The US reached out to its neighbors on Tuesday, smoothing tense relations with Latin American leaders as the 34-nation Summit of the Americas ended.
Canada and Mexico won the biggest prizes from the US, with US President George W. Bush telling Canada it would be eligible for a second round of US-financed reconstruction contracts in Iraq that the administration valued at about US$4.5 billion.
A day earlier, Mexican President Vicente Fox accepted an invitation to visit Bush's ranch in Texas and praised his proposal that would allow migrants to work temporarily in the US.
PHOTO: AP
Others also welcomed Bush's plan, with Honduran President Ricardo Maduro saying it would "allow us to have closer ties to Latin Americans in the United States."
But countries complained the region was not doing enough to battle poverty. During negotiations, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent asked: "What's the use of freedom if people are poor?"
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said governments need "a new development concept" that distributes income fairly.
"If we want a world that is safe and stable, we must strive toward a just and fair world," he said.
Outside the meeting site, in the mountains of northern Mexico, about 100 anti-globalization protesters clashed with police, hanging an effigy of Bush on a security barrier and burning it before a wall of riot police.
Bush arrived at this week's summit to find many nations publicly criticizing his free trade stance.
The leaders agreed to support a hemisphere-wide trade area without setting a firm deadline, a concession to Brazil and Venezuela.
The US had sought a 2005 deadline for the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The summit's final declaration calls for following the FTAA's "established timetable," with no specific date mentioned.
Although the original timetable called for an accord by 2005, recent FTAA talks have stalled on the prickly issues of removing agricultural subsidies and intellectual property rights. Many have questioned whether the original timetable is still realistic.
Despite expressing reservations about the declaration, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would sign the document. He pushed summit participants for a humanitarian fund that could be used to help countries during financial and natural disasters, and leaders said they will consider the proposal.
In addition, the summit declaration does not call for banning corrupt governments from future summits, as the US requested. Instead, the declaration only calls for consultations on countries that don't meet the requirements of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption.
Washington's concessions appeared aimed in part at reversing the region's increasing disenchantment with US policy.
In return, countries pledged to "intensify our efforts and strengthen cooperation" to fight terrorist threats.
Before the meeting, Brazil protested new US security measures requiring the fingerprinting and photographing of arrivals by doing the same to Americans traveling to Brazil.
Argentina also sparred with US officials, who criticized Argentine officials for meeting Cuban authorities, but not the communist island's dissidents.
Venezuela's Chavez has criticized US support for a referendum on his recall from office, saying Washington should stop "sticking its noses" in his country's affairs.
On Monday, Chavez refused to attend the summit's official dinner and called the gathering of American leaders a "waste of time." He said he missed the lunch on Tuesday because he was on the phone with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi planning a summit between Latin American and African nations.
After listening to Caribbean leaders lament the millions who die of AIDS in their region, Bush said leaders needed to "work on prevention and treatment" and ensure that countries can distribute drugs as they become available under new international rules.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS