World Leaders' Worries

Former President Bill Clinton

In September 2005, American and foreign leaders gathered in New York at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference to discuss the biggest issues facing our world.

What do they think we should be worried about?

Former president Bill Clinton thinks Americans should be concerned about foreign policy issues, and, more importantly, bringing the citizens of the world together.

"In the short run, you should be worried about foreign policy challenges," Clinton says. "Will North Korea or Iran become nuclear powers? Will biological weapons get out? Will terror again strike within the United States or in the UK or our allies?"

"Over the long run, you should worry about building a world that's coming together instead of coming apart—and that starts with America," he says. "We need to become citizens of the world in a positive way. We should all say, 'Okay, we're going to support good things for our country. But whatever I can afford, I'm going to help somebody halfway around the world. Just like I did in the tsunami, and just like they did for us in Katrina.' We need to behave that way all the time. We have to understand we're all bound up together. We're going up or down together whether we like it or not, so it might as well be up."