New London, Conn. ? President Bush accused Europe on Wednesday of aggravating hunger in Africa with restrictive trade policies on genetically modified food.

Bush’s charges are likely to put new strains on trans-Atlantic ties already frayed by divisions over the Iraq war. The president made the accusations in a commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy before a trip to Europe late next week for a summit with allies.

The European Union has succumbed to “unfounded, unscientific fears” that make it harder for impoverished African and other Third-World farmers to sell their products in European markets, Bush asserted, escalating a fight over the Europeans’ decision to close their markets to bioengineered foods. U.S. farmers, eager to sell to foreign markets, have a big stake in the outcome.

Bush also proposed a program to augment the Peace Corps with hundreds of skilled volunteers to provide humanitarian aid in Iraq and elsewhere.

Under a leaden sky and in a light drizzle, Bush told graduates of the first class since the Coast Guard became part of the Homeland Security Department this year that America’s military “had exceeded every expectation” in Iraq.

A day after the government moved the nation’s threat status to its second-highest level, Bush also promised that “America will not relent in the war against global terror.”

But he also emphasized another struggle, one against “the faceless enemies of human dignity: plague and starvation and hopeless poverty. And America is at war with these enemies as well.”

Bush reiterated a proposal to double the size of the Peace Corps over the next five years, and announced a program under the auspices of the White House’s USA Freedom Corps that would “give America’s highly skilled professionals new opportunities to serve abroad.”

U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduate Jessica Mimi Yoo laughs and raises her arms in surprise as officials run out of the commission certificates she was supposed to receive from President Bush, left, near the end of the commencement ceremonies in New London, Conn. The president focused on terrorism and homeland security in an address Wednesday to the graduates.

The president said it would put to work U.S. doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, economists and computer specialists on specific development projects.

John Bridgeland, a White House domestic adviser and director of the USA Freedom Corps, said the initiative would provide an outlet for those who wanted to serve overseas. There is a backlog of 183,000 applicants for 7,000 Peace Corps slots, Bridgeland said.

“There are many highly trained professionals who would find an assignment for weeks or months in Volunteers for Prosperity very attractive,” he said. The new program would tap volunteers for weeks or months, versus the two-year commitment that the Peace Corps requires.

Bush also praised both the House and the Senate for passing his proposed $15 billion, five-year initiative to fight AIDS globally, and said he looked forward to signing the bill. “When I travel to Europe next week, I will challenge our allies to make a similar commitment,” he said.

Passage of the five-year plan aimed at AIDS prevention and treatment in 14 African and Caribbean nations was the outgrowth of a strong bipartisan response to Bush’s urging, in his State of the Union address in January, that the United States take the lead in combatting a disease that has killed 25 million and left some 42 million infected with HIV or living with AIDS.

The legislation, if fully implemented, is intended to prevent 7 million new infections, provide care for 10 million HIV-infected people and AIDS orphans, and provide anti-retroviral therapy for 2 million.