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Monday, Nov 17, 2008
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Developing nations get a say in economic talks

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mark Landler

U.S. is not the only power, asserts Sarkozy

PHOTO: DEBATOSH SENGUPTA, PHOTO DIVISION

JOINING SHOULDERS: Heads of State attending the economic summit in Washington on Saturday.

WASHINGTON: When U.S. President George Bush welcomed leaders from around the world to the White House on Friday night, for what might well be one of the last formal dinners of his administration, the topic was the fragile world economy.

But the real story was in the seating chart.

There, in the State Dining Room beneath a massive portrait of Abraham Lincoln, to Mr. Bush’s right was President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who has complained loudly that developing nations like his were being “infected with problems” not of their making.

To Mr. Bush’s left sat President Hu Jintao of China.

It was a startling illustration of the way the financial crisis, which originated on Wall Street and has spread around the globe, has remade the international economic world order. By insisting that developing nations be included in the summit meeting, Mr. Bush gave fresh clout to their leaders, each of whom arrived in Washington with his or her own agenda.

But it will be up to a new U.S. president, Barack Obama, to figure out how to juggle those competing interests — and quickly. The declaration adopted by the leaders on Saturday calls for a second summit just 101 days after Mr. Obama is sworn in.

But all around Washington this weekend, as black motorcades sped about town and fancy hotels were marked off with the telltale police barricades, a sure sign world leaders were in residence, there was evidence of Mr. Obama’s challenge.

At the elegant Willard InterContinental Hotel, one of the city’s finest, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France held court after the conference was over. Hours earlier, Mr. Sarkozy was joking with Mr. Bush, giving the President an Obama-style fist bump as the leaders lined up for their official summit “family photo.”

It was Mr. Sarkozy who had pressed a reluctant Mr. Bush into having the summit in the first place, and at the Willard, he was not shy about claiming credit for it — or proclaiming that the era of American hegemony in world finance was over.

“American is the No. 1 power in the world,” Mr. Sarkozy declared. “Is it the only power? No it isn’t. We are in a new world.”

Over at the Washington Club, a tony private club on Dupont Circle, President of Russia Dmitry A. Medvedev addressed an overflow crowd at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Medvedev has been especially combative toward the U.S. over the economy; in a speech earlier this month, he blamed the Bush administration, saying, “They did not listen to the numerous warnings from their partners, including from us.”

But on Saturday, the Russian leader’s talk had little to do with the economy; he spoke at length about the fragile state of U.S.-Russian relations, and expressed hope that the current chill would thaw under Mr. Obama.

Earlier, at the summit meeting at the National Building Museum, there was lively luncheon talk among the leaders about free trade and the international trade negotiations known as the Doha Round, which have been all but given up for dead. Mr. Da Silva, who had come to the session determined to push for a revival of the trade talks, gave an impassioned speech about what the developing world wants the developed world to do, according to one person who attended.

“We are not asking for assistance; we are not asking for you to give us funds,” he said, according to this person, who spoke anonymously so he could give a free account of the remarks.

“What we want you to do is to fix your own economies. The best thing you can do for us is to return to growth.”

Twenty nations were invited to participate in the meeting, and only two were led by women, neither of whom brought a very strong hand. One of them, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, has become a close ally of Mr. Bush, but the German economy has just slipped into recession and its banks are suffering from having purchased a raft of toxic mortgage-related assets from the United States.

The other, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, is in the economic dog house with foreign investors, who are pulling their money out of her country after Argentina decided to nationalise $26 billion of private pension funds, raising fears the government was short on cash. — New York Times News Service

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