US rift with Europe 'a worry'

Multinational business executives expressed anxiety yesterday about the state of the transatlantic relationship, at a meeting of international business people and diplomats in Brussels.

Mr Alan Larson, the US undersecretary for economic, business and agricultural affairs, and a senior economic adviser to Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell, had been invited by the European Policy Centre, the pro-business think-tank, to spell out the future of transatlantic relations.

Instead, his audience vented its concern that Washington is eroding decades of multilateralism.

Mr George Brodach from ABB, the Swiss-Swedish industrial group, asked why, if the US kept saying it needed international support for helping rebuild Iraq, Europeans were not being asked to compete for tenders.

Mr Howard Chase of BP said people on both sides of the Atlantic wanted to know whether the Bush administration would put multilateralism back on track once the war was over.

Mr Larson's audience also asked what were Washington's intentions over the Kyoto protocol on global warming or the new International Criminal Court that the US has refused to ratify.

Mr Larson defended himself as best he could. But US diplomats sensed it was a losing battle.

The business community was speaking out, a warning to the pro-business administration how opposition to its unilateralist philosophy was mounting.