Blair: UK prosperity depends on foreign policy
Security and prosperity in Britain will only be achieved by tackling problems of poverty and conflict abroad, Tony Blair said this evening.
The prime minister also said the UK would treble trade aid to £100 million a year by 2010 and called on the other leading industrial nations to do the same.
Speaking at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, Mr Blair said the problems of terrorism, conflict, climate change and poverty must be dealt with if Britain is to prosper domestically.
“Self-interest and mutual interest are inextricably linked. National interests can best be advanced through collective action,” he said.
“Calculate not just the human misery of the poor themselves. Calculate our loss: the aid; the lost opportunity to trade; the short-term consequences of the multiple conflicts; the long-term consequences on the attitude to the wealthy world of injustice and abject deprivation among the poor.”
And he called on US and EU negotiators to approach the forthcoming world trade talks in Hong Kong positively.
Mr Blair stress that the Doha round of talks was an “opportunity to tackle some of the most fundamental injustices at the heart of world trade”, and he warned that failure would “echo round the world”.
He argued that reducing agricultural and other “trade distorting” subsides would help lift millions of people in the developing world out of poverty.
But the prime minister also called on developing states such as Brazil to open up their industrial and service sectors to foreign involvement.
“In return Brazil, India and others must move on cuts in industrial tariffs, services liberalisation, with proper flexibility for developing countries that need to sequence their commitments in line with their development needs,” he said.
The five-day World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Hong Kong begin on December 13th.
