“I recognize that I’m leaving office in two months but nevertheless this administration will push hard to put the modalities in place so that Doha can be completed and so we send a message we refuse to accept protectionism in the 21st century,” Bush said in a speech at a summit with other leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The Group of 20 developed and developing country leaders meeting last week in Washington “expressed solidarity with the idea of completing Doha, and now we’ve got to put those words into action,” Bush said.

Bush used his final appearance at a international summit to preach a message of “free markets, free trade and free people” to help restore world economic health in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

He welcomed Peru and Australia’s decision to join the United States, Singapore, Chile and Brunei in negotiating a regional free trade trade pact, and lashed out at Congress for failing to approve three free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama before adjourning this week.

Earlier on Friday, Chinese President Hu Jintao spelled out a potentially ambitious role for his country in staving off a deep global recession as he and U.S. President George W. Bush prepared for a weekend summit of leaders from Asia and the Americas.

Hu and Bush, whose presidency is in its last weeks, discussed trade and other issues Friday night in Peru’s capital, before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum of 21 leaders representing more than half of global output.

The leaders at the APEC summit were expected to ratify previous commitments by the Group of 20 powerful world economies to use trade and government spending to combat the economic crisis. Nine members of APEC are also in the G20.

In a speech to business leaders in Lima, Hu said the global financial situation remained extremely grim and that China was striving to stimulate its economy and would strengthen ties with other developing countries to confront the crisis.

“China will take a responsible attitude and work alongside the international community to strengthen cooperation to strive to protect the stability of international financial markets,” Hu said.

“China is within the scope of its abilities taking major efforts to address the financial crisis,” including, he said, “providing the necessary support for liquidity” for domestic financial institutions and coordinating macroeconomic policy with other countries.

1|2|Next Page>>

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 1000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email