They Blog For You

I set off last Sunday afternoon for a three day visit to Washington and New York. My main purpose in going to Washington was to talk to people in the Obama administration and in Congress about the Balkans (the USA maintains a strong interest in countries like Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo and Albania), NATO and US-EU relations. I also gave a speech to the Atlantic Council about the Trans-Atlantic Relationship and visited the US Chamber of Commerce to discuss trade relations and the prospects for the Doha Round of global trade negotiations.

My visit coincided with tense negotiations between the President and Congress, Senate and House, Democrats and Republicans about the federal budget. A deal was finally concluded but the US federal government was only a few hours away from a total shutdown that would have left all but essential federal government services suspended and staff sent home without pay. Representative Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who chairs the House of Representatives sub-committee on European affairs, welcomed me to his office with, as you can see, a magnificent view of the Capitol.

Then it was a three hour train ride to New York arriving on Tuesday night. Besides being America’s financial and business capital, New York is also home to the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly. The UN is playing a key role in helping to facilitate talks between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots with the aim of achieving a settlement to the Cyprus dispute. I am hoping to visit Cyprus a bit later this year and it was helpful to be briefed by senior UN officials on how they saw the situation on the island.

A little later, I took the United Kingdom’s seat at a meeting of the Security Council for a session on Haiti. As you’ll remember, Haiti, already one of the most desperately poor countries on earth, suffered a devastating earthquake in 2010. The UN has a humanitarian interest in Haiti and also has a peacekeeping force deployed there. Haiti has just completed the first round of a presidential and parliamentary election so that this was an appropriate time for a bit of stocktaking by the Security Council. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, had appointed former President Bill Clinton as his special representative for Haiti, and on Wednesday we heard from President Clinton and the outgoing Haitian President, M. Preval, about the reconstruction work that had been completed – and about how much more remained to be done. During my own speech, I confirmed the United Kingdom’s support for Haiti and emphasised the need not only for economic development but also for the reform and strengthening of the courts and the police in Haiti. Public order and confidence in the rule of law are key to attracting the international private sector investment that Haiti needs to provide jobs and a route out of poverty for her people.

The other part of my day in New York was a bit of commercial diplomacy. The Government has identified the promotion of Britain’s prosperity as one of the three key objectives of our foreign policy. The British Consul-General in New York is in charge of all our efforts to help British companies to sell to the United States ( and to encourage US firms to invest in Britain). Besides New York and Washington DC, he has small teams operating in Boston, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles. I visited our Consulate General and later had dinner with a group of New York businessmen and women.