President Obama told world leaders that a strong U.S. economy is key to a global recovery as he attempted to create trade opportunities with countries all over the world. However, he found no such luck during his Asian trip.
Obama, in a letter Nov. 9 to G-20 members, defended his administration’s spending, a policy that has been criticized by many of the world’s leaders.
“The United States will do its part to restore strong growth, reduce economic imbalances and calm markets,” he wrote. “A strong recovery that creates jobs, income and spending is the most important contribution the United States can make to the global recovery.”
Obama’s words rang hollow to many leaders from China and Germany who feel even more emboldened to take a stand against the United States. South Korea took it to a further level as it declined to revisit a trade agreement between the two countries until at least next year.
This continues to be a bad month for Obama as he witnessed the Democrats lose control of the House and now he sees his popularity waning globally.
The swoon in global popularity is largely linked to the Federal Reserve Bank pumping $600 billion back into the American economy– a move many believe devalues the dollar.
“Remember that before the G-20, there was much more pressure on China than on the U.S. in terms of this question of global imbalances,” Benn Steil, director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told The Christan Science Monitor. “But given the timing of the Fed’s actions, it makes it look as if the U.S. is behaving no differently and China exploited that to the maximum.”
Obama says the media has been too focused on the negative elements at the summits and that real agreements have nevertheless been reached. He says overall the G-20 has come to a supporting consensus for the U.S. .
“Sometimes I think naturally there is an instinct to focus on the disagreements because otherwise these summits might not be very exciting, it’s just a bunch of world leaders sitting around intervening, so there is a search for drama,” he said according to Voice of America. “What is remarkable is that in each of these successive summits, we have actually made real progress.”