Dueling speeches: Obama, Romney offer different foreign policy visions (+video)

By proposing to predicate US foreign aid on a country’s openness to US private investment and trade, Romney is touting an idea that is attractive to many Americans – and one that some past administrations have advocated. But development experts say it’s also a concept that runs into the reality of poor countries – Haiti and Afghanistan come to mind – that have little of the infrastructure required for taking advantage of private-sector investment.

Romney said the world also needs a re-do of the existing World Trade Organization in favor of one based on “the rules of free and fair trade.” 

Obama, who has lost some of his international luster but nevertheless remains popular at the UN, arrived at the Clinton confab after a well-received UN speech focusing on Iran’s nuclear challenge and recent anti-American violence in some Muslim countries.

The US estimates that human trafficking affects more than 25 million people worldwide – including in the US.

"The ugly truth is that this goes on right here," he said. "It's the migrant worker unable to pay off the debt to his trafficker.... The teenage girl – beaten, forced to walk the streets. This should not be happening in America."

Anti-trafficking advocates say the fact the president would dedicate an entire speech to combating “modern slavery” is a hopeful signal that the issue – long swept under the rug even as it has burgeoned in a globalizing world – is garnering needed attention.

Obama pledged to make the US a “zero tolerance zone” for human trafficking, and said more government agencies and social partners, like schools, would be enlisted in the fight. Products made with slave labor will be off limits to government procurement, he said, while services for victims of trafficking will be beefed up.

Obama gave his speech and then left New York, skipping the round of bilateral meetings with world leaders that are normally part of the president’s September foray to the UN.

Some Republican critics blasted the president for appearing to put politics above America’s good standing with the world, but a number of world leaders said they understood why Obama cut short his time at the UN.

French President François Hollande said he imagined that, like him, other leaders understood that Obama is in “full campaign” and couldn’t hold a long list of meetings.

Mr. Hollande refused to say whom he preferred to see win the US election – “You can imagine what difficulty it would cause either candidate to be supported by a French Socialist!” – but he gave what may have been a hint. He said he wasn’t worried about not meeting Obama in New York, because he imagined there would be plenty of time for that after November.        

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