Bush not meeting with other leaders

UPDATE - 5 P.M. - A White House official confirmed to me that Mr. Bush didn’t schedule any bilats Friday for a few reasons.

One, there are 18 foreign heads of state, and “he couldn’t accomodate them all.” That is a White House point of view that assumes all of the leaders wanted an audience with Mr. Bush, but it may be accurate.

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Second, the president spent most of Friday cramming for the economic summit on Saturday. The issues under debate are incredibly complex, so Mr. Bush probably needed every moment of preparation he could get.

Third, Mr. Bush is headed to Peru next week for an Asian Pacific Economic Council summit, and he’ll have bilateral meetings there with several heads of state.

I’ve pasted the list of delegations to this weekend’s summit at the bottom, below the original posting. The summit is a gathering of Group of 20 countries, but there are only 19 actual countries. The 20th spot is occupied by the European Union.

And you can read here about all the foreign leaders, including a few heads of state, who have met or are going to meet with representatives of President-elect Barack Obama while here for the summit

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Heads of state from 18 countries are coming to Washington Friday for a dinner at the White House in the evening that kicks off a summit to deal with the global economic crisis.

Many incoming foreign leaders are taking advantage of the event to hold numerous bilateral meetings with one another, which is customary for large gatherings like this.

For example, a copy of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s schedule shows he has five meetings Friday before the White House dinner, and another three meetings Saturday, in addition to a press conference.

In addition to meetings with foreign leaders from Russia, China, Brazil, Australia and Japan, Mr. Brown is also meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

But he is not meeting with President Bush.

In fact, Mr. Bush is not meeting one on one with any foreign leaders, which is unusual especially since he has no public events on Friday until the evening dinner.

White House press secretary Dana Perino wouldn’t say Friday why Mr. Bush was not meeting with anybody.

“The President is going to meet with all the leaders tonight.  And he’s had a lot of bilateral meetings in the last couple of months,” Mrs. Perino said.

She said that “he’ll have more [bilats] even next weekend” at a summit in Peru.

“So I think that we’ll just keep the agenda as we have it,” she said.

Mr. Bush is hosting the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at Camp David on Sunday.

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List of delegations to economic summit:

Argentina:

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner — President

Carlos Fernandez – Minister of Finance

Hector Timerman – Sherpa

Jorge Taiana – Deputy Minister of Finance

Australia:

Kevin Rudd – Prime Minister

Wayne Swan – Treasurer

David Tune – Associate Secretary (Sherpa)

Michael Callaghan – Special Envoy to the International Economy

Brazil:

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – President

Guido Mantega – Minister of Finance

Marcos Galvao – Deputy Minister of Finance

Antonio Aguiar Patriota – Sherpa

Canada:

Stephen Joseph Harper – Prime Minister

James Flaherty – Minister of Finance

Leonard John Edwards – Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (Sherpa)

Tiff Macklem – Deputy Minister of Finance

China:

Hu Jintao – President

Wang Qishan – Vice Premier

Xie Xuren – Finance Minister

He Yafei – Sherpa

France:

Nicolas Sarkozy – President

Christine Lagarde – Finance Minister

Francois Perol – Deputy Chief of Staff

Jean-David Levitte – Sherpa

Germany:

Angela Merkel – Chancellor

Peer Steinbrueck – Minister of Finance

Jens Weidmann – Sherpa

Joerg Asmussen – Deputy Finance Minister

India:

Manmohan Singh – President

Palaniappan Chidambaram – Finance Minister

Montek Singh Ahluwalia – Sherpa

Ashok Chawla – Deputy Finance Minister

Indonesia:

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – President

Sri Mulyani – Finance Minister

Anggito Abimanyu – Deputy Finance Minister

M. Chatib Basri – Sherpa

Italy:

Silvio Berlusconi – President

Giulio Tremonti – Minister of Finance

Vittorio Grilli – Deputy Minister of Finance

Giampiero Massolo – Sherpa

Japan:

Taro Aso – Prime Minister

Shoichi Nakagawa – Minister of Finance

Masaharu Kohno – Sherpa

Naoyuki Shinohara – Vice Minister of Finance

Mexico:

Felipe Calderon Hinojosa – President

Agustin Carstens Carstens – Minister of Finance

Patricia Espinosa Cantellano – Sherpa

Alejandro Warner Wainfeld – Deputy Finance Minister

Netherlands (representing the European Union):

Jan Peter Balkenende – Prime Minister

Jan Cornelis de Jager – Minister of Finance

Jan Theopile Versteeg – Sherpa

Martinus Verwey – Deputy Minister of Finance

Republic of Korea:

Lee Myung-bak – President

Kang Man-Soo – Minister of Strategy and Finance

Ahn Ho-young – Sherpa

Shin Jeyoon – Deputy Finance Minister

Russia:

Dmitry Medvedev – President

Aleksey Kudrin – Minister of Finance

Arkady Dvorkovich – Sherpa

Dmitry Pankin – Deputy Minister of Finance

Saudi Arabia:

King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz

Saud Al-Faisal – Minister of Foreign Affairs

Ibrahim Al-Assaf – Minister of Finance

Hamad Al-Sayari – Governor of SAMA

South Africa:

Kgalema Motlanthe – President

Trevor Manuel – Minister of Finance

Kulu Mbatha – Sherpa

Elias Lesetja Kganyago – Deputy Finance Minister

Spain (representing the European Union):

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero – President

Pedro Solbes – Minister of Finance

David Vegara – Sherpa

Marek Mora – Deputy Minister of Finance

Turkey:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan – Prime Minister

Nazim Ekren – Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister

Mehmet Simsek – Minister of State

Selim Kuneralp – Sherpa

United Kingdom:

Gordon Brown – Prime Minister

Alistair Darling – Minister of Finance

Jonathan Cunliffe – Sherpa

Stephen Pickford – Deputy Finance Minister

United States:

George W. Bush – President

Henry Paulson – Secretary of the Treasury

Daniel Price – Sherpa

David McCormick – Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs

European Union:

Jose Manuel Barroso – President, European Commission

Joaquin Almunia – Commissioner

Joao Vale de Almeida – Sherpa

Marco Buti – Deputy Finance Minister

World Bank:

Robert B. Zoellick – President

Ngozi N. Okonjo-Iweala – Managing Director

United Nations:

Ban Ki-Moon – Secretary-General

Kemal Dervis – Administrator, UN Development Program

International Monetary Fund:

Dominque Strauss-Kahn – Managing Director

John Lipsky – Deputy Managing Director

Financial Stability Forum:

Mario Draghi – Chairman

Svein Andresen – Secretary General