Deteriorating trade opportunities, worldwide recession, mounting debt burdens, growing unemployment and deepseated structural problems are having a catastrophic impact throughout the region. This economic disaster is consuming our neighbors' money reserves and credit, forcing thousands of people to emigrate, and shaking even the most established democracies. This is not a crisis we can afford to ignore. The people of the Caribbean Basin are our neighbors. Their well-being and security are in our own vital interest.
Events occurring in the Caribbean Basin can affect our lives in profound and dramatic ways.
The migrants in our midst are a vivid reminder of the closeness of this problem to all of us. The program I am presenting to Congress today is integrated and designed to improve the lives of the peoples of the Caribbean Basin by enabling them to earn their own way to a better future. It builds on the principles of intergrating aid, self-help and participation in trade and investment which I emphasized at the Cancun Summit last October. It is a different kind of assistance program for developing countries, based on principles and practices which are uniquely American and which we know have worked in the past. It will help revitalize the economies of this strategically critical region by attacking the underlying causes of economic stagnation.