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March 31, 2009
Panel on Expectations for the G-20 Meeting
Special Report With Bret Baier(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN: We must reshape the global financial system for new times so that with early warnings and proper precautions we can prevent crises like this happening again.
I believe that the unsupervised globalization of our financial markets did not only cross national boundaries, it crossed moral boundaries, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, HOST: President Obama arrived in London today for the G20 summit this week -- that's the Group of 20 wealthy and developing nations representing 85 percent, roughly 85 percent of the world's economy. A lot of talk about stimulus, global stimulus, as well as regulation and who's going to sign on to what.
Let's bring in our panel: Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief of Fortune magazine, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.
Charles, your look ahead at the G20 this week.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, you mentioned stimulus and you mentioned regulation. Neither is going to happen.
This is test of the proposition that Obama had run on last year, that the source of our difficulties broad, the source of anti-Americanism, of dissension among our allies and the alleged isolation of the United States was George Bush.
And Obama was not Bush, and he was going to be a new figure, a transcendent, multi-cultural, attractive, young, new American leader who would rally the world.
Well, we have a test. He's going to Europe. He's not even asking the allies for an increase in troops in Afghanistan, which we desperately need, because he's going to get a "no."
He wants a stimulus in Europe. He's not even asking because he's not going to get it. The Germans and the French are against it for historical reasons and economic reasons, and the power of personal diplomacy that Obama ran on and pretends he has doesn't exist. It's all about national interests.
And then on the issue of Iran, he is not going to get anything. In fact, he is not even going to get assistance for the Russians, to whom he essentially offered new influence over Eastern Europe in return.
The bottom line is that personal diplomacy is a nice idea. It amounts to nothing. Nations act on their national interests. And he is weak in Europe because we don't have a lot of cards to play in this economic crisis.
BAIER: Nina?
NINA EASTON, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: Well, in fairness to President Obama, these sorts of summits tend to be a lot of theater and not a lot of substance agreed upon. The whole trick is to make it look like you have agreed to something big when you really haven't.
And in this case, we will see the host, Gordon Brown, whose popularity is at a record low. He will take the opportunity to rail against, as we saw, the greed of the financial markets.
We have President Sarkozy of France threatening to walk out because nobody will take on his call for -- the U.S. and the U.K. won't take on his call for a global regulator.
Well, that gives him a chance to blame the Anglo Saxons in the U.K. and the U.S. for the mess we're in. He's also in a troubled position because of the economy, and it helps for him to rail against these folks that aren't inside his country.
So I think at the end of the day, it will -- Charles is right. I don't think a lot will happen and I don't think there will be much out of it that is substantive.
We will get to see Obama, who is quite popular with the population there, we will see expressions of -- although we will see dissent. We will see some anti-war protests, as we're already seeing.
BAIER: Is there any chance that the Americans, President Obama and the administration, will sign on to some version of a global regulator after this G20 summit?
MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: What there is going to be is a college of regulators that are going to consult with one another. The top regulators in the various countries are going to talk to each other and try to coordinate.
But the idea of what Sarkozy wants to do -- I mean, there should be, the world desperately needs a new Bretton Woods -- that's the postwar agreement where we established the IMF and we agreed to fight protectionism, and all that.
This is a global crisis. You've got credit flows that sweep across the world with, you know, keystrokes on a computer. And there ought to be some sort of regulation.
But you're not going to have an agreement because the Europeans, for one thing, their idea of regulation is to close down hedge funds. You know, they don't want anybody shorting the euro.
And we believe -- the Anglo-Saxons believe in a more robust, kind of innovative financial system. It got so innovative under Bush that the whole world nearly collapsed, but nonetheless, we have a different philosophy than they do.
So there's not going to be any agreement on that.
I think this is Obama's introduction to the world stage. He is going to meet with people he has never met with before. They will all size each other up. It had to happen sometime. It is going to happen now.
And it is like a fraternity rush. We will get some notion of what they think about him.
BAIER: You don't think much about the communique coming out of the G20 either?
KONDRACKE: There will be a lot of statements of agreement on this and agreements on that, but I don't think there will be a lot of substance to it.
KRAUTHAMMER: The only statement that would have any importance at all would be a statement about protectionism, which is important and it will be in there.
The problem is we had a statement on protectionism at the first meeting of this group in September, and since September, 17 of the 20 have instituted laws that have protectionism in one extent or another, including our country.
So the bottom line is nothing will come out of this.
BAIER: Last word?
EASTON: Nothing substantive. I think a lot of pretense but no big agreement.
KONDRACKE: One thing you can say about it, expectations are low.
