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Skriven 2005-09-14 23:32:40 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (050914m) for Wed, 2005 Sep 14
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Press Briefing by Deputy National Security Advisor Faryar Shirzad
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 14, 2005

Press Briefing by Deputy National Security Advisor Faryar Shirzad
The Hilton New York
New York, New York



1:39 P.M. EDT

MR. SHIRZAD: In the speech, the President spoke about what the United
States, under his leadership, has done and will do in the fight against
killer diseases, like AIDS, malaria, and Avian flu. He talked about the
efforts we've made as a country to promote good governance and private
sector-led growth through the Millennium Challenge Account program. He
talked about the leadership and the work we've done with the G8 countries
in eliminating the crushing burden of debt on poor countries through the
multilateral debt relief agreement that was reached among G8 leaders at
Gleneagles earlier this summer.

But today what the President did was to call on the world to recognize that
we must turn to the next challenge on the development agenda, and that is
the advancement of multilateral trade liberalization. Global trade
liberalization has the potential to lift hundreds of millions of people out
of poverty, according to a number of studies from the World Bank and the
Institution of International Economics. Estimates range up to half a
billion people would be lifted out of poverty through a successful
completion of the Doha negotiations.

For the President and for the United States, we strongly feel that open
markets have transformed into powers to promote liberty and good
governance. And all that, however, takes hard work and bold leadership, and
the President today stepped up to provide that leadership. He called on the
world to recommit itself to the advancement of the Doha and WTO
negotiations. He also demonstrated that he and the United States are
willing to take the mantle of leadership necessary to get the talks going.
He did so by a focus on the issue today, but he also did so by issuing a
bold challenge, and that is that the United States is ready to eliminate
market barriers, tariffs and subsidies that impede the free flow of
commerce, so long as the rest of the world joins us in that endeavor.

The WTO talks are at a critical stage. The Hong Kong ministerial meeting of
trade ministers of the WTO is scheduled to occur this December. Under the
terms of the negotiations that are currently underway, the WTO talks are
supposed to be done by the end of calendar year 2006. For the United
States, our trade authority rests under the trade promotion authority
legislation that Congress provided, and that authority expires in the
middle of 2007. So for the President and for the United States, we approach
this issue with a sense of urgency, both because of the humanitarian
challenge, but also because of the limits of time available to us.

The opportunities that Doha provides for the American people and the world
are tremendous, and our hope is that others will join the President's call
to make the potential of Doha a reality.

With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Q On the subsidy initiative, it's a little unclear to me how much practical
impact or importance this proposal has. Is he saying that the entire world,
every last nation in the world, must eliminate tariffs and subsidies before
the U.S. will? Or is he speaking in general terms, but intending to have a
graduate approach to this problem -- country X does this, the U.S. is ready
to reciprocate?

MR. SHIRZAD: It's a good question. Currently under the negotiations, the
terms that have defined where the talks are going call for substantial
reductions, for example, in tariffs, and substantial reductions in
subsidies. What the President was doing today was very boldly and in very
clear terms saying that our ambition in this regard is only limited by --
as far as others are willing to go.

And so if the ambition of the world doesn't reach to a complete elimination
of all the barriers that are out there, then we'll have to see how that
turns out in the course of the negotiations. But we want to see a
successful Doha negotiation move forward, and we're going to be there
throughout, from beginning to end.

Q And he made reference to agricultural subsidies, and then spoke of
subsidies as you're speaking of subsidies. It goes beyond agricultural?

MR. SHIRZAD: There are subsidies in other sectors. The primary subsidies
that are the focus of the WTO negotiations are in the agricultural sector,
where we, under WTO rules, are allowed something on the order of $18
billion in annual subsidies. These are what are known as -- trade
distorting subsidies. The European Union, for example, is allowed something
like $88 billion in subsidies; Japan is allowed something along the lines
of $32 billion in subsidies.

But these are an important issue. They're an important issue from a
developmental perspective, because the developing countries complain about
the impact that these subsidies have. The President said at Gleneagles, and
he reiterated today, that we're willing to -- that those are on the table,
we're willing to negotiate them away, but it has to be under reciprocal
terms.

Q Doesn't he need Congress' approval to end subsidies like this, because
they're the ones who fund them?

MR. SHIRZAD: Yes, absolutely. As you know, we're entering into a season
where we're going to -- the Congress is beginning to take a look at, and I
know the Secretary of Agricultural, Mike Johanns, is already doing a
listening tour around the country to talk to farmers about what the shape
of the next farm bill will look like. The current farm bill is scheduled to
expire in 2007. And so Congress will have to take up, and the
administration will have to work with Congress in developing the next farm
bill.

But in more general terms, Congress has said, and the American people have
said that they are ready for an ambitious outcome in Doha. The United
States is already among the most open economies out there, so the principle
of making sure that the degree that we're open is reciprocated by the
openness of other countries is a crucial element of our ability to sustain
a trade policy. And so what we're trying to do, and what the President is
trying to do, is to say, so long as we can maintain the goal of leveling
the playing field, we're willing to do so with an extraordinary amount of
ambition, as he described.

Q How many people would be brought out of poverty if the President followed
through on the effort to have 0.7 percent of national income spent on
poverty aid, as some have called for?

MR. SHIRZAD: Your question is -- the answer to the question you'll have to
talk to others about. The issue, though, is -- I think highlights an
important theme that has been a defining feature of what the President has
stood for on the development front, and was an important part of what the
Monterrey agreement was about, and that is that the crucial -- there's
several crucial factors when you look at the development agenda. The first
and foremost is that the focus has to be on outcomes: eliminating poverty,
promoting education, dealing with the challenge of famine, for example.

But it also require that it be done in partnership with the developing
countries, themselves, so they can access more dependable sources of
financing for their development, including the private sector, trade,
accessing the global capital markets. And so our vision, and the
President's vision has been one built on empowering the developing
countries so they can assume their own -- control of their own destiny in
accessing the opportunities, for example, that private sector-led growth
allows. And that's part of why the trade agenda, and the way the President
laid it out in his speech today, is important, because it's part and parcel
of a broader vision that private sector-led growth is the key to
development.

Q So what is the percentage that's now being contributed by the U.S.?

MR. SHIRZAD: The United States is currently the global leader in official
development assistance. In terms of on a per -- on a GDP basis, I believe
it is at 0.1 percent is the number, is what I believe is the accurate
number.

Q And European countries are at 0.7 percent, or some of them are?

MR. SHIRZAD: No, you remember, the 0.7 number is one that's been around for
decades in development circles. People have talked about it as an
aspiration or as a goal for years, decades even. The European Union, in the
lead-up to the Gleneagles G8 meeting earlier this summer, recommitted
itself to achieve the 0.7 GDP target. There are very, very few countries
that have reached that level of development assistance. And that number is
a number that reflects government flows. The United States, for example,
leads the world in terms of charitable giving, private investment, the
availability of the United States as an export market -- things like that.
So there are different ways that people measure the financing flows, but
the actual 0.7 is a target that very few countries have actually achieved.

Q And just one last question, to be clear. Is he

-- as I read it this morning, in Monterrey, the communique said the United
States would "make concrete efforts to get to that 0.7 percent." Is that no
longer valid, or what is the plan?

MR. SHIRZAD: We're fully committed to Monterrey. What Monterrey laid out,
which was -- what's powerful about Monterrey is that it laid out a vision
of development that was based on a partnership with the developing
countries. The idea was to eliminate this concept of donor-client
relationship between the developed countries and the developing countries.
And incorporated into the Monterrey agreement was a commitment by the
countries to make concrete steps toward increasing resources towards to
goal of 0.7. So the goal -- the 0.7 number, itself, isn't a goal as much as
the effort countries made to increase the official development assistance
to meet the challenges that are out there.

We have in dramatic terms, under the President's leadership, increased
development assistance since this administration has been in office. And
you'll remember that going into Gleneagles, the President announced that we
would, for example, double aid to Africa by 2010. This administration has
increased official development assistance globally faster and by a larger
amount than any administration has since the Marshall Plan. So the United
States has done -- and this administration under the President's leadership
-- has done dramatic moves in terms of increasing the amount of official
development assistance, but it's all been focused on ensuring that we have
outcomes that are worthy of the money that's being spent. And that is why
the President has the Millennium Challenge Account program, the President's
AIDS program, for example -- five-year, $15-billion program -- and so the
President's focus has been on outcomes, rather than on input.

Q Beyond the value of the subsidies that you outlined for us, is there any
estimate on how U.S. or global trade would be increased if transitional
tariffs and other barriers were dropped?

MR. SHIRZAD: There are estimates -- I'll have to get them to you in terms
of the net benefit to the U.S. economy for whatever measure of trade
liberalization is achieved in the Doha Round. But the benefits of
multilateral liberalization are important developmentally, but they're also
important to the United States.

Q On debt relief, I noticed in the fact sheet, you guys were talking about
a little more than $30 billion. I thought the Gleneagles number was $40
billion. Is that the number? And what's the U.S. share of that, roughly?

MR. SHIRZAD: Well, there's a couple of debt relief initiatives. The earlier
HIPC initiative to eliminate -- to reduce the amount of indebtedness of the
highly indebted poor countries to achieve a certain export-to-debt ratio.
What we, the United States, agreed to do as a part of that was eliminate
all bilateral debt. So the United States, for the HIPC countries, have the
policy that it's implementing to eliminate all the debt to the highly
indebted poor countries.

The agreement that was reached at Gleneagles was to eliminate the debt of
the highly indebted poor countries to the multilateral institutions, and
that is to eliminate 100 percent of the debt owed to the IMF and the World
Bank, for example, and the African Development Bank.

And there -- and so there, the indebtedness we're talking about is to the
multilateral institutions. And that's what the President today called for
implementation of as soon as possible, because there was an agreement
reached among the G-8 countries, and we're pushing very hard to get that
done very soon -- hopefully, by the time of the Bank Fund meeting later
this month.

Q The President said that more work remains to reform the United Nations.
What steps do you see as still needed after the reform package that was
agreed on here? And can you flesh out a little bit the meeting with Prime
Minister Sharon? We got very little out of Mr. Sharon and didn't get much
more from President Bush. Can you say where the United States wants to go
forward on the Middle East?

MR. SHIRZAD: I defer to Fred on both of those. Any questions about U.N.
reform, I think Fred or others will have to answer. And I wasn't in the
Sharon meeting.

MR. JONES: I'll have to get you -- I'll have to get back to you.

Q That would be helpful.

Q Can you say if anything additional was said about Katrina by any of the
other foreign leaders?

MR. JONES: I'm unable to answer that question. So I'd have to get back to
you on that, as well.

Q Faryar, did you say how much in subsidies the United States pays? I'm
sorry if I missed that. Did you say that?

MR. SHIRZAD: The amount of subsidies that we're allowed under the WTO --
and our number is lower, as is the number of the other countries -- but the
amount of subsidies we're allowed under the WTO is $18 billion. These are
what is known as the aggregate measure of support, in the WTO jargon. This
is the trade distorting subsidies that are the focus of the negotiations.
The European Union is allowed $88 billion in annual subsidies, and Japan,
for example is allowed about $32 billion in subsidies. The actual numbers
are lower, but the allowed amounts under the trade rules are what I just
gave you.

Q And these are agriculture, or all subsidies?

MR. SHIRZAD: Agriculture. And it's worth, just as a matter of comparison,
to look at the tariffs. The United States, for example, has an average
agricultural import tariff. In other words, the amount of duties that
somebody has to pay to ship an agricultural item into the United States,
our average agricultural tariffs are about 12 percent; the global average
is about 62 percent; the European Union average is 31 percent; Japan is at
about 51 percent; and India is about 114 percent. So it give you a sense of
the relative levels of openness and subsidization.

Q Is the President's call for the elimination of all these tariffs a new
development. Is it -- is he talking about just agricultural subsidies? And
is it realistic to expect that this will happen?

MR. SHIRZAD: He has been consistently, since even his first election, very
bold in terms of his commitment to free trade. And we have, in the course
of the WTO negotiations, already earlier in the first term, tabled
proposals to, for example, eliminate all subsidies -- I mean, all tariffs
on industrial goods, to open, in very sweeping terms, the services sector.
The President's call to eliminate all agricultural subsidies was first made
by him at Gleneagles, you may remember. So that was significant.

What the President did today was an effort to push the Doha negotiations
along and to demonstrate that the United States is ready to take the
leadership role on it; is to essentially make clear that, notwithstanding
the push and pull and the -- what's happening in the negotiating room, the
ambition that we have as a country and as an administration remains bold;
that we want to go for a sweeping of degree of liberalization as other
countries in the WTO are willing to join us in. And that's what was -- what
you heard today.

MR. JONES: Thank you, very much. Once again, that was Mr. Faryar Shirzad.
Thank you.

END

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