again, I thought his supporters believed he'd be good at foreign relations? He's been awful. Exceptionally awful. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6077675c-c4c4-11e3-8dd4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2zWC47aF3 High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6077675c-c4c4-11e3-8dd4-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2zWDV0ZSJ When Barack Obama took office, he pledged a new overture to the world’s emerging powers. Today each of the Brics – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is at loggerheads with America, or worse. Last month four of the five abstained in a UN vote condemning the fifth’s annexation of Crimea. Next month India is likely to elect as its new leader Narendra Modi, who says he has “no interest in visiting America other than to attend the UN in New York”. As the world’s largest democracy, and America’s most natural ally among the emerging powers, India’s is a troubling weathervane. How on earth did Mr Obama lose the Brics? Some of it was unavoidable. Early in his first term Mr Obama called for a “reset” of US relations with Russia. His overture was warmly received by Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia’s president, who was considerably less anti-western than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately for Mr Obama, Ukraine, p***y Riot and many others, Mr Putin repossessed the presidency. The US president can hardly be blamed for that. Things have gone downhill since then. The trajectory of US relations with China has also been in the wrong direction. Within his first year in office, Mr Obama made his much-feted “G2” visit to China, in which he offered Beijing a global partnership to solve the world’s big problems, from climate change to financial imbalances. Alas, the Chinese did not feel ready to tackle problems on a global level that they were still struggling with at home. Mr Obama was rudely spurned by his hosts. The following year he replaced his G2 charm offensive with a rhetorical “pivot to Asia”. Washington presented it as a long overdue rebalancing to a rising Asia Pacific region but it was seen by Beijing – with some justification – as a thinly veiled US attempt to shore up its military alliances with China’s neighbours. This week Mr Obama will visit Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Malaysia – the first three of which are treaty allies of the US. It is his first visit to Asia in two years. China is not on the itinerary. Meanwhile, the anti-US rhetoric coming from Beijing is the toughest in years. The fallout with Brazil is more specific. Mr Obama made a big play in 2009 to woo the main Latin American countries – even attending the summit of the Organisation of American States in Trinidad. But relations with Brazil took a nosedive after Edward Snowden’s leaks about the National Security Agency last year. Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, cancelled a state visit to Washington last October in protest at US spying. It did not help that Mr Obama promised only Americans – but not foreigners – that the NSA was not tapping them. US-Brazil relations are now in a deep freeze. The same is true of India – again, a far cry from Mr Obama’s warm opening act with Manmohan Singh, India’s outgoing prime minister. Mr Singh, whom Mr Obama once described as his “guru”, was given Mr Obama’s first state dinner at the White House in 2009. That goodwill has evaporated. Last month Nancy Powell, the US ambassador to India, resigned, having been treated virtually as a persona non grata in New Delhi since she took the job. It remains to be seen what the Modi effect will be. The fact that he is still denied a visa to visit the US – stemming from the gruesome 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom – would obviously need to be fixed. Among the Brics only South Africa has what could be described as normal relations with the US. But even here, they are hardly close. If South Africa had spent half as much time wooing the US as it did lobbying to join the Bric club (and thereby adding the S to the acronym), things might be different. Nobody batted an eyelid when it joined the rest in refusing to censor Russia over Crimea. Each of these deteriorating relationships has specific narratives. But there are two larger themes linking them together. First, the world is adjusting to declining US power. America retains by far the world’s largest military force. But it gets a little less so each year. China’s defence budget continues to grow by double digits while that of the US is falling in real terms. The US miscalculated badly in its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Mr Obama’s latest defence budget would preclude another Iraq-style invasion. That, of course, is a good thing. But other observers, including those who are beginning to resist American power around the world, are adjusting their behaviour. They see a US that is increasingly unwilling to project global force – except using remote control. Meanwhile, the Brics’ economic growth rates are slowing. But they are still growing faster than the US, and are likely to continue to do so. The economic centre of gravity will continue to shift their way. Second, the US public is tiring of its country’s global responsibilities. Mr Obama’s real pivot is not to Asia but to America. In this he is only taking his cue from domestic sentiment. Yet his pivot to home is not going too well either. As Lawrence Summers, the former US Treasury secretary, recently observed, the US has two parties, one of which, the Democrats, refuses to endorse any kind of trade deal; the other of which, the Republicans, appears to detest all international institutions. Neither of the two parties listens to what Mr Obama wants. If you believe the television ratings, the US public long ago tuned out from what he says. Little surprise, then, that the Brics are getting into the habit of talking among themselves.
Of course, nowhere in the article did the author claim anything remotely like what texx opined, and a large part of the blame for the cooled relations was given to Bush ("The US miscalculated badly in its 2003 invasion of Iraq"), Snowden ("relations with Brazil took a nosedive after Edward Snowden’s leaks about the National Security Agency last year"), and the Chinese government ("the Chinese did not feel ready to tackle problems on a global level that they were still struggling with at home"). I think even Obama's strongest supporters thought he would struggle with international relations, having never been exposed before taking the office, so it would appear that everything texx said was at the very least inaccurate. Color me unsurprised.
bro the "Blame Bush" excuse wore out years ago time to take accountability and quit passing the blame
The author is the one who blamed Bush, brah. Time to learn some intellectual honesty and stop passing on distortions and lies.
nope. The title of the article was "How Obama lost friends and influence in the BRICS" read the whole article so you're informed
Are you trying to say that Obama hasn't been blaming things on Bush from day one? Is that the type of "intellectual honesty" you are talking about? If you list Obama's campaign promises along side his accomplishments and are "intellectually honest" you will admit he is a complete failure. Unless your measuring his ability to be dishonest, then I guess you could call him a huge success "intellectually honestly" speaking of course.
I read the whole article and even quoted where the author directly blamed Bush, here it is again, separated from the rest of my post so that perhaps you will be able to comprehend... I also know what the title is and at no point in the article was the word "fail" used in any way. You chose to add your ignorant commentary while ignoring the direct blame which the author meted out to many people other than Obama. I shouldn't be surprised, the clown show continues.
Are you trying to claim that there was absolutely nothing that Obama could legitimately have blamed on Bush starting on "day one?" If you judge all politicians on the percentage of their campaign promises which come to fruition, I posit that each and every one would be classified a "complete failure." Of course, I can't blame you for believing that Obama is a complete failure, you probably think Fox "News" is "fair and balanced." ROFL
This just goes to show Gladiato's bias. The article is clearly about Obama's foreign policy failures (well, just the ones in the BRICS. He has many other failures such as the Middle East and Europe, but that's for another discussion). The title of the piece even summarizes that it's Obama's failure. There's one mention of Bush and that's all Gladiato can take away from the article. Gimme a "B"....B!!! Gimme an "I"....I!!! Gimme an "A"...A!! Gimme an "S"...S!! What's that spell? BIAS!!
All I know is... A bunch of red necks now have teeth again because of Obamacare. Some people are never satisfied.
Apparently, you didn't read far enough to see all of the people other than Obama who the author blamed for many of these "failures" (again, the word "fail" was only used by texx, not the author). It wasn't "one mention of Bush," it was ALL of the mentions of the situations and people other than Obama who deserve a share of the blame, people and situations that texx completely ignores because he thinks the article says only... Obama = fail ...when anyone who actually read the article sees something dramatically different, in shades of grey rather than the black and white world in which texx lives. But I'm the one who exhibits "bias," suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. The clown show makes me laugh... BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
You calling out ANYONE for low-class posts would literally make the physical manifestation of the word Irony get a bigtexx tattoo.
