John McCain called for a new ``League of Democracies'' to advance western values and said he'd explore a free-trade agreement with the European Union in a speech outlining his foreign policy positions. ``We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact -- a League of Democracies -- that can harness the vast influence of the more than 100 democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests,'' McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.
Such democracies include the European Union as well as India, Japan, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, Turkey and Israel, McCain said. ``We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to,'' he said.
The Group of Eight leading industrial nations should be expanded to include Brazil and India, but exclude Russia, he said. ``Rather than tolerate Russia's nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organization's doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom,'' McCain said. |