Staying with the subject of the G20 Summit, I was looking over the White House website for the summit, they provide a fact sheet on the agreement reached by the world leaders last weekend in Washington, it makes for interesting reading. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also takes a look back at the summit, noting two opinion pieces that offer advice for the U.S. effort to deal with the financial crisis:
Leaders from the G-20 countries met in Washington this weekend to discuss the global economic crisis. The inclusion of countries like China, India, and Brazil in these talks points to an important redistribution of economic power beyond the traditional industrialized nations. Albert Keidel explains how China's historic decision to fund a $600 billion domestic stimulus package provides a road map for future U.S. policy. David Rothkopf argues that President-elect Obama will need to promote stronger multilateral institutions to govern global markets.
It's interesting that much of the commentary I’ve read about the summit has noted the historic nature of Bush's invitation to the leaders of emerging economies to join the summit. For a leader in search of a legacy it may be that his inclusion of these countries may have done more to promote multilateralism than the efforts of other countries whose actions seem to be based more on a thinly veiled anti-Americanism than a true desire to build a new international consensus.
Here are some additional international headlines on the summit:
