Washington D.C., Dec 1, 2005 / 22:00 pm
In a private Oval Office meeting yesterday Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington urged President George W. Bush to ensure that trade negotiations taking place this month in Hong Kong protect the interests of the poor around the world.
“The fight against poverty around the world is vital to establishing solidarity among peoples and nations,” said Cardinal McCarrick after the meeting in his notes to White House media. “Global trade rules, when framed from the perspective of the ‘least among us,’ can lead to more equitable prosperity and stability in a world where growing inequality and instability are very often dangerous realities.”
Cardinal McCarrick’s meeting with the president comes days before the sixth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, slated for Dec. 13-18, in Hong Kong. The current Doha Round of negotiations, begun in Doha, Qatar, in 2001, was expected to promote human development in poor countries through global trade, something critics claim is not currently happening.
The cardinal lauded the proposed changes in United States agricultural policies and their anticipated impact on world trade, and he urged the president to work to “substantially reduce, if not eliminate, trade-distorting federal subsidies while protecting small and medium-sized farms in the United States.”