The President's International Economic Record

As Prepared

Ms. Spielman, Mr. Van Yeutter, ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to be with you this afternoon to address a subject about which I have very strong--and proud--feelings. The subject of my passion is the extraordinary economic progress the world has seen thanks to the dynamic leadership of President Bush. During the last six years, the United States has achieved an outstanding record of vigorously promoting international economic freedom and prosperity, and in fostering development in emerging economies through innovative--and sustainable--new strategies.

This has been achieved in the face of great challenges to the world trading system from those who would undermine the security on which that system depends, and from those who fear that the increasing interdependence brought about by globalization will dilute their power or prestige. While we have all benefited greatly from this economic progress, too little public attention has been paid to the policies on which that progress has been founded. I would like to provide you with a brief description of some of the key components of this Administration's international economic policies.

Promoting free trade has been a top priority for this administration. Our global economic leadership continues to create more and better jobs for Americans, to achieve market gains for U.S. exporters, to generate economic growth and development opportunities for our free trade partners, and to enhance choice and purchasing power for U.S. consumers, farmers and businesses.

It is a virtuous economic circle: more trade results in increased competition and lower prices, which leads to more jobs and higher real wages, which results in more demand and increased supply, which leads to more trade. Free trade is a fundamental building block of the broader economic and political freedoms for which generations of Americans have sacrificed so much.

The Administration has played a vital leadership role in launching the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations of the World Trade Organization and remains committed to its successful conclusion. I know that you and fellow members of the business community consistently identify the Doha as your highest international priority. I have been delighted to see that our European friends, among others, now share our sense of urgency that we get ambitious multilateral negotiations back on track quickly. I assure you that we are working very hard to that end.

When the President took office in 2001, the United States had Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with three countries. Today, we have nine FTAs in force with 14 countries, including the just-completed FTA with Panama, and more are on the way. We have five percent of the world's population--leaving 95 percent as potential customers, and every time we break down barriers to trade and investment, we open up new markets for our businesses and farmers.

The United States is actively opening markets abroad for Americans with FTA negotiations in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Through 2006, exports to FTA partners with Agreements put into effect under this Administration are growing twice as fast as our exports to the rest of the world.

The Administration has not neglected the needs of poorer nations: the President's leadership was vital in securing Congressional extension of the Generalized System of Preferences program which provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for a wide range of goods from 133 developing countries. The same Trade Bill also continued the Andean Trade Preferences Act, an essential weapon in the War on Drugs, and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, a key part of U.S. antipoverty efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The United States has also recognized that the true value of assistance provided to emerging economies is much more than just official development assistance, or ODA. In 2005, non-trade private financial flows from the U.S. excluding ODA--i.e., personal remittances, net private investment, and NGO grants – totaled some $119 billion, over four times the size of U.S. ODA flows. Development assistance of $27.6 billion in 2005 made America the world's largest donor nation. At a March 2002 UN conference held in Monterrey, Mexico, the U.S. pledged to increase its foreign assistance by 50 percent over 2000 levels by 2006. I am proud to say the U.S. met that pledge three years early.

While we are on the subject of poverty alleviation, I should note that the United States has dramatically enhanced the effectiveness of development assistance programs through the Millennium Challenge Account and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCA and MCC. In 2002 President Bush, calling for a "new compact for global development," proposed this innovative foreign aid model. The MCA was to be the mechanism to implement a new model for providing foreign aid to those developing countries that agreed to three criteria: to rule justly, to invest in their people and to encourage economic freedom. The U.S. Congress, with strong bipartisan support, established the MCC in January 2004.

The MCC is a United States government-owned corporation responsible for the stewardship of the MCA, and is purposely designed as a small corporation to promote, support and ensure accountability for the foreign assistance strategies it administers. Developing countries that meet MCA compact conditions design and implement their own programs with MCA support. In its first three years, the MCC has selected 26 countries and signed 11 compacts totaling nearly $3 billion in aid. Several other countries are at different stages on the track to signing an MCA compact. The reality is that the MCC has worked to "reduce poverty through growth with over 700 million people in 38 counties throughout the world." And there are more to come.

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest international health initiative dedicated to a single disease in history, is providing record levels of support to the fight against the AIDS pandemic. This generous and unique effort is designed to support and strengthen the AIDS-fighting strategies of many nations, including 15 heavily-afflicted countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. President Bush has committed $15 billion over five years to support treatment for 2 million people, support prevention for 7 million, and support care for 10 million. Nations around the world are fighting for the lives of their citizens--and, I am delighted to say, America is now their strongest partner in that fight. The President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) -- announced in June, 2005 -­devotes $1.2 billion over five years to cut deaths from this debilitating disease by 50 % o in the 15 most-affected African countries.

Of course, economic isolationism and debilitating diseases are not the only impediments to economic growth in poorer nations. Corruption and bribery are two of the most persistent obstacles to international economic growth and development, particularly in emerging economies. The United States has been a leader in the multinational effort to end these practices. Our efforts are supported by the United Nations, the G-8, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Organization of American States, and other multilateral organizations and institutions.

Saluting the delegates at the Second Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity on May 28, 2003 in The Hague, President Bush stated that increasing accountability and transparency in governance around the world was an important foreign policy objective for his administration. At last year's G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg, participating leaders called for strengthened international efforts to deny corrupt high-level government officials, or kleptocrats, access to our financial systems and safe havens in our countries. In addition, they vowed to strengthen efforts to combat fraud, corruption and misuse of public resources, and to prevent opportunities for high-level corruption.

On August 10 of last year, the President made good on our commitment by announcing a new element in the Administration's plan to fight kleptocracy. The National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts against Kleptocracy sets forth a framework to deter, prevent and address high-level, public corruption. The strategy identifies critical tools to detect and prosecute corrupt officials around the world, so that the twin promises of economic assistance and growth reaches the people for whom it was intended.

The right to freedom of expression -- including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas regardless of frontiers -- is a universal human right. Although the Internet has become a lightning rod for repressive governments as they try to restrict or block freedom of expression and the free flow of information and ideas, the United States is determined to maximize the free flow of information over the Internet and minimize success by repressive regimes in censoring information and silencing legitimate debate in this global town hall.

The Administration is engaged in vigorous efforts to advance global Internet freedom and deter repressive regimes from stifling dissent. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made Internet freedom a priority, establishing an internal task force that draws upon the State Department's expertise in many areas, including international communications policy, human rights, democracy, business advocacy, corporate responsibility, and relevant countries and regions. Because we value Internet freedom, we have actively pushed back on efforts to put the Internet under United Nations auspices.

The United States has been leading international efforts to shut down terrorist finance networks. We have encouraged countries to take actions to freeze terrorist assets when they are found, we have developed new initiatives to strengthen international cooperation against terrorist finance, and we have supported efforts to provide technical assistance to foreign governments working against terrorist finance.

By providing a steady hand to guide a strong domestic economy and promoting the openness of the U.S. economy, President Bush has enabled America to contribute greatly to a strong international economy. Administration policies to expand international trade in goods and services have encouraged foreign companies to set up operations in the United States. As of 2004, foreign-owned firms directly employed more than 5.5 million workers in the U.S. -- jobs that might otherwise go to foreign workers--and this does not include the millions of jobs at companies that supply parts and materials to foreign-owned firms. Our average GDP growth since 2001 has averaged 2.9 percent and net employment growth during the Bush Presidency has been 3.7 million no-farm jobs.

The U.S. economy is truly the engine powering global economic growth. As President Clinton's former Treasury Secretary Summers recently noted, `the world economy in aggregate grew more during the past five years than in any five-year period since the Second World War. Growth is not merely strong. It is also widely shared. In 2006, according to the World Bank, the economies of the high-income countries grew by 3.1 percent, with the U.S. achieving 3.2 percent, Japan 2.9 percent, and even the sluggish Eurozone 2.4 percent. Meanwhile, the economies of the developing countries, led by the rising giants, China and India, expanded by 7 percent, after 6.6 percent in 2005 and 7.2 percent in 2004."

This list of achievements does not suggest we should or can rest on our laurels. There is still a lot of work to be done over the next two years, including forward thinking on two critical issues key to our continuing prosperity: energy security and China.

Our robust and growing economy requires energy; energy that is reliable, affordable, sustainable, and secure. Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has overseen an investment of nearly $10 billion for the development of cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable energy sources. Announced in early 2006, the President's "Advanced Energy Initiative" will provide a further 22 percent increase in research by the U.S. Department of Energy to find clean alternatives to oil imported from unstable parts of the world. In order to change the way Americans power our homes and offices and fuel our vehicles, the U.S. will invest more in clean coal technology, biofuels and other renewables, hydrogen, nuclear power as well as enhanced energy measures.

As comprehensive as our domestic energy policy measures are, we realize that our goal of maintaining a clean, secure energy future will be in jeopardy if we do not engage the other major energy producing and consuming nations -=- especially the rapidly growing economies such as China and India. To this end, President Bush launched in January 2006 the Asia­Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate. The Partnership focuses on voluntary practical measures taken by these six countries in the Asia-Pacific region to create new investment opportunities, build local capacity, and remove barriers to the introduction of clean, more efficient technologies. Complementing this effort, the U.S. championed the International Energy Agency's recent adoption of a robust outreach program toward China, India, and Russia. Under this program, the IEA will engage key decision makers and provide assistance in formulating market based policies designed to encourage adequate energy investments, undistorted energy pricing, and greater energy efficiency.

China language needed on SED Responsible Stakeholder and SED meetings in Beijing last month. Other issues will also require our sustained leadership and engagement, including:

1. translating the newfound urgency regarding Doha by our European and other friends into concrete improvements in negotiating offers;
2. continuing our efforts to secure stable and reliable energy supplies while developing alternatives and maintaining dialogue with major energy-supplying and consuming nations;
3. expanding policies and programs that alleviate poverty by providing the conditions for economic development when feasible and assistance as needed;
4. remaining vigilant in the battle against the HIV/AIDS;
5. intensifying our efforts in the fight against bribery and corruption; and
6. continuing to lead the international struggle against terrorist financing.

We must continue to consolidate and secure our achievements and to show effective leadership to the community of nations on these and other issues. But the international economic record of the past six years of the Bush Presidency is one of great success and achievements that have set the conditions for even further robust economic growth and prosperity in America and the world. I look forward to your advice and assistance continuing these efforts and to spreading this message of achievement.