Word: summiteering
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...political leaders on both sides were caught off guard. While the "masses" did not lose a moment, organizing a sort of national jumble sale, changing money, swapping rumors, pulling down fences and repairing bridges, the statesmen scurried from summit to summit, looking more and more nonplussed as they poured forth a torrent of declarations, cautionary tales and contingency plans...
...this trip necessary? A handful of world leaders might ask themselves that question as they converge on Houston this weekend for the 16th Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations. Their visit will be attended by Wild West fanfare and reported by more than 3,000 journalists, but is any real work likely to get done? Many past summits, in fact, produced results as barren as the North Texas Panhandle. If the chief executives of the world's most powerful economies simply spend three days hammering out a pious communique and frolicking at rodeos and barbecues, then maybe this form of junket...
...that would be a shame. The summit assembles what is effectively the world's Economic Security Council, comprising the leaders of the seven major industrial countries -- the U.S., France, Britain, West Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan -- plus the President of the European Commission. The end of the cold war should make this annual event more important than ever. Millions of people in the industrialized world see foreign business competitors as a greater threat to their security than alien armies...
...growing interdependence of the world economy makes cooperation in trade and finance vital to everyone's prosperity. This summit, whose members produce more than half the globe's economic output, is an ideal vehicle for marshaling support for common interests. Among them: ensuring the free flow of commerce, coordinating support for new democracies and promoting efficient solutions to environmental problems...
...summiteers must confront the most divisive issue in the Uruguay Round: the huge agricultural subsidies doled out by these supposedly free-market economies. Each year taxpayers and consumers in the industrialized countries pay roughly $245 billion to support farm prices ($32 billion in the U.S. alone). The leaders of the U.S. and the E.C. should commit to a significant reduction of this gross distortion of world trade. And, just as the European Community is doing internally by 1992, the summit should pledge to eliminate tariffs on manufactured goods and restrictions on trade in services among all industrialized countries...