WASHINGTON — The G8 summit beginning July 20 in Genoa, Italy — U.S. President George W. Bush's first such meeting with the leaders of the eight principal industrial nations — is shaping up as another galling reality lesson for the new American administration, a reminder of the frustrations of global leadership in the post-Cold War world.
Europe, Japan and the United States are sharply divided over what to do to stave off a world recession. Only the American president has the stature to resolve those differences and exercise global economic leadership.
But during its first months in office, the Bush administration has demonstrated a penchant for unilateralism, the worst case a disastrous mishandling of its renunciation of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Relics of a bygone era, Bush advisers apparently believe that global economic management involves Washington charging ahead and others following. They confuse the need for the U.S. to show initiative with the ability of America to dictate the outcome.