The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Lima

US President George W. Bush, bidding farewell to the international stage, offered a sweeping defense of free markets as leaders from across the Pacific rim vowed to resist protectionism.

Bush and 20 other leaders meeting in Peru echoed a pledge last week from a summit in Washington promising not to erect new barriers to free trade for 12 months in hopes of lifting the ailing global economy.

On the last foreign trip before he hands the keys to the White House to Barack Obama, Bush held a final summit with Russia described as cordial but cool after months of rising tensions between the former Cold War foes.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, whose members account for half of world trade and include fast-growing China, issued a joint statement denouncing any drift to protectionism in the economic crisis.

The pledge came after Bush staunchly defended his controversial eight-year presidency, summing up his philosophy as "free markets, free trade and free people."

"I believe there is an Almighty and I believe a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom," Bush said.

A smiling Bush, peppering his remarks with Spanish, conceded that recent events showed that governments must sometimes intervene in markets.

The Bush administration led a 700 billion-dollar bailout of Wall Street in hopes the US economy would rebound from its worst crisis since the Great Depression.

"Yet it is also essential that nations resist the temptation to overcorrect by imposing regulations that would stifle innovation and choke off growth," Bush said. "The verdict of history is unmistakable."

He vowed to press hard in his final two months in office to break a deadlock in World Trade Organization negotiations, a pledge made by 20 world leaders last week in Washington for a summit on the financial turmoil.

"We refuse to accept protectionism in the 21st century," Bush said emphatically.