Source: Financial Times
The Perils of America’s Pacific PresidencyPresident Barack Obama hoped to find solace overseas following his “shellacking” in the US midterm elections. Instead, despite some progress, he has suffered a series of setbacks. Little meaningful was achieved at the Group of 20 leading nations summit. Trade talks with South Korea have stalled. Even his rather successful trade trip to India produced negative reaction in key parts of the region. Yet these difficulties highlight a bigger problem than his domestic or international standing. They underscore the challenges associated with perhaps the most profound transformation this change-oriented administration is trying to achieve: making this America’s first Pacific presidency.
Titillating but absurd debates about his birthplace aside, no one can dispute that a president raised in the mid-Pacific also came into office seeking a foreign policy more oriented toward transpacific issues than that of his predecessors. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush sought to rebalance policies in that direction but were largely distracted. So it has fallen to Mr Obama to usher in this era and address the challenges it brings.
Some are historical. America has had two major prior eras of foreign policy. During its first century, it turned inward. During the 20th century it ascended globally, with the core of that ascendancy built on transatlantic issues, alliances and conflicts. Over time, its relatively large economic and military size, and its cultural and linguistic ties, provided advantages over principal allies. It did not always get what it wanted but, as the 20th century progressed, there was no doubt who was first among the equals.
On this most recent trip to Asia, Mr Obama discovered just how different the next century is going to be. The US will still be the most powerful country but it is faltering economically. With the wind of history no longer at its back, others – rivals and allies alike – flex their muscles. They are doing so in ways that confounded the president’s aspirations for this visit, and are quickly derailing other important policy initiatives too.
Mr Obama’s first goal in Asia was to produce some kind of meaningful deal at the G20 meeting to control global economic imbalances. Not only did he not manage this but he also discovered that Asia’s most important power, China, felt comfortable confronting the US on the perceived hypocrisy of browbeating Beijing on undervaluing its currency while manipulating the dollar downward. The Chinese were pointed and unswayable, and other nations – including once-loyal European allies and other emerging powers – fell into line.
Thus were revealed important elements of the nature of a Pacific century, in which power and momentum is located on the Asian side of the ocean, and the most important Asian player is also America’s most important rival. As a consequence, the president’s desire to focus on how to stimulate global growth and rein in China was rebuffed by a world coalescing around the Sino-European world view that the focus ought to be on fiscal responsibility, and that this should start with the profligate, flagging US.
Elsewhere Mr Obama sought a trade deal with South Korea. But when the US side pushed too hard on access to beef markets, the Koreans – who also have growing economic clout and are now much less US-centric in their orientation than in the past – felt comfortable walking away. His embrace of India, meanwhile, produced inevitable bristling in Pakistan. It also made the Chinese distinctly uncomfortable, illustrating again that the geopolitics of the coming era will require a degree of balance of power diplomatic finesse not demanded of the US in more than a half century.
No doubt the political climate is tough for Mr Obama at home. But after this trip and the upcoming visit to Europe that will include a focus on Afghanistan – America’s thorniest foreign policy problem – he may find returning to the dissonance and name-calling of Washington a relief. He may also realise the best way to regain momentum on his ground-breaking efforts in the Pacific will be to redouble work to engineer a breakthrough on controlling the US deficit and restoring competitiveness. As America’s first Pacific president is learning, foreign policy is always easier if you are negotiating from a position of strength.