President Obama’s final foreign trip as the United States' head of state was planned as a reassurance tour in the wake of a contentious presidential campaign. But with the surprise election of Donald Trump, the agenda of the trip has been significantly muddled.
So, what will President Obama tell world leaders when he travels to Greece, Germany and the APEC Summit in Peru next week?
“In some ways there’s nothing to say,” Heather Conley, the senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told reporters in a press call previewing the upcoming trip.
“There is really nothing President Obama can do on that front. That’s going to have to wait for this transition to happen,” said Conley, who said the trip now takes on a “sobering tone.”
World leaders are “very concerned,” Conley said, with key areas of international cooperation such as trade agreements, the future of NATO, and cooperation on climate change now up in the air.
“The president has the unenviable task of telling his counterparts and explaining what Europeans are now calling the Trump effect and they are very worried,” Conley said, noting that Europe is similarly wrangling with populist sentiment, as was the case with the U.K.'s Brexit vote.
While the president’s public message will likely resemble the words of unity and graciousness heard from his Rose Garden remarks Wednesday, Conley said whatever private reassurance the president can offer world leaders will likely be on the strength of U.S. institutions.
The “sobering tone” that Conley predicts for the trip will likely be on display during the first stop in Athens, Greece -- symbolic as the birthplace of democracy.
“Part of the decision to visit Athens was to deliver a major speech on the state of liberal democracies,” she said. “But I think this places the speech and the context in a more sobering note.”
The sedated message will continue, she said, when the president moves onto Berlin, in what is the president’s sixth trip to Germany as president.
“The design of trip was supposed to give reassurance that we made it through this campaign and we’re going to come out alright. We just have a different scenario now,” Conley said.
Though President Obama has had a close working relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump accused the German leader during the campaign of “ruining Germany” -- a criticism he later tempered when he called Merkel a great international leader apart from “the whole immigration thing.”
Conley predicted a “sober reflection that will be occurring around the table” as the president and German leaders reckon with the populist forces that brought Trump to power and are also present across the European continent.
As for the president’s final stop in Lima, Peru, for his final APEC Leaders’ Summit, the program there is not expected to be a highly productive one either. As far as the president’s bilateral agenda, concerns about trade with the hemisphere are likely to be a prominent topic.
from ABC News: Politics http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obamas-final-foreign-trip-sobering-tone-election/story?id=43446097
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