Ross Perot in 1992 on NAFTA and the "Giant Sucking Sound"

In the 1992 Presidential Debates, the participants were William Jefferson Clinton, George Herbert Walker Bush, and H. Ross Perot, the third party (Reform) candidate.

This clip is memorable because Ross Perot used the phrase "giant sucking sound" when referring to the NAFTA deal, and many would argue that in 2010, he has been proven to be correct on this issue.

MODERATOR: After the debate, the candidates
will have an opportunity to make a closing

statement.

So, President Bush, I think you said it earlier,
let's get it on.

PRESIDENT GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH: Let's
go.

MODERATOR: And I think the first question
is over here.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes, I'd like to direct
my question to Mr. Perot.

What will you do as President to open foreign
markets to fair competition from American

business, and to stop unfair competition here
at home from foreign countries so that we

can bring jobs back to the United States?

PEROT: That's right at the top of my agenda.

We've shipped millions of jobs overseas and
we have a strange situation because we have

a process in Washington where after you've
served for a while you cash in and become

a foreign lobbyist, make $30,000 a month;
then take a leave, work on Presidential campaigns,

make sure you got good contacts, and then
go back out.

Now if you just want to get down to brass
tacks, the first thing you ought to do is

get all these folks who've got these one-way
trade agreements that we've negotiated over

the years and say,

"Fellows, we'll take the same deal we gave
you." And they'll gridlock right at that point

because,

for example, we've got international competitors
who simply could not unload their cars off

the ships if they had to comply -- you see,
if it was a two-way street -- just couldn't

do it.

We have got to stop sending jobs overseas.

To those of you in the audience who are business
people, pretty simple:

If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for
factory workers and you can move your factory

South of the border, pay a dollar an hour
for labor, hire young --

let's assume you've been in business for a
long time and you've got a mature work force

-- pay a dollar an hour for your labor, have
no health care -- that's the most expensive

single element in making a car -- have no
environmental controls, no pollution controls

and no retirement,

and you don't care about anything but making
money, there will be a giant sucking sound

going south.

So we -- if the people send me to Washington
the first thing I'll do is study that 2,000-page

agreement and make sure it's a two-way street.

One last part here -- I decided i was dumb
and didn't understand it so I called the Who's

Who of the folks who've been around it and
I said, "Why won't everybody go South?"

They say, "It'd be disruptive." I said, "For
how long?"

I finally got them up from 12 to 15 years.
And I said, "well, how does it stop being

disruptive?"

And that is when their jobs come up from a
dollar an hour to six dollars an hour,

and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and
then it's leveled again.

But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country
with these kinds of deals. We've got to cut

it out.

MODERATOR: Thank you Mr. Perot.