Clinton's "
third way" of moderate liberalism built up the nation's fiscal health and put the nation on a firm footing abroad amid globalization and the development of anti-American terrorist organizations. During his presidency,
Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, most of which were enacted into law or implemented by the executive branch. His policies, particularly the
North American Free Trade Agreement and
welfare reform, have been attributed to a
centrist Third Way philosophy of governance. His policy of
fiscal conservatism helped to reduce deficits on budgetary matters. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. "The Republican response in Clinton's first term was the scorched earth policies of Newt Gingrich, achieved through the threat of government shut-downs." -
Stanley N. Katz, Ph. D. The
Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. At the end of the fiscal year (September 30) for each of the years a surplus was recorded, the U.S. Treasury reported a gross debt of $5.413 trillion in 1997, $5.526 trillion in 1998, $5.656 trillion in 1999, and $5.674 trillion in 2000. Over the same period, the Office of Management and Budget reported an end of year (December 31) gross debt of $5.369 trillion in 1997, $5.478 trillion in 1998, $5.606 in 1999, and $5.629 trillion in 2000. At the end of his presidency, the Clintons moved to 15 Old House Lane in
Chappaqua, New York, in order to quell political worries about his wife's residency for election as a U.S. senator from New York.
First term (1993–1997) , with
Yitzhak Rabin (left) and King
Hussein of Jordan (right) After
his presidential transition, Clinton was
inaugurated as the 42nd president of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton was physically exhausted at the time, and had an inexperienced staff. His high levels of public support dropped in the first few weeks, as he made a series of mistakes. His first noimnee for
Attorney General,
Zoë Baird, had to withdraw after it came to light that she had employed an undocumented immigrant as her child's nanny; his second nominee for the position,
Kimba Wood, had to withdraw
for the same reason. Clinton had repeatedly promised to encourage
gays in the military service, despite what he knew to be the strong opposition of the military leadership. He tried anyway, and was publicly opposed by the top generals, and forced by Congress to a compromise position of "
Don't ask, don't tell" whereby homosexuals were allowed serve only if they kept their sexuality a secret. He devised a $16-billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican
filibuster in the Senate. His popularity at the 100 day mark of his term was the lowest of any president at that point. Public opinion did support one liberal program, and Clinton signed the
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and was popular with the public. Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Roe v. Wade—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international
family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush. Clinton said
abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare"—a slogan that had been suggested by political scientist
Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the abortion rate declined by 18 percent. On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to close a
budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a
joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes, based on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates. President Clinton's attorney general
Janet Reno authorized the FBI's use of armored vehicles to deploy tear gas into the buildings of the
Branch Davidian community near
Waco, Texas, in hopes of ending a
51 day siege. During the operation on April 19, 1993, the buildings caught fire and 75 of the residents died, including 24 children. The raid had originally been planned by the Bush administration; Clinton had played no role. In August, Clinton signed the
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over many years through the implementation of spending restraints. on the South Lawn, August 10, 1993 On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding
a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. The plan was well received in political circles, but it was eventually doomed by well-organized lobby opposition from conservatives, the
American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, Clinton biographer
John F. Harris said the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. , Clinton and
Yasser Arafat during the
Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993 That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "
Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual orientation a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met staunch opposition from prominent congressional Republicans and Democrats, including senators
John McCain (R-AZ) and
Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to
David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President Al Gore, who felt that "the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress". Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President
Harry S. Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argued that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. The policy remained controversial, and was finally
repealed in 2011, removing open sexual orientation as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces. On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes in favor and 200 votes opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and one independent opposed). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the president. The site was followed with three more versions, with the final version being launched on July 21, 2000. The
Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994, made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons." It also included a subsection of
assault weapons ban for a ten-year period. After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress to the Republicans in the
mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years. A speech delivered by President Bill Clinton at the December 6, 1995
White House Conference on HIV/AIDS projected that a cure for AIDS and a vaccine to prevent further infection would be developed. The President focused on his administration's accomplishments and efforts related to the
epidemic, including an accelerated drug-approval process. He also condemned
homophobia and discrimination against people with
HIV. Clinton announced three new initiatives: creating a special working group to coordinate AIDS research throughout the
federal government; convening public health experts to develop an action plan that integrates HIV prevention with substance abuse prevention; and launching a new effort by the
Department of Justice to ensure that health care facilities provide equal access to people with HIV and AIDS. 1996 would mark the first year since the beginning of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic that the number of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses would decline, with the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even later reporting a significant 47% decline in the number of AIDS-related deaths in 1997 compared to the previous year. Credit for this decline would be given to the growing effectiveness of new drug therapy which was promoted by the Clinton Administration's Department of Health and Human Services, such as
highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).
Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said Clinton's signing DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election". In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was intended to "head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a "very reactionary Congress". Administration spokesman
Richard Socarides said, "the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected." Clinton himself said DOMA was something "which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that"; others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist
Evan Wolfson has called these claims "historic revisionism". In a July 2, 2011, editorial
The New York Times opined, "The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments." Ultimately, in
United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA in June 2013. Despite DOMA, Clinton was the first president to select openly gay persons for administrative positions, and he is generally credited as being the first president to publicly champion gay rights. During his presidency, Clinton issued two substantially controversial executive orders on behalf of gay rights, the first lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and the second outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. Under Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector
Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's election and reelection by the
Human Rights Campaign. and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. He was later honored by
GLAAD for his prior pro-gay stances and his reversal on DOMA. The
1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by
China to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. Despite the evidence, the
Chinese government denied all accusations. As part of a 1996 initiative to curb
illegal immigration, Clinton signed the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the
U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000. In November 1996, Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines, which was a bridge bomb planted by
al-Qaeda and was masterminded by
Osama bin Laden. During Clinton's presidency, the attempt remained top secret, and it remains classified when
Reuters reported having spoken with eight retired secret service agents about the incident.
Second term (1997–2001) , 1997 , Chinese President
Jiang Zemin, French President
Jacques Chirac, and Russian President
Vladimir Putin at the
Waldorf Astoria on September 7, 2000 In the January 1997 State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide health coverage to up to five million children. Senators
Ted Kennedy—a Democrat—and
Orrin Hatch—a Republican—teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997 and succeeded in passing legislation forming the
State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest successful health care reform in the Clinton Administration. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the
Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the
Foster Care Independence Act. Bill Clinton negotiated the passage of the
Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by the Republican Congress. In October 1997, Clinton announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. In 1999, he signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act also known as the
Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the part of the
Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of
investment,
commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933.
Investigations In November 1993,
David Hale—the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy—alleged that while Governor of Arkansas, Clinton pressured Hale to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to
Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal. A
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains his and his wife's innocence in the affair. Investigations by
Robert B. Fiske and
Ken Starr found insufficient to evidence to prosecute the Clintons. The
White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to
FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel
Robert Ray determined there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files. On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office. This caused the
White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be
dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended that the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee issued a report which accused the Clinton administration of having obstructed their efforts to investigate the affair. Special counsel Robert Fiske said that Hillary Clinton was involved in the firing and gave "factually false" testimony to the GAO, congress, and the independent counsel. However Fiske said there was not enough evidence to prosecute. and voted 221–212 to impeach him for obstruction of justice. Clinton was only the second U.S. president (the first being
Andrew Johnson) to be impeached. Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied about and covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later
Department of Defense) employee
Monica Lewinsky. After the
Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the
mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, Republican leadership called a
lame-duck session in December 1998. While the
House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony before a grand jury that had been convened to investigate perjury he may have committed in his sworn deposition during
Jones v. Clinton, Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge was based on his actions to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky before and after that deposition. The Senate later acquitted Clinton of both charges. The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm
Williams & Connolly. The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote of 55 not guilty/45 guilty on the perjury charge Both votes fell short of the constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty. On October 1, the U.S. Supreme Court suspended Clinton from practicing law in the high court, citing fallout from the Lewinsky scandal, but rather than appealing the decision he resigned from the bar entirely.
Pardons and commutations Clinton
issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001. Controversy surrounded
Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother,
Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons. Federal prosecutor
Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate the pardon of Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican
James Comey. The investigation found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. Clinton also pardoned four defendants in the
Whitewater Scandal,
Chris Wade,
Susan McDougal,
Stephen Smith, and
Robert W. Palmer, all of whom had ties to Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. Former Clinton
HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was also among Clinton's pardons.
Campaign finance controversies In February 1997 it was discovered upon documents being released by the
Clinton Administration that 938 people had stayed at the White House and that 821 of them had made donations to the
Democratic Party and got the opportunity to stay in the Lincoln bedroom as a result of the donations. Some donors included
Steven Spielberg,
Tom Hanks,
Jane Fonda, and
Judy Collins. Top donors also got golf games and morning jogs with Clinton as a result of the contributions. In 1996, it was found that several Chinese foreigners made contributions to Clinton's reelection campaign and the
Democratic National Committee with the backing of the
People's Republic of China. Some of them also attempted to donate to Clinton's defense fund. This violated United States law forbidding non-American citizens from making campaign contributions. Clinton and
Al Gore also allegedly met with the foreign donors. A Republican investigation led by
Fred Thompson found that Clinton was targeted by the Chinese government. However, Democratic senators
Joe Lieberman and
John Glenn said that the evidence showed that China only targeted congressional elections and not presidential elections.
Military and foreign affairs Somalia Paul Fletcher,
USAF and Clinton speak before boarding
Air Force One, November 4, 1999. American troops had first entered
Somalia during the
George H. W. Bush administration in response to a humanitarian crisis and
civil war. Though initially involved to assist humanitarian efforts, the Clinton administration shifted the objectives set out in the mission and began pursuing a policy of attempting to neutralize Somali warlords. In 1993, during the
Battle of Mogadishu,
two U.S. helicopters were shot down by
rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their
tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and resulted in one being taken prisoner. Television news programs depicted the supporters of warlord
Mohammed Aidid desecrating the corpses of troops.
Rwanda In April 1994,
genocide broke out in
Rwanda. Intelligence reports indicate that Clinton was aware a "final solution to eliminate all
Tutsis" was underway, long before the administration publicly used the word "genocide". Fearing a reprisal of the events in Somalia the previous year, Clinton chose not to intervene. Clinton has called his failure to intervene one of his main foreign policy failings, saying "I don't think we could have ended the violence, but I think we could have cut it down. And I regret it."
Bosnia and Herzegovina on December 22, 1997. Clinton is seen alongside future 46th president
Joe Biden. In 1993 and 1994, Clinton pressured Western European leaders to adopt a strong military policy against
Bosnian Serbs during the
Bosnian War. This strategy faced staunch opposition from the
United Nations,
NATO allies, and congressional Republicans, leading Clinton to adopt a more diplomatic approach. In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft
bombed Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on UN safe zones and pressure them into a peace accord that would end the
Bosnian war. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent
Dayton Agreement.
Northern Irish peace talks outside a business in East Belfast, November 30, 1995 In 1992, before his presidency, Clinton proposed sending a peace envoy to
Northern Ireland, but this was dropped to avoid tensions with the British government. In November 1995, in a ceasefire during
the Troubles, Clinton became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both of the two divided communities of
Belfast. Despite
unionist criticism, Clinton used his visit as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict, playing a key role in the
peace talks that produced the
Good Friday Agreement in 1998. at a private dinner in Russia, January 13, 1994.
Iran Clinton sought to continue the Bush administration's policy of limiting Iranian influence in the Middle East, which he laid out in the
dual containment strategy. In 1994, Clinton declared that Iran was a "
state sponsor of terrorism" and a "rogue state", marking the first time that an American president used that term. Subsequent executive orders heavily sanctioned Iran's oil industry and banned almost all trade between U.S. companies and the Iranian government. In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8million (equivalent to $ million in ) in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the
International Court of Justice after the shooting down of
Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S. Navy
guided missile cruiser.
Iraq In Clinton's
1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Although, there was no evidence for that claim. Clinton signed the
Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named
Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors." American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000.
Osama bin Laden Capturing Osama bin Laden was an objective of the U.S. government during the Clinton presidency (and continued to be until
bin Laden's death in 2011). Despite claims by
Mansoor Ijaz and Sudanese officials that the Sudanese government had offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden, and that U.S. authorities rejected each offer, the
9/11 Commission Report stated that "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim". In response to a 1996 State Department warning about bin Laden and the
1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa by al-Qaeda (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans), Clinton ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, all of which were unsuccessful. In August 1998, Clinton
ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which was suspected of assisting bin Laden in making chemical weapons, and bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. The factory was destroyed by the attack, resulting in the death of one employee and the wounding of 11 other people. After the destruction of the factory, there was a medicine shortage in Sudan due to the plant providing 50 percent of Sudan's medicine, and the destruction of the plant led to a shortage of chloroquine, a drug which is used to treat malaria. U.S. officials later acknowledged that there was no evidence the plant was acknowledging manufacturing or storing nerve gas. The attack provoked criticism of Clinton from journalists and academics including
Christopher Hitchens,
Seymour Hersh,
Max Taylor, and others.
Kosovo In the midst of a brutal crackdown on
ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of
Kosovo by the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named
Operation Allied Force. The stated reasoning behind the intervention was to stop the
ethnic cleansing (and what the Clinton administration labeled
genocide) of Albanians by Yugoslav anti-guerilla military units. General
Wesley Clark was
Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a
peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced its soldiers all survived combat, though two died in an
Apache helicopter crash. Journalists in the popular press criticized genocide statements by the Clinton administration as false and greatly exaggerated. Prior to the bombing campaign on March 24, 1999, estimates showed that the number of civilians killed in the over year long
conflict in Kosovo had been approximately 1,800, with critics asserting that little or no evidence existed of genocide. In a post-war inquiry, the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted "the patterns of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24." In 2001, the
UN-supervised Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide (the
intent to destroy a people) did not take place, but recognized "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" with the intention being the forceful departure of the Albanian population. The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is little difference.
Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was
eventually brought to trial before the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in
the Hague on charges including
crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the war. He died in 2006, before the completion of the trial.
China Clinton aimed to increase trade with China, minimizing import tariffs and offering the country
most favoured nation status in 1993, his administration minimized tariff levels in Chinese imports. Clinton initially conditioned extension of this status on
human rights reforms, but ultimately decided to extend the status despite a lack of reform in the specified areas, including free emigration, treatment of prisoners in terms of international human rights, and observation of human rights specified by UN resolutions, among others. Relations were damaged briefly by the
American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. Clinton apologized for the bombing, stating it was accidental. , President Clinton and Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat at
Camp David, July 2000 On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the
United States–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted
permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform. In encouraging Congress to approve the agreement and China's accession to the
World Trade Organization (WTO), Clinton stated that more trade with China would advance America's economic interests, saying that "economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways."
Israeli-Palestinian conflict ,
King Husein,
Shimon Peres, Clinton,
Hosni Mubarak,
Boris Yeltsin and
Yasser Arafat in
Sharm El Sheikh, March 1996 Clinton attempted to end the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Secret negotiations mediated by Clinton between Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin and
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman
Yasser Arafat led to a historic declaration of peace in September 1993, called the
Oslo Accords, which were signed at the White House on September 13. The agreement led to the
Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the
Wye River Memorandum in October 1998, however, this did not end the conflict. He brought Israeli prime minister
Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat together at
Camp David for the
2000 Camp David Summit, which lasted 14 days in July. and
Stephen Breyer in 1994. Both justices went on to serve until the 2020s, leaving a lasting judicial legacy for President Clinton. Clinton was the first president in history to appoint more women and minority judges than white male judges to the federal courts. In his eight years in office, 11.6% of Clinton's court of appeals nominees and 17.4% of his district court nominees were black; 32.8% of his court of appeals nominees and 28.5% of his district court nominees were women. ==Public opinion==