Clinton calls for more global aid

In a hastily scheduled speech delivered to a small audience assembled by the Council on Foreign Relations, he made no reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

With the House of Representatives on the verge of deciding whether to consider impeaching him, he nevertheless pressed a balking Congress to approve his request to provide the International Monetary Fund with $18 billion.

Clinton's remarks came as senior economic policy-makers of the Group of Seven - the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada - issued a statement in London echoing his view that the industrialized nations must do more.

However, both Clinton and the G-7 officials stopped well short of advocating a coordinated cut in interest rates - a step financial markets have demanded as a sign that the major economic powers are willing to act aggressively to contain the spreading Asian economic slump.

Asked if the administration was pushing for an interest-rate cut, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said: "Absolutely not."

Just over a week ago, Federal Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan opened the door to a possible interest-rate reduction if the economic slump overseas becomes more threatening. He, too, stopped well short of promising any such move.

Officials and private analysts both cautioned that yesterday's pronouncements were only a start, and that the industrial countries still have not decided on the kind of broad, coordinated cut in interest rates that financial markets seem to want.

For Clinton, the economic turmoil around the world and its potential impact on the United States carries with it extraordinary consequences: The strength of the economy is widely viewed as the crucial remaining pillar in his wobbling political support.

Clinton said yesterday that the United States has "profound interests" in preventing the slump from widening, saying "there is now a stark challenge not only to economic freedom but - if unaddressed - a challenge that could stem the rising tide of political liberty as well."

With one-quarter of the world living in countries in which economic growth is declining, the president said, "We need to get credit flowing again. We need to get business back to making products, producing services, creating jobs."

The program Clinton unveiled was short on specifics. But he said he had asked Rubin and Greenspan to convene a meeting in Washington next month of the finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven and their counterparts from emerging markets in the developing world.

09-15-98