Obama trip shows limits
Trade deal’s failures temper diplomatic successes
YOKOHAMA, Japan – President Barack Obama left Asia Sunday with mixed results to show from his longest trip abroad as president, an exhausting 10-day tour through India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan.
His first two stops yielded dramatic diplomatic successes and memorable images in two booming Asian democracies that will only become more important strategically to the U.S.
But the narrative soured once he arrived in Seoul, South Korea, for a meeting of the Group of 20 developed and emerging economies. Obama failed to achieve a free-trade deal with Korea that was to have been the biggest trophy of his trip, and instead of banding with America against China’s currency manipulation, several countries aligned against the U.S.
The trip ended anticlimactically in Japan with an uneventful Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
“Overall, it was a mix of successes and deep disappointments,” said Mike Green, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Two great visits in India and Indonesia, a real disappointment in Seoul, and a reassuring but curiously unambitious visit to Japan.”
Obama, in some ways, achieved what he set out to do.
By spending so much time in Asia, undeterred by his and his party’s midterm election “shellacking” on the way out the door, he showed key nations how important they are to the U.S. agenda. And that, in turn, is an investment he expects to pay off over time – by loosening up trade and hiring opportunities for his own constituents, and by building up the base of democratic and America-friendly voices in a fast-growing region of the world where China looms ever larger.
Yet the trip also underscored one of the president’s most nagging problems. He is operating in a world, particularly in regard to the economy, in which he takes a long view and voters want more immediate gratification.
And so when Obama stood at the podium in Seoul with South Korea’s president and failed to announce the completion of a trade deal that would have been a breakthrough, it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the trip and colored the outcomes of the two economic summits that followed.