President Says Aversion to Biotech Perpetuates African Hunger
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[LA Times and ENS articles below]
NEW LONDON, Conn., May 21 -- President Bush today accused Europeans of perpetuating starvation in Africa by subsidizing agricultural exports and by objecting to the use of bioengineered crops, raising another grievance with Europe at a time of already tense transatlantic relations.
The president, who embarks on a trip to the continent next week, leveled his accusations against European governments in a speech to graduates of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy here that was intended to showcase humanitarian efforts by his administration. For the first time raising the highly sensitive issue of Europeans' deep opposition to genetically altered foods, Bush said well-intentioned American efforts to reduce hunger in Africa have been thwarted by European policies.
"By widening the use of new high-yield bio-crops and unleashing the power of markets, we can dramatically increase agricultural productivity and feed more people across the continent," Bush said in a commencement address on the drizzly west bank of the Thames River. "Yet, our partners in Europe are impeding this effort. They have blocked all new bio-crops because of unfounded, unscientific fears."
Bush said Europeans, by closing their markets to bioengineered foods, have caused African nations to avoid investments in such crops. "European governments should join -- not hinder -- the great cause of ending hunger in Africa," he said. Accusing those who subsidize agricultural exports of preventing poor countries from developing their own crops, he added: "I propose that all developed nations, including our partners in Europe, immediately eliminate subsidies on agricultural exports to developing countries so that they can produce more food to export and more food to feed their own people."
By making the challenges to Europeans before the meetings of the Group of Eight leaders in Evian, France, Bush significantly escalated a food fight with European governments, which have been resisting genetically altered crops in the face of broad public opposition. Earlier this month, the United States and several other countries filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization complaining about a 5-year-old European moratorium on bioengineered crops.
The administration said it acted because Europeans had not met promises to repeal the ban. The European Union, which said it was moving toward new rules, called the suit "legally unwarranted, economically unfounded and politically unhelpful." In an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal today, U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick expanded on the accusation, writing of the "dangerous effect" of the EU policy, in which "some famine-stricken African countries refused U.S. food aid because of fabricated fears -- stoked by irresponsible rhetoric -- about food safety."
Bush's complaint about European agriculture subsidies elevated a contentious element of the current round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization. Europeans complain that while the United States has few export subsidies, U.S. subsidies take the form of domestic farm aid and donated international food aid.
Bush's accusation that Europeans are hobbling anti-hunger efforts was part of a 26-minute speech in front of nearly 200 graduating cadets that blended a defiant note against terrorism with a recitation of the "compassion" in U.S. foreign policy. Bush invoked a humanitarian rationale for foreign policy, listing his administration's policy initiatives on AIDS, hunger and foreign aid in a manner typical of President Bill Clinton and reciting the words of another Democratic president who championed a moral foreign policy.
"President Woodrow Wilson said, 'America has a spiritual energy in her which no other nation can contribute to the liberation of mankind,' " Bush told the graduates, with the Coast Guard tall ship Barque Eagle, a Nazi naval vessel taken as a war reparation, serving as his backdrop. "In this new century, we must apply that energy to the good of people everywhere."
Drawing a line from World War II to the present, Bush traced a moral foreign policy. "We are the nation that liberated continents and concentration camps," he said. "We are the nation of the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift and the Peace Corps. We are the nation that ended the oppression of Afghan women, and we are the nation that closed the torture chambers of Iraq."
The White House announced a new initiative, Volunteers for Prosperity, in which doctors, engineers and other professionals could take assignments of weeks or months to do humanitarian projects in countries of their choice. Aides said the initiative, to be funded largely with private money, would address excess demand for positions in the Peace Corps, which allows volunteers to take only long-term projects.
Bush's appearance in New London -- he speaks at one service academy graduation annually -- came during the Coast Guard's first year under the newly formed Department of Homeland Security, and the department secretary, Tom Ridge, introduced Bush. After a 21-gun salute that activated car alarms, Bush declared "good progress" in battling terrorism. "Nearly one-half of al Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed," he said.
Democrats used Bush's address to the Coast Guard to call for more funding for border security. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), a presidential candidate, said that Bush's 2004 budget has no new funds for "basic port security" and that the Coast Guard needs more money to modernize. "The administration has failed to make the necessary hard choices, and that leaves our waterways vulnerable to future terrorist violence," he said in a statement.
Bush hailed the military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq but acknowledged the limits of the progress against terrorism. Speaking a day after his administration increased the terrorism alert level to "high risk," Bush spoke of recent attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. "Our country has been attacked by treachery in our own cities -- and that treachery continues in places like Riyadh and Casablanca," he said. "We have seen the ruthless intentions of our enemies."
Bush is beginning an intense period of diplomacy, beginning Friday with a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the presidential ranch in Texas. In addition to traveling to France for the G-8 meetings soon, Bush will go to Russia and Poland, and the White House is considering adding a stop in the Middle East, including a visit with U.S. troops in Kuwait or a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
Administration officials said they were still in the planning stages and had made no final decisions on where Bush might go or whom he might meet. Bush is anxious to demonstrate his commitment to moving the Middle East peace process forward.
President asserts that continent's opposition to genetically modified crops hurts the fight against famine in Africa.
NEW LONDON, Conn. — President Bush on Wednesday accused Europe of impeding the fight against famine in Africa by shunning America's genetically modified food products — a charge likely to aggravate U.S.-European relations before a summit of the leaders of industrialized nations in France.
"European governments should join — not hinder — the great cause of ending hunger in Africa," Bush said. He branded the opposition to genetically modified agricultural products as based on "unfounded, unscientific fears."
The president's tough words, in a commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy, foreshadowed a potentially bitter trade skirmish, even as Bush and his French and German counterparts move to mend relations frayed over the Iraq war.
A variety of analysts said Bush has a strong case against European objections to genetically modified crops. But they warned that in making the case in such explicit terms just before a summit, Bush risks spreading to the economic realm the ill will existing between the United States and much of Europe on the diplomatic and military fronts.
Analysts also worried Bush's remarks will rattle financial markets upset by an apparent administration decision to let the U.S. dollar slide in value against other currencies, a move designed to boost American exports at the expense of European and Asian competitors.
"The markets are already concerned about a sharply weakened dollar," said Robert D. Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. "If there's a perception that the rancor over Iraq is spilling over to trade and monetary matters, that will be profoundly unsettling."
The United States is a world leader in producing so-called GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Wednesday marked the first time Bush publicly weighed in on the controversy over them.
Two of Europe's staunchest foes of such bioengineered products are Germany and France, the same nations that vociferously opposed Bush's drive to win U.N. backing for a war to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.
The president avoided direct mention of Germany or France in an address largely devoted to international humanitarian assistance. And a White House official insisted that Bush was not looking to start a new tussle with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Sean McCormack, a National Security Council spokesman, characterized the president's remarks as "a message of hope, a positive agenda that we can all get together on."
A Longtime Wrangle
But Bush's speech, along with other recent administration actions, in advance of the G-8 summit June 1-3, is almost certain to be seen as provocative. The United States last week filed a case against the European Union with the World Trade Organization over Europe's treatment of most genetically modified foods. The two sides have been wrangling over the issue in trade talks for at least four years.
"This will only inflame European opinion against the U.S.," said C. Gary Hufbauer, a senior economist with the Institute for International Economics in Washington.
The EU imposed a moratorium on approving genetically modified agricultural products in 1998 because of widespread concern among European consumers that they might be unsafe. But such crops are more resistant to disease, drought and pests — and can prevent soil erosion and drastically cut the need for pesticides, according to U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick.
In an opinion column in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Zoellick blamed "irresponsible rhetoric" in Europe for hurting trade — and thus, the quality of life — in Africa, a point Bush elaborated on in his speech.
The EU's actions, the president said, have "caused many African nations to avoid investing in biotechnologies, for fear their products will be shut out of European markets."
Zoellick said in his essay: "Uganda refused to plant a disease-resistant type of banana because of fears it would jeopardize exports to Europe. Namibia will not buy South Africa's biotech corn for cattle feed to avoid hurting its beef exports to Europe. India, China and other countries in South America and Africa have expressed the same trepidation."
Up to 34% of the U.S. corn crop and almost 80% of its soybeans are grown with genetically modified seed that grows its own pesticides and resists weed-killing sprays that make it easier to manage crops. The EU boycott has cost American producers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue annually.
Scientific Findings
The European position has been especially irritating to the United States because it continues despite findings by leading American, French and British scientific societies that genetically modified products pose almost no safety risks to humans, said Michael Rodemeyer, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.
Zoellick asserted that the volume of scientific studies showing such products to be safe is overwhelming.
Rodemeyer said the EU stance includes some oversights. For example, a proposed EU rule that would require the labeling of food that contains genetically modified products or uses them in its processing would exempt wine and cheese, both major French exports that depend on genetic modification for their production.
The escalating squabble over GMOs is not the only bone of contention on trade between the U.S. and Europe. The parties also are at odds over tariffs imposed by the U.S. on steel imports and certain tax breaks for American companies that the EU deems unfair.
In his speech, Bush also announced a Peace Corps-style initiative, called Volunteers for Prosperity, to encourage skilled professionals, such as doctors, economists and engineers, to serve abroad.
The initiative is designed in part to harness an outpouring of public interest in the Peace Corps after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to John Bridgeland, a senior White House aide.
In his address — to a Coast Guard class that is the first to be commissioned under the new Department of Homeland Security — Bush argued domestic security involves "more than eliminating aggressive threats" to America, such as terrorism networks.
"We find our greatest security in the advance of human freedom," he said. Combating famine, poverty and disease lies at the heart of helping set people free — and "will bring greater security to our country," said Bush, who often describes poverty and despair as potential breeding grounds for terrorists.
After touting his own initiatives, most notably a five-year, $15-billion global AIDS initiative that Congress has passed, Bush said that at the G-8 conference he "will challenge our allies to make a similar commitment, which will save even more lives."
Chen reported from New London and Gosselin from Washington.
" From the Grassroots to the Nation" President Bush Bashes EU Biotech Ban
NEW LONDON, Connecticut—In a commencement address today in front of the 2003 graduating class of the U.S. Coast Guard, President George W. Bush accused the European Union of contributing to starvation in Africa by rejecting U.S. genetically modified crops.
The President said European objections to genetically modified, or biotech, crops are the product of "unfounded, unscientific fears." Europe's reluctance to embrace biotech crops is impeding the effort to solve the long term problem of world hunger, Bush said, in particular in Africa.
Bush said that the European ban on approving new biotech crops has "caused many African nations to avoid investing in biotechnologies, for fear their products will be shut out of European markets."
"European governments should join - not hinder - the great cause of ending hunger in Africa," Bush said.
Several African nations, including Zambia and Zimbabwe, have rejected U.S. food aid because it contained GM corn. These countries fear the GM corn could end up in crops or be fed to beef cattle tagged for export to Europe, which could then reject the African imports.
The President's remarks come only a week after his administration launched a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the European Union's five year ban on approving biotech foods.
U.S. officials say European policy is illegal, harming the U.S. economy, stunting the growth of the biotech industry and contributing to increased starvation in the developing world.
EU officials say the U.S. is mischaracterizing its position on biotech foods and that the EU's regulatory system for approving these foods is in line with the WTO's rules.
Critics of the administration's policy say it is disingenuous to link the biotech debate with starvation in Africa and many point out that the benefits of biotech foods are unproven. There is not a food supply problem, some contend, rather there is a food distribution problem.
In his speech today Bush partially agreed with this notion, but insisted that biotech crops could provide the answer.
"Our world produces more than enough food to feed its six billion people," Bush said. "By widening the use of new high-yield bio-crops and unleashing the power of markets, we can dramatically increase agricultural productivity and feed more people across the continent."
The United States produces some two thirds of the world's biotech crops and U.S. officials estimate the EU ban has cost its agricultural industry hundreds of millions, including some $300 million a year in corn sales alone.
Bush's speech today escalates a growing trade dispute between the two massive trading partners just as the members of the Group of Eight (G8) countries prepare to meet in June for their annual economic summit. A group of executives from some of the world's largest U.S., European, Japanese and Canada sent a joint letter this week to Bush and the other G8 leaders urging them to get global trade negotiations back on track.
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