Madeleine Albright Meets With G20 Delegates On Behalf Of Obama

November 17, 2008 7:03 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Former secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Iowa Republican Rep. Jim Leach met with delegations to the G20 economic summit hosted by President George W. Bush over the weekend. They represented President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who were both briefed after the meetings.

Albright and Leach said in a statement the meetings were "constructive" and that the President-elect believes the conference "is an important opportunity to seek a coordinated response to the global financial crisis."

"There is one President at a time, so the President-elect asked us to represent him in receiving the views of these important partners. We also conveyed President-elect Obama's determination to continuing to work together on these challenges after he takes office in January," they added.

Representatives with whom Albright and Leach met included Canada's director of Priorities, Planning and Research Mark Cameron, China's state councilor Dai Bingguo, and the head of Cabinet of the president of the European Commission, Joao Vale de Almeida. They also held talks with Foreign Policy and Security advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Christoph Heusgen, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, President Lee Myung-Bak of South Korea and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Albright served as secretary of State and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration.

Leach chaired the chaired the House Banking and Financial Services Committee, the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China during his three decades as Iowa congressman.

Bush said at the close of the two-day summit in Washington that world leaders had a "productive and successful meeting." Leaders from the G20, a group of twenty nations formed in 1999 after the last global financial crisis, released a declaration pledging their cooperation and support for more "vigorous" steps to stabilize and financial markets.

They said that they had all taken "strong action" to address regulatory deficiencies and to unfreeze credit markets, but that "more needs to be done" to stop "deteriorating economic conditions worldwide," including a coordinate effort to reform and strengthen accountability among regulatory agencies.

The G20 conference is planned as the first of a series seeking principles of reform that aim to prevent a similar global economic crisis in the future.

A day before the summit last week, Bush gave his strongest defense of the free market system, saying, "It's true this crisis included failures - by lenders and borrowers and by financial firms and by governments and independent regulators. But the crisis was not a failure of the free market system." Calling capitalism the "engine of social mobility" and the "highway to the American Dream," the President also cited the failure of nations such as Cuba and the Soviet Union, that based their economies on other systems."

On Saturday, Bush said, "Leaders at this summit agreed on some other matters of importance. One is to reject protectionism and refrain from erecting new trade barriers." ... President-Elect Obama's transition team has been fully briefed on what we intended to do here at this meeting... even though we're from different political parties, I believe it's in our country's interest that he succeed."