Gordon Brown and Barack Obama on the doorstep of No. 10Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Gordon Brown today insisted Britain and the US were united in their determination to tackle the "unprecedented" economic crisis.
After nearly two hours of talks with President Barack Obama, the Prime Minister praised his "energy and dynamism" at a joint press conference.
"President Obama and I are agreed about the significance of this week's G20 meeting that the world is coming together to act in the face of unprecedented global financial times," he added.
Mr Brown said the "first duty" of the world leaders gathering in London was to the ordinary people suffering as a result of the global economic crisis and anxious about their jobs, their mortgages and their futures.
After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, it was 15 years before the leaders of the world got together to build a new global framework to restore growth and prosperity, he said.
By contrast, tomorrow's summit in London's Docklands was happening within a matter of months of the start of the current crisis.
Mr Brown said: "We are co-operating to shorten the recession and we are working together to protect and save jobs."
The summit should not produce merely a "lowest common denominator" solution, said the Prime Minister.
"We must stand united in our determination to do whatever is necessary," he said.
"This is an unprecedented economic crisis. People have lost their homes, their jobs and in some cases their hope. And President Obama and I are agreed today that the actions we take are global solutions to global problems."
Mr Brown said the G20 leaders - representing 85% of world trade - faced five tests which "if met, will create a new consensus for the world".
These included tougher and more transparent supervision of the world banking system; action to restore growth; strengthened international financial institutions; the rejection of protectionism; and action to help poorer countries and ensure a low-carbon future.
Both men are agreed that there would be no sustainable recovery until the banks are "cleaned up", said Mr Brown.
Looking ahead to tomorrow's meeting, the Premier said: "We have some tough negotiations ahead. They will not be easy, but I know from my talks this week and my discussions with President Obama that the world does want to come together.
"Britain and America, working together, can help make this consensus not something that is agreed on paper but which truly delivers for people everywhere who are worried about their jobs, their hopes and their family budgets."
Mr Brown said he was "honoured" to work with Mr Obama so closely, adding: "We share a personal friendship. I believe we can continue to work together for the common good."
Mr Obama said he had found time today to discuss dinosaurs with the Browns' sons.
Turning to the G20, he went on: "You are to be congratulated, because you have shown extraordinary energy and leadership and initiative in laying the groundwork for the summit.
"All of us owe Prime Minister Brown an extraordinary debt of gratitude for his preparations on what I believe will be an historic and essential meeting of the G20 nations."
Mr Obama stressed the importance of the "special relationship" between Britain and America, and said he was pleased that his first meeting overseas was with Mr Brown.
"The United States and the United Kingdom have stood together through thick and thin, through war and peace, through hard times and prosperity," he said.
"We have always emerged stronger through standing together."
Mr Obama said a "kinship of ideals" linked the two nations, and insisted the relationship had to be "constantly renewed".
He stressed the "urgency of action" by the G20, in order to help "people around the world who were already desperate before the crisis, and now find themselves even more desperate afterwards".
"Make no mistake, we are facing the most severe economic crisis since World War Two, and the global economy is now so fundamentally interlinked that we can only meet this challenge together," the president said.
He went on: "The United States is committed, working alongside the United Kingdom, to do whatever it takes to stimulate growth and demand, and ensure that a crisis like this never happens again."
Mr Obama said his administration had proposed a "clear set of 21st century rules of the road" for financial institutions.
He said other G20 nations were "appropriately pursuing their own approaches".
"We are not going to agree on every point. I came here to put forward our ideas, but I also came here to listen and not to lecture."
But Mr Obama insisted the G20 nations "must not miss the opportunity" to find "common ground" and tackle the issues. He insisted "enormous progress" could be made.
"History shows us that when nations fail to co-operate, when they turn away from one another, when they turn inwards, the price for our people only grows. That is how the great depression deepened. That is a mistake we cannot afford to repeat."
Mr Brown dismissed suggestions that the French president Nicolas Sarkozy may walk out of the summit if he did not get the tough global financial regulation he wanted.
"I'm absolutely confident that President Sarkozy will not only be here for the first course at our dinner, but still be sitting as we complete our dinner this evening," he joked.
Mr Brown added: "We are within a few hours, I think, of agreeing a global plan for economic recovery and reform. I think the significance of this is that we are looking at every aspect...
"Of course it is difficult and of course it is complex - we have a large number of countries - but I am very confident that people not only want to work together but we can agree a common global plan for recovery and reform."
Mr Obama insisted he remained "a big believer in global markets" and wished to see them functioning well.
But he added: "What we have to understand is that that is going to require some sort of regulatory framework to ensure it doesn't jump the rails. That is something that I think we are going to be able to put together."
Mr Obama rejected suggestions that the leaders meeting in London were deeply riven by splits over fiscal stimulus, regulation of the financial system and support for poorer countries.
"I am absolutely confident that this meeting will reflect enormous consensus about the need to work in concert to deal with these problems," he said.
"The separation between the various parties has been vastly over-stated."
Countries which have been depicted as opposing fiscal stimulus packages of tax cuts and state spending have almost all already produced stimulus programmes of their own, he said.
"There has not been a dispute about the need for government to act in the face of a rapidly contracting set of markets and very high unemployment," he said.
Differences over the shaping of a further stimulus and about the extent to which European welfare systems were automatically injecting money into the economy were no more than "arguing in the margins", said Mr Obama.
"The core notion that government has to take some steps to deal with a contracting global marketplace, and that we should be promoting growth - that is not in dispute."
He added: "The notion that somehow there are those pushing for regulation and those resisting regulation is belied by the facts."
And he said: "In conversations that Gordon and I have had with our teams, I think there is great symmetry in our belief that even as we deal with the current crisis we have got to make sure we are preventing future crises like this one from happening again."
There was "complete concurrence" among G20 leaders about the need to protect emerging markets and help poorer countries through the recession, said Mr Obama.
"The truth of the matter is that I think there has been an extraordinary convergence and I am absolutely confident that the United States, as a peer of these other countries, will help to lead us through this very difficult time."
Mr Obama said there could be no return to the cycle of "risk taking that leads to bubble and eventually bust".
"We won't solve all our problems in the next few days but we can make real and unprecedented progress."
Asked whether he thought the US should shoulder the blame for causing the crisis, Mr Obama replied: "If you look at the sources of this crisis, the US certainly has some accounting to do with respect of a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that had taken place in the global financial system.
"What is also true is that here in Great Britain, and continental Europe, around the world, we are seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and the highly integrated global capital markets that had emerged."
He added: "I had a professor at law school who said 'Some are to blame but all are responsible' and I think that is the best way for us to approach the problem we have right now."
Mr Obama "At this point I am less interested in identifying blame than in fixing the problem. I think we have taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so."
Mr Obama was questioned again over talk of rifts between different countries over the approach to the economic crisis, with some resisting calls for greater fiscal stimulus.
He replied: "I think there's broad recognition that in the midst of the greatest crisis we have seen since the '30s that governments are going to have to act, and certainly the US does not intend to act alone - and we are not.
"Great Britain has taken serious steps, the European Union has taken serious steps, Australia, Canada, Japan, China, they all initiated significant stimulus packages."
However, he cautioned that the world had become accustomed to the US being a "voracious consumer", adding: "If there is going to be renewed growth, it can't just be the United States as the engine."
Mr Brown said: "What has happened in the world over the last few months has contributed to the biggest fiscal stimulus provided by governments into the world economy in the history of the world.
"We are in the middle of the biggest fiscal boost the world economy has ever had."
The premier said tomorrow's summit communique would show the stimulus injected worldwide would come to "two trillion dollars - indeed more than that".
Asked how much longer the recession would last, neither leader would be drawn
Mr Brown said: "It will get worse if we do not act. The option of doing nothing is not available to us.
"I believe that the degree of international co-operation that we can get will determine how quickly all our economies can recover."
The president added: "Every financial crisis comes to an end, so it will come to an end at some point.
"People should take heart from the fact that governments have learned lessons from the '30s."
But he added: "I don't think there's any doubt that 2009 is going to be difficult."
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