US: US President Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder put their bitter feud over the Iraq war behind them yesterday but Mr Schröder brought up a new problem: the dollar's weakness against the euro.
"We've had differences in the past. But there's nothing wrong with friends having differences and we are both committed to put the differences behind us and move forward," Mr Bush told reporters as he and Mr Schröder sat in the Oval Office.
Mr Schröder said he told Mr Bush of German concerns about the weakness of the dollar versus the euro, which Germany feels is depressing German exports.
The US position on the dollar, which Mr Schröder said Mr Bush repeated, is that the administration backs a strong US currency. But a cheaper dollar has helped the US cope with its current record trade imbalance because it makes US-produced exports cheaper in foreign markets.
Mr Schröder said Mr Bush told him that while he is interested in a strong dollar, governments only have a limited ability to influence currencies.
"I conveyed that we are obviously concerned about the euro-dollar relationship," he said.
German officials have said they are still not convinced of the reasons for the Iraq war, a war which Mr Schröder had tried to head off in a fight that pitted Germany, France and Russia against the US, Britain and Spain.
European opponents to the war feel vindicated by the US failure to find weapons of mass destruction that Mr Bush had cited as the key justification to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Now the debate is over how to guarantee democracy in Iraq.
"We talked not about the past. We very much agreed on that. We have to talk about the present and the future now. We both have a great interest in seeing a stable, democratic Iraq develop," said Mr Schröder.
Germany helped thwart a UN resolution that Mr Bush wanted as international backing for the war. But Mr Bush had long been angry at Mr Schröder before that debate, since Mr Schröder had campaigned against Washington's Iraq policy during his 2002 re-election campaign.
It was Mr Schröder's first return to the White House in two years. Mr Bush and Mr Schröder broke the ice in what had been a frosty relationship in September on the fringes of the UN Security Council session in New York. Mr Bush is trying to put the Iraq war feud behind him this year and make peace with traditional European allies.
Besides Iraq, the two leaders discussed resolving the problem of North Korea's nuclear program, finding peace in the Middle East and stabilising Afghanistan.
Speaking of their relationship, Mr Bush said: "The chancellor has got a good sense of humour. And therefore he is able to make me laugh. And a person who can make me laugh is a person who is easy to be with."
Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry called terrorism a "mortal challenge" to the US yesterday and said he could make Americans safer and more secure than President Bush.
Mr Kerry offered a battle plan for the war on terror, including the use of military force when necessary, a "name and shame" campaign against countries that finance terror and elevation of the CIA director to control all national intelligence resources.
"We cannot win the war on terror through military power alone," Mr Kerry said. - (Reuters)