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Gordon Brown will champion free trade at G20 summit
The UK government will be pressing for as strong a commitment against protectionism as it can muster at the London summit in April.
The Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch Brown told reporters at the UN in New York today that the fight against protectionism would be central to the 2 April meeting, in which the new G20 grouping of rich and developing nations will gather to discuss common approaches to combating the global economic crisis.
He likened the British prime minister to the leading 18th century advocate of free trade: "Gordon Brown is Adam Smith reincarnated when it comes to this kind of stuff."
The government is particularly keen to ensure that any hint of protectionism is kept out of the London summit. The last meeting of the G20 in Washington in November was criticised for failing to prevent unilateral moves in that direction. Since the Washington summit some countries have begun to raise trade barriers.
"As we move towards a deepening of this crisis towards a more apocalyptic view of it, it is the dark clouds of protectionism that worry the commentators and indeed politicians most," he said.
Malloch Brown predicted: "It will be a real challenge for this summit to be relevant and not to be seen as a redundant talking shop as jobs and growth burn up."
Malloch Brown has ministerial responsibility for Africa and Asia, and liaison with the UN, where he was deputy general-secretary in 2006.
Now as a member of the UK government, Malloch Brown said the Obama administration would be central to the London gathering, the US president's first attendance at an international summit. Obama's commitment to returning the US to a more multilateral position, and the similarities between what Washington was trying to do to stimulate its domestic economy and what the G20 summit would seek to do globally, all pointed towards renewed engagement, he said.
"In some ways this is the Obama plan writ global," he said.
The UK will press at the summit for new mechanisms to open up financial tools for combating the global recession to poorer countries, as part of its on-going support for the developing world. Poorer nations are already struggling as a result of cutbacks in aid from rich countries in the wake of the crisis.