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Bill’s business deals may be a problem for Hillary

Former US president Bill Clinton delivers a speech at the Club of Madrid in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on Friday. PHOTO: EPA

Former US president Bill Clinton’s globe-trotting business deals and fundraising for his foundation sometimes put his activities abroad at odds with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and it could cause complications for her if president-elect Barack Obama considers her for secretary of state.

During her presidential campaign earlier this year, the senator criticized China for its crackdown on protesters in Tibet and urged US President George W. Bush to skip the Olympics in Beijing. Her campaign was embarrassed by reports that her husband’s foundation had raised money from a Chinese Internet company that posted a government “Most Wanted” notice seeking information on Tibetan human-rights activists that may have been involved in the demonstrations.

Senator Clinton has campaigned as a champion of workers’ rights.

Earlier this year, Brazilian labor inspectors found what they called “degrading” living conditions for sugar cane workers employed by an ethanol company in which Bill Clinton invested.

In the Senate, Hillary Clinton was an outspoken critic of a proposed deal under which a Dubai company planned to buy a British business that helped run six major US ports. Meanwhile, the company, named DP World, privately sought Bill Clinton’s advice about how to respond to the controversy in Washington over the port plan, which the company later abandoned.

Bill Clinton’s fundraising for his presidential library and charitable activities also could pose additional headaches for Senator Clinton if he selects her for the job.

Since leaving the White House in early 2001, Bill Clinton has raised at least US$353 million for the William J. Clinton Foundation, which finances his presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas, as well as his global anti-AIDS initiative and other charitable efforts.

The former president has raised money overseas beyond the Chinese Internet company’s contributions: the Saudi royal family; the king of Morocco; a foundation linked to the United Arab Emirates; and the governments of Kuwait and Qatar, the New York Times reported last year.

His foundation reaped millions of dollars from Canadian mining tycoon Frank Giustra, and Clinton accompanied Giustra on a 2005 trip to Kazakhstan, whose human-rights record Senator Clinton had criticized. The pair met with Kazakhstan’s president and within days Giustra’s company landed preliminary agreements giving it rights to buy into uranium projects controlled by a Kazakhstan state-owned enterprise. Bill Clinton said he had nothing to do with the deal.

Bill Clinton has cultivated the image of a senior statesman since leaving the White House, often making speeches abroad. That role could be diminished if his wife were representing the Obama administration on international issues.

In a 6,400-word speech in London in March 2006, the former president laid out his views on a variety of world issues. Buried in the lengthy address were a few lines that could make a White House press office rush for damage control.

“The Palestinians are younger and poorer today than they were when we started the peace process in 1993,” Bill Clinton said. “And I have never met a single poor Palestinian anywhere in the world except in the Palestinian territories. Every single Palestinian I know in America is a millionaire or a college professor, and I say that with deep respect, but when there is a conflict, when there is an absence of security, there is always an absence of opportunity.”

He also said: “Whatever you believe about the Iraq thing, we all have a stake in seeing it succeeded and one of the reasons it isn’t is because the environment is still not secure and electricity production is still below where it was before the conflict began.”

In related news, former Cuban president Fidel Castro cast doubt on Friday on the possibility that a new US president would bring much change in US policy.

In an obtusely worded column published on the Internet, Castro said “many dream that with the simple change of command in the leadership of the empire, it will be more tolerant and less bellicose.”

“The most intimate thoughts of the citizen who will take the helm are not yet known,” he wrote.

But, he went on, “It would be highly naive to believe that the good intentions of one intelligent person could change what centuries of interests and selfishness have created. Human history shows another thing.”

Obama, who was elected on Nov. 4 and takes office on Jan. 20, has raised hopes of better US-Cuba relations by saying he would hold talks with the Cuban government and ease a 46-year-old US trade embargo.

Before the election, Castro praised Obama as intelligent and humanitarian in the columns that have become his primary form of public communication since undergoing intestinal surgery for an undisclosed ailment in July 2006.
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