PRESIDENT BUSH AT UN

by RAY FLEMING
THREE years ago this month President Bush addressed the United Nations and urged it to follow his lead in confronting Saddam Hussein. This year, on Wednesday, although he made no substantive reference to Iraq, he was still talking about the need for “civilised nations” to take the fight to the terrorists. Generally, however, Mr Bush's speech was emollient and even began with a word of thanks to the 115 countries which had offered help to the United States following the depredations of Hurricane Katrina. “No nation can remain isolated and indifferent to the struggles of others” he said, suggesting that the poems of John Donne may have been on his reading list for his recent vacation in Texas. The major surprise in Mr Bush's speech was his apparent conversion to international development objectives.
His clearly stated commitment to the UN's Millennium Development Goals, approved in 2000 but only very recently strongly criticised by John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, was unexpected but very welcome; among these goals is that of cutting global poverty by half by 2015. Mr Bush's reference to the Monterrey Consensus, reached in Mexico in 2002, was also a surprise; its objectives include a commitment by developing countries to devote 0.7 per cent of GDP to development assistance but only a couple of weeks ago Mr Bolton was trying to remove any reference to this commitment from the UN Summit document. On Wednesday Mr Bush said: “I call on the world's nations to implement the Monterrey Consensus.” The passage in Mr Bush's speech which has got most attention was this: “The United States is ready to eliminate all tarrifs, subsidies and other barriers to the free flow of good and services if other nations do the same. This is the key to overcoming poverty in the world's poorest nations.” He has made this offer, or challenge, before but it is really irrelevant to the needs of developing countries which require trade agreements that recognise their special needs rather than offers which would result in their markets being flooded with imported goods. Still, Mr Bush's apparent concern with practical measures to help the Third World can only be welcomed and his follow-through will be watched with optimistic anticipation.