Obama seeks rebalancing, Asia warns of protectionism

By Bill Tarrant

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama called on Saturday for a new strategy to rebalance global growth, but leaders around the Pacific rim, gathering for a weekend summit, took aim at signs of U.S. trade protectionism.

Obama, who arrived in Singapore late on Saturday for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, reiterated his call to redress the economic imbalances blamed by many for the global financial crisis.

The strategy calls for America to save more, spend less, reform its financial system and cut its deficits and borrowing.

"It will also mean a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce, and sell all over the world," Obama said in a speech earlier in Tokyo, his first stop on a nine-day Asian tour.

"We simply cannot return to the same cycles of boom and bust that led us into a global recession.

Fresh government figures on the U.S. trade deficit, which ballooned by more than 18 percent to $36.5 billion in September, could add urgency to Obama's efforts to seek greater export opportunities in China and other Asian countries.

Leaders of APEC, a 21-member grouping accounting for more than half of all global output and 40 percent of world trade, began their two-day summit on Saturday before Obama arrived and resolved to exert more political will to jump-start the Doha round of global talks, a news release after the meeting said.

They also "reiterated their commitment to reject all forms of protectionism," the release said. The homilies on Doha and trade protectionism are the usual templates of the yearly APEC meeting.

A row between two APEC members, Peru and Chile, soured the mood just as the summit was getting under way on Saturday.

Peru said it would leave Singapore early after recalling its envoy from Chile over charges a Peruvian military officer had spied for the Chilean government. The spying charges emerged as tensions between the South American neighbors ran high over a maritime border dispute.

The APEC meeting is the last major gathering of global decision-makers before a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in three weeks meant to ramp up efforts to fight climate change.

However, the latest draft of the leaders' declaration shows they had watered down the text on emissions cuts, dropping a reference to reductions of 50 percent by 2050, and pledging instead to "substantially" cut carbon pollution by 2050.

SNIPING AT WASHINGTON

Calling himself "America's first Pacific President," the Hawaii-born Obama signaled in Tokyo a commitment to the region, but with no specifics on how to re-invigorate his trade agenda.

He in fact largely missed the APEC summit's first day of business, after delaying his departure for Asia to attend a memorial service for soldiers killed in a mass shooting at a U.S. military base.