With home trouble, Obama faces hard choices on trips
WASHINGTON — Faced with mounting challenges at home, President Barack Obama will soon have to choose between jamming foreign trips onto this year’s tightening schedule or neglecting key US partners. Obama, who traveled overseas more than any other president in his first year, on Thursday called off a visit to Australia and Indonesia for the second time to focus on curbing a major oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. “The President made a decision that with all this going on, particularly with our (oil disaster) response right now, it would be difficult to go,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters en route to Louisiana. Obama earlier delayed the Pacific trip to lead his top legislative priority of health care reform. His domestic calendar will remain busy, with his Democratic Party fighting to keep control of Congress in Nov. 2 elections. “I wouldn’t be surprised if more of these foreign visits are canceled between now and the mid-term elections,” said Brian Katulis, an expert on national security at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “Sometimes I think foreign policy issues go over the heads of most ordinary Americans and they’re going to vote, it seems, on the bread-and-butter issues here at home,” he said. But even in an age of instant communications, Obama can send a powerful message that another nation is important when he heads overseas, Katulis said. Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100607com3.html |
|
0 comments
Post a Comment