George H. W. Bush Prime Minister Shamir for his leadership during the crisis. On August 11, 1992, following a meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Bush announced he would seek the approval of Congress to bestow Israel with up to $10billion in loan guarantees to assist the country with its absorbing of Soviet Union immigrants. The Bush administration and the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney spearheaded the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement would eliminate the majority of tariffs on products that were traded among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. This would
Yitzhak Rabin with the PLO. From 1990 to 1992, Rabin again served as a Knesset member and sat on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. In 1992 Rabin was elected as chairman of the Labor Party, winning against Shimon Peres. In the elections that year his party, strongly focusing on the popularity of its leader, managed to win a clear victory over the Likud of incumbent Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. However, the left-wing bloc in the Knesset only won an overall narrow majority, facilitated by the disqualification of small nationalist parties that did not manage to pass the electoral threshold. Rabin formed