Bill Clinton

William Jefferson Clinton served as the 42nd President of the United States from January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001. A Democrat and former Governor of Arkansas (1979–1981; 1983–1992), Clinton defeated incumbent George H.W. Bush in the 1992 election and won re-election against Bob Dole in 1996.

His foreign policy is associated with the post–Cold War "unipolar moment" and an emphasis on democratic enlargement, trade liberalization, and humanitarian intervention. Key episodes include:

• NAFTA, signed into law in December 1993, creating a trilateral trade bloc with Canada and Mexico.
• WTO accession: the United States joined the new World Trade Organization in 1995, and Clinton signed legislation granting China permanent normal trade relations in 2000, paving the way for Beijing's 2001 WTO entry.
• Balkans: the administration backed NATO airstrikes in Bosnia in 1995, leading to the Dayton Accords, and led NATO's 1999 air campaign over Kosovo in response to Serbian actions against ethnic Albanians.
• Failures and controversies: the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia, U.S. inaction during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings by al-Qaeda, after which Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on targets in Sudan and Afghanistan.
• Middle East peace: he hosted the 1993 Oslo Accords signing on the White House lawn and convened the 2000 Camp David Summit between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, which ended without agreement.

Domestically, Clinton presided over budget surpluses by the late 1990s, signed welfare reform (PRWORA, 1996), and was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice arising from the Monica Lewinsky matter; the Senate acquitted him in February 1999.

After leaving office he founded the Clinton Foundation and served as UN Special Envoy for Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. His wife, Hillary Clinton, later served as U.S. Secretary of State (2009–2013).