ind the engines of American growth? What
             markets hold the most promise? What is the role of the U.S. government in helping to ensure that we realize that promise?" Although such questions seem rational enough, as far as Washington has been concerned in past years, they have rarely been pursued in the international economic arena, let alone answered. Nevertheless, the Clinton administration broke with past patterns. It put an enormous amount of effort into looking over the immediate horizon and came up with some interesting--and powerful--conclusions.
             We found, for example, that the markets in Europe and Japan will be growing much more slowly over the next two decades than a good deal of the rest of the world. Moreover, we discovered that, despite optimism
             about future prospects throughout East Asia and Latin America, the countries that will account for the overwhelming incremental growth in the world imports number fewer than a dozen, which we called the Big
             Emerging Markets, or BEMs. The BEMs are in Asia--the Chinese Economic Area (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), South Korea, Indonesia and India; in Africa--South Africa; in Central Europe--Poland and Turkey; and in Latin America--Mexico, Brazil and Argentina (see Chart 1).
             We also found that success in these markets will require a complete rethinking of our approach to trade. Because these are
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