I just got back from the Ronald Reagan Building (or the "New Building at Federal Triangle" as a colleague of mine calls it) where President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush addressed the US Global Leadership Campaign. Both talked about the importance of the international affairs budget--both for what it does to help lift people out of poverty around the world and because it helps the United States by creating economic opportunities and promoting common humanitarian values. President Bush said that the United States had a "special reponsibility to help those who are not as blessed".

The speech comes one week before the couple attends the 33rd G8 Summit in the Baltic resort town of Heiligendamm, Germany. In addition to talking about his administration's record on aid to Africa, PEPFAR, the MCA, the President's Malaria Initiative and debt relief, President Bush took the opportunity to lay out some of the "initiatives" he plans to take to the G8.

• Trade: He said he would press G8 leaders on completing the Doha Round of trade negotiations, saying that "trade will improve lives a lot faster than governmental aid can."
• Africa Financial Sector Initiative: He proposed to establish this initiative to provide technical assistance through OPIC to mobilize $1 billion with the help of the financial sector to provide capital for investment in Africa--more details on this when they emerge.
• Basic Education: President Bush announced an additional $300 million for the Africa Education Initiative and an additional $525 million over the next 5 years for basic education worldwide
• Climate Change and Energy: This was probably the most anticipated part of the speech--see NY times story. As far as I can tell, and my colleague Becca will blog about this later after she has had a chance to delve into the details (and correct me if I'm wrong), President Bush pretty much derailed both the process Angela Merkel has laid out and the post-Kyoto process--this comes after many reports that the administration is blocking the inclusion of meaningful emissions targets in the G8 outcome documents.  Acknowledging that global climate change is occurring--"science had deepened the understanding of climate change", which "the United States takes very seriously" and that the US would continue to fulfill its responsibilities under the Framework Convention on Climate Change to help provide clean energy technologies to help developing countries meet their growing energy needs --President Bush proposed:

  "By the end of next year, America and other nations will set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases. To develop this goal, the United States will convene a series of meetings of nations that produce the most greenhouse gasses, including nations with rapidly growing economies like India and China. Each country would establish midterm management targets and programs that reflect their own mix of energy sources and future energy needs...In the course of the next 18 months, our nations will bring together industry leaders from different sectors of our economies, such as power generation, and alternative fuels and transportation.''

 Overall, as is his administration's MO, each of the announcements made in this speech and all week (from the Darfur speech, to the nomination of Bob Zoellick, to the doubling of AIDS funding through PEPFAR) were unilateral in nature, with little reference to the need to work in coordination with ongoing multilateral efforts.

--Asma Lateef