San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, May 22, 2003
Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau

In addition to trying to save lives in fighting a disease that has killed 25 million people, analysts said Bush's plea to the other leaders who will attend the Group of 8 summit in Evian, France, could be an attempt to heal the rift with France, Germany and Russia over the war in Iraq.

The plan to nearly triple spending on AIDS treatment and prevention in 12 African countries, Haiti and Guyana -- an idea pursued fruitlessly by liberal Bay Area members of Congress until Bush embraced it in his State of the Union address in January -- will provide 2 million people with life-saving medications. It will also prevent an estimated 7 million new infections and help care for 10 million AIDS orphans.

"When I travel to Europe next week, I will challenge our allies to make a similar commitment, which will save even more lives. I will remind them that the clock is ticking," Bush said as he delivered the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. He plans to sign the legislation next week.

Bush will meet with the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Britain, Italy and Canada -- the G-8 nations -- and the European Union from June 1-3, and he will now be able to tell the leaders of those other countries that unless they contribute more, the United States will be giving 50 percent of the money for the Global AIDS Fund.

In passing the legislation, Congress said America should give up to $1 billion a year to the fund, but only if that amount totaled no more than one- third of its contributions. That means other nations must donate more money. The other $2 billion envisioned annually under the bill would be spent by the United States, through government agencies and nonprofit groups.

"We clearly are the international leaders with this piece of legislation," said Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, a House co-sponsor of the bill. "The countries that didn't support us in Iraq now have an opportunity to step forward.

"I'd be deeply disappointed if France and Germany don't step forward in a similarly bold manner," added Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee.

Lael Brainard, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution, said the AIDS bill helps Bush as he prepares for the annual summit.

"The pressure will be on the other countries to come up with more money," she said.

Brainard's Brookings colleague Ivo Daalder, who was a National Security Council official in the Clinton administration, said the idea that the effort on AIDS could help heal the current Iraq-related rift in the U.S.-European alliance is overly optimistic.

"Every attempt to make unifying elements from other threats, from terrorism to AIDS, isn't going to work," said Daalder. He said the Iraq rift showed that Europe and the United States, after more than 50 years of moving in lockstep because of the Soviet threat, are now reverting to a more normal relationship in which countries can remain friendly while still occasionally disagreeing.

And, in the same speech Wednesday, the president may have exacerbated the split when he criticized those same European countries for aggravating hunger in Africa with restrictive trade policies on genetically modified food.

The European Union has succumbed to "unfounded, unscientific fears" that make it harder for impoverished African and other Third World farmers to sell their products in European markets, Bush said, escalating a fight over the Europeans' decision to close their markets to bioengineered foods.

Chronicle news services contributed to this report. / E-mail Edward Epstein at eepstein@sfchronicle.com.
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