Downing Street Says » US Fiscal Stimulus Package

Asked if the UK would support a move by the EU to refer President Obama s fiscal stimulus package to the WTO, the PMS replied that we should wait and see exactly what was in President Obama s stimulus package before we started passing comment on it.

Asked if we were trying to amend it as it goes through, and what did we think about the package, the PMS replied that this was really a matter for the US administration and the US authorities, but the stimulus package was not finalised yet.

Put that the Prime Minister had previously forewarned against protectionism by any country, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister certainly had. We were not going to comment on the specifics of a package that had not yet completed its process through the American system.

Asked that we were presumably lobbying on this, the PMS replied that we were not going to get into private discussions with the US administration, but it would be premature to start passing judgement on something that had not yet been finalised. But in general we were strongly supportive of the approach the Americans were taking in relation to fiscal policy as it very much echoed what we were doing and what every major economy in the world was doing.

Asked in general terms if the Prime Minister thought that President Obama should resist calls for protectionism, the PMS replied that he could see where he was being taken with this question, it was very subtle and gently put, but he was not going to go further than what he had already said.

Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned that during the campaign for the Democratic nomination the Obama camp came out in favour of protectionism, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had made his views on the general issue of protectionism very clear, but we were certainly not going to comment on statements that were made during an earlier campaign.

Asked if Barack Obama was in the Prime Minister s mind when he referred to this issue in his Lord Mayor s Banquet speech last year, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was making a more general statement about the importance of avoiding protectionist measures at a time like this.

Asked if protectionist measures were ever justified, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had made his views well known on the subject of protectionism.

Asked if Chad or Libya introduced protectionist measures, would the Prime Minister be as concerned as if the United States did, the PMS replied that if people would like to have a seminar on the economics of the New Trade Theory then he would be happy to enter into that. But he imagined that everyone had slightly more pressing things to do.

Asked to tell the Lobby what he knew about the New Trade Theory, the PMS replied that it was the subject of a very good book written by Professor Paul Krugman, who was a very distinguished economist who won the Nobel Prize last year on this subject. He had also said some very nice things about the Prime Minister and UK fiscal policy in case people had not spotted it.

Asked if David Miliband had been asked to take a message to the US administration on the fiscal stimulus being planned, the PMS replied that the Foreign Secretary would have a very wide ranging discussion, which would be mostly about foreign policy issues as that was his brief.

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» Tuesday, February 3, 2009

US Fiscal Stimulus Package

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