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SEOUL — President Obama’s hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring global economic growth ran into resistance on all fronts yesterday, putting Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.
Resetting the relationships around the globe!
Op, where'd you go? The consensus is clear - more FAILURE.
His trip to Asia turned out as badly as the election. How long has it been that a President went to a foreign capital to put the finishing touches on a trade agreement, only to come away with nothing? Did no one in the White House staff see that coming?
No, none of the amateurs in the WH say it coming. They were good at campaigning, not so good at running the WH or the country.
The minute Bernake cranked up the presses for QE2 the US was a goner at the G20.
Even Greece lectured us on our debt..GREECE, the poster child for a debt ridden country.
Obama's "campaign speeches" to sell his goods don't seem to work on a global scale.
The ship of State was taking on water...thank goodness for the midterm election results! We'll have to do a lot of bailing, but maybe...just maybe...we won't all go under. That's what I call HOPE, not the empty promises we got during the campaign.
In spite of the overblown rhetoric about the cost of this trip by the right, the President has embarked upon an historic effort to rein in China, something which to my way of thinking is long overdue. Over the past 30 years, we've had more than enough of pandering to the Chinese and American companies who do business there.
His first stop was India, which we are now aggresively courting as a bulwark to Chinese expansion into the Indian Ocean area. That's a role India will be more than willing to play as they've been concerned about Chinese economic and military inroads among some of their neighors.
Additionally, India is playing a supportive role in Afghanistan by funding projects and doing other things which help prop up the Kharzi government. Of course, they're not doing that out of altruism, but to contain Pakistan, but that's of no consequence to us as our erstwhile Pakistani allies have been playing us off the Taliban all along. Their duplicity has finally, at long last, resulted in a shift of American reliance away from them and to the burgeoning power of India.
Hat's off the President for that.
Now, he's in Korea attending the G-20 summit where he's been trying to get the other important economic nations to agree to currency stability, but they're refusing. It all revolves around China's currency manipulations which make their exports more competitive, which harms American exports and costs US jobs. But, the Europeans aren't playing ball. They are benefiting from their trade with China and some of the administrations financial reforms are hitting the big European banks, which essentially control our banking system, in the pocket books. They don't like it, so they won't stand up to China in retaliation.
Hat's off to the President for trying and hat's off to him for the Treasury Department's ongoing devaluation of the dollar, though they won't admit that's what they're doing. What that will do is a couple of things:
It will hurt the Chinese as we'll be playing the same game right back at them. They're pizzed.
Secondly, it will devalue all that debt they bought from us and leave them holding promisory notes which aren't worth as much in real dollars as when they bought them.
Thirdly, it will prime our own export business and make domestic production as attractive as shipping more jobs off to China.
Hat's off to the President for that too.
He's re-opened a trade agreement which the Bush administration signed with South Korea, demanding that the Korean's open their markets to US automobiles, beef and other things which are heavily restricted. As with so many Bush era trade agreements, there was no quid pro quo involved. Under that agreement, we essentially threw open the door to Korean imports without any corresponding loosening of Korea's restrictions on our doing business there. So far, the Korean's are balking, but they'll come around eventually as they've got so much invested here that they can't refuse without risking those investments.
Hat's off to the President for that one too!
On another front, he's changed course in our relations with North Korea. Instead of "Staying the Course" with Bushs' Axis of Evil policy, he's essentially offered to simply pay Kim off if he'll eliminate his nuclear weapons. Since Kim is, and always has been, backed by his Chinese neighbors, our previous policies were doomed to failure because the Chinese have used Kim as a patsy to embarrass us and make us look powerless for a long time.
Obama's strategy has a real chance to not only disarm North Korea, but to cut Kim loose from China, which might even open the door to re-unification of the peninsula. Only time will tell, but it's a better bet than what we've been doing.
FINALLY, an American President is actively and aggressively pursuing American interests in opposition to the big players in the global economy. He's trying to re-assert American supremacy before the Chinese overwhelm us.
The ship of State was taking on water...thank goodness for the midterm election results! We'll have to do a lot of bailing, but maybe...just maybe...we won't all go under. That's what I call HOPE, not the empty promises we got during the campaign.
The ship of state was nearly sunk when he first walked into the Oval Office. He's been bailing ever since, with some moderate success.
You say the hope everyone voted for in 2008 turned out to be empty promises? What about the hope you voted for this year? Given the GOP's track record of saying anything to get elected, then doing what they damn well please once in office, by what right would you expect your new hope to be any less forlorn?
After all, you're hoping those who created this mess in the first place will somehow, miraculously, do something different! What's your basis for hoping otherwise?
The ship of state was nearly sunk when he first walked into the Oval Office. He's been bailing ever since, with some moderate success.
You say the hope everyone voted for in 2008 turned out to be empty promises? What about the hope you voted for this year? Given the GOP's track record of saying anything to get elected, then doing what they damn well please once in office, by what right would you expect your new hope to be any less forlorn?
After all, you're hoping those who created this mess in the first place will somehow, miraculously, do something different! What's your basis for hoping otherwise?
The GOP knows they've been put on notice. They know they'd better do their job. The voters are serious, and they are active participants in government affairs. Too long the citizens drifted along, letting politicians on both sides do as they please.
The one thing Obama did was wake us up, and I do thank him for that!
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