ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday Asia-Pacific leaders should focus on raising living standards as a way to reduce violence, terrorism and the need for military action.

Terrorism and
trade at APEC

Pacific Rim countries line up
behind an American plan to
make trade and travel safer

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By Niko Price
Associated Press

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico >> Pacific Rim countries struggling to balance safety and prosperity lined up behind a sweeping American plan to make trade and travel safer, even as some executives cautioned that too much security was bad for business.

Foreign and economy ministers representing the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum capped two days of meetings with a declaration supporting the U.S. plan, which would standardize customs information, put electronic seals on shipping containers, tighten baggage screening at airports and reinforce cockpits.

The ministers said they were addressing "twin goals": "enhanced security against terrorist threats and continued promotion of economic growth."

"Terrorism, in all its forms, is a threat to economic stability in APEC, as well as a threat to regional peace and security, and a direct challenge to APEC's vision of free, open and prosperous economies," they said in the declaration.

But business leaders, who met for a second day today in a parallel conference of 400 executives from Manhattan to Manila, were torn.

On the one hand, they called for controls to stanch the wave of terrorism has sent the global economy into a slump. On the other hand, they worried that stricter rules for trade could make it even harder to do business in this age of globalization.

"If we can't move goods and people, we can't trade in a global economy," said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The economic agenda cannot prosper unless the issue of terrorism and potential terrorist acts are dealt with."

Heads of state flew in for the summit culminating the APEC gathering, but most had no official duties until tomorrow. They joined the ministers last night for a dinner hosted by Mexican President Vicente Fox, where a military band and a string quartet serenaded them.

Winds picked up and a light rain fell as Hurricane Kenna, a category-four storm, smashed into the Mexican mainland southeast of the summit site. Kenna missed Cabo San Lucas, but organizers said they had an evacuation plan and an alternate summit site ready.

For the second year in a row, terrorism overtook free trade as the dominant theme in APEC discussions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled his trip after Chechen separatists took hundreds of hostages less than three miles from the Kremlin. Indonesia and the Philippines both are grappling with deadly bombings and U.S. authorities believed they might have arrested a sniper who terrorized their nation for three weeks.

The theater hostage-taking in Moscow "is not just a separate event. It is part of the chain of terrorism," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters.

Some executives complained that the violence was drawing too much attention away from the economic goals the leaders came to discuss.

"It's a shame for those of us who want to push an agenda of free trade and more commerce," Nelson Cunningham, managing director of the Washington consulting firm Kissinger McLarty Associates. "APEC has been hijacked by the terrorists."

Secretary of State Colin Powell said it was important that forums like APEC not be devoted to "the particular crisis of the day," but said it was inevitable that terrorism would come under discussion.