Xi Jinping Bests Barack Obama during Asian Meetings

There are several major decision points looming on President Obama's foreign affairs agenda as he settles back into the Oval Office on his return from his Asia trip. First, he faces a November 24 deadline on reaching a final agreement with Iran as his stalled sensitive nuclear negotiations draw to a close. High-level talks in Oman last week made little headway, potentially setting the stage for Obama to make a choice between pursuing another negotiation extension or abandoning the diplomatic effort that he heralded as the right way to engage Iran when it began. Second, there are growing indications that the President may have to reconsider his airstrike campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Obama has asked Congress to address the need to extend the authorization for his airstrike effort, although he expects Congress to take up the request next year when Republicans take control of the Senate. And, Obama faces questions from within his own senior leadership, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and top General Michael Dempsey, who question the effectiveness of the military operation, particularly in Syria. Hagel said in a memo to White House national security advisor Susan Rice that Obama needed a clearer strategy for dealing with embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad. Dempsey suggests the strategy is incomplete and will not succeed without more US troops. Third, there is the question of Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggressive push into eastern Ukraine and his reversion to Cold War tactics such as harassing Scandinavian states bordering the Baltic Sea with submarine surveillance and sending military aircraft into the Gulf of Mexico. And, there is the whole matter of Israel and its position in the Middle East, which seems destined to remain on hold until a new US President can clean up the mess caused by Obama letting his personal animosity toward Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and perhaps his personal prejudice and that of his White House advisors against Israel, destabilize the entire region. ~~~~~ At his news conference before leaving the G-20 meeting in Brisbane, President Obama said he wanted to "build on the momentum" of his Asia trip back home in Washington. Did his Asia trip give President Obama "momentum" or was it a mediocre performance? (1). The Democrat Party and the US media have characterized President Obama's climate agreement with China as a triumphant step in the US-China relationship. What did the climate pact actually do? Obama committed America to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2025. Xi Jinping agreed to stop the growth of China’s emissions by 2030. Or, as GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell accurately explained, Obama agreed to give China 16 years of no reductions while agreeing that the US will reduce emissions by 25% -- a drag on the US economy and especially on the American coal industry and its jobs. No matter that Obama was harpooned by Xi Jinping, the New York Times hailed the deal as a “Landmark agreement...a signature achievement.” Fortunately, the Republican Congress will review the agreement and decide whether to confirm it. (2). Obama inked a high-tech market-opening agreement with China, but its advisability also must be seriously questioned. Some hi-tech experts accuse the President of thanking his Silicon Valley financial supporters by offering them a trade deal with China that eliminates tariffs on many high-technology products, thereby, according to the White House, creating 60,000 jobs by opening the Chinese market to $1 trillion in US exports. The Fiscal Times points out that America was told the same thing about automobiles when the United States agreed to admit China into the World Trade Organization. Instead, China threw up administrative barriers that require competitive US and Japanese automakers to produce with local partners in China in order to sell there, and ultimately transfer critical know-how to those Chinese partners. Now, experts say, the same thing will likely happen with digital technologies, which are the crown jewels of the American economy, but "Obama seems intent on giving them away, along with thousands of good-paying jobs, to keep Silicon Valley campaign dollars flowing into Democrat coffers. Anything for political advantage. The American worker be damned," says the Fiscal Times. ~~~~~ Fresh from his China 'triumphs,' President Obama moved on to Brisbane for a G-20 meeting where the news was about Obama’s diminished presence, never very high or credible in Asia, despite his pre-trip promise to push forward the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his ambitious trade agreement, which pointedly, and foolishly, excludes China. But, there has been not a word about the TPP, which, without China, is no further along today than it was before Obama left for Asia. Obama and his senior advisors tried to do the same thing with Beijing’s idea of an Asians-only bank intended to rival the US-backed Asian Development Bank. This Obama mistake was highlighted in Beijing, where the Chinese boasted of the up-and-running Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, its $50 billion capitalization, and its 20 members. And, to drive his point home to Obama, Xi Jinping announced during Obama’s visit that China was putting $40 billion into a new Silk Road Fund to finance development projects in the seven Central Asian republics. As further embarrassment for the US, in Brisbane, Obama had to listen while China encouraged the group comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - known as the BRICS - to move on establishing the New Development Bank, which will finance infrastructure and make available an emergency reserve fund. Another China-Russia idea, the BRICS bank is intended to bypass Western participation and cut the US Dollar out of its transactions. Finally, we cannot forget the Russian oil and gas deals with China, caused by Obama's mishandling of Vladimir Putin's aggressive Ukraine actions. By threatening to cut Putin out of his developed pipeline-intensive natural gas contracts with Europe, Obama pushed Putin into Xi Jinping's open arms. The two just announced a second natural gas agreement worth $325 billion, following the unprecedented $400 billion deal struck in March. By 2020, Russia will sell China more gas than it now sells Europe, and the supply is big enough and priced to threaten US sales in South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere in the region. ~~~~~ Dear readers, if President Obama 'succeeds' with Iran, ISIS, Ukraine and Israel-Palestine issues as well as he did with China during his recent Asian foray, we had better hope that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner keep congressional antennae tuned on the White House, while their budget, foreign affairs and armed services committees stay focused on cleaning up after Obama and his White-House-in-training. And, let's hope that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and America's top General, Michael Dempsey, are not fired by Obama and stay the course until 2016. It would also help if the US mainstream liberal media quit reading by rote from the White House talking point sheets and actually researched their stories before airing and printing them. But, as they say, the impossible takes a little longer.