the leaders of the other major industrial democracies. I am writing this just before I will attend my eighth and final economic summit, sum-mit, and it is remarkable to think how much things have changed. When I took office, unemployment unemploy-ment was climbing, inflation was soaring, Federal spending was out of control, and interest rates had topped 20 percent. The economic mess we faced was clear. And it was also clear that without with-out a recovery in the United States, there was little chance for the . world economy to get back on its feet. The world stood, as one foreign fore-ign leader put it, in "the trough of the recession," faced with the "twin evils of inflation and unemployment." unem-ployment." It was, as anotherhead of government said at the time, "one of the most difficult periods of the Western industrialized countries." coun-tries." The question was what to do. And that was when we presented a bold new program of cutting tax rates and excessive regulation, opening world markets, and letting the private sector lead the way to economic recovery. Today we are in the longest peacetime economic expansion on record. We have created nearly 17 million jobs in the last five and a half years. That is twice as many new jobs as the other six summit countries combined and those countries have a working-age population that is over 60 percent larger than the United States. But our own prosperity is only part of our achievement. We have also led the world toward a remarkable remark-able consensus that economic freedom free-dom not state planning and in- tervention holds the key to growth and development. Yes, the other industrial democracies have joined us on this path. But it goes further than that. From India to Argentina, from Africa to China, and even in the Soviet Union, the shackles of state economic domination domi-nation are beginning to loosen. So in winning this battle of ideas, we are helping to enrich and liberate the working people and entrepreneurs entrep-reneurs of the entire world. And at the Toronto summit, we are going to work together to make sure that this great "Venture to Progress" continues. That means further opening the international marketplace and increasing the coordination of our policies. That means bringing the newly industrialized indust-rialized countries into the full and mature place in the world trading system that they have earned. And it also means working together, however, to put an end to one type of trade: Illegal drug trafficking. traf-ficking. So these topics and others, such as the rebuilding of Afghanistan and the Philippines, international debt, and agricultural subsidies, these will be on the Toronto agenda. But before I travel across our northern border to Canada, I would like to address a situation south of our border in Central America. This is a problem that is close to home "and that demands our strong attention. Back on Feb. 3rd this year, the Congress, by just an eight-vote margin, took a dangerous gamble with our national security and the prospects for democracy in Central America. You see, on that day the House of Representatives voted down my request to continue effective effec-tive support for the Nicaraguan freedom fighters. The opponents of aid argued that they were giving peace a chance, by unilaterally disarming the freedom free-dom fighters. But today, the Nicaraguan Nicar-aguan talks are at an impasse, the victim of the Sandinistas' bad faith and Congress' bad judgment. The leaders of the resistance who courageously went to Managua to seek concrete democratic freedoms free-doms were instead subjected to lies, abuse, harassment, and threats of physical harm by the Communist government. Costa Rican President Arias said that the democratization that was required of Nicaragua "has not happened," citing Sandinista "intransigence." The Sandinistas have proved repeatedly re-peatedly that they will not demo cratize without pressure. As they have shown at Contadora, Man-zanillo, Man-zanillo, San Jose, Esquipulas, and Sapoa: peace talks for them are just political theatre, a way to weaken the democratic resistance while consolidating their militant Communist Com-munist regime. I have warned that if we fail in Nicaragua we could one day face a Communist Central America spreading subversion northward and southward. As I said in 1984, this would pose "the threat that a 100 million people from Panama to the open border of our South could come under the control of pro-Soviet pro-Soviet regimes." That is why we must work for a free Nicaragua. Even "The Washington Post," in an editorial last Sunday, urged one key factioy : of House Democrats to "stop chaser'' ing ghosts and playing politica games. . ." We can still secure peace and freedom in Central America, but time is growing short and the stakes ever larger. If we fail to act in time, the American people will demand to know why. |