Obama on tour

When the going gets tough, the tough goes travelling.

That seems to be the message President Obama drew from his "shellacking" in United States (US) elections two weeks ago. No sooner had he eaten his humble pie than he was boarding Air Force One for a 10-day Asian tour.

I would do the same if I were him. It's not just that when everyone is dumping on you, you can always run to Indonesia - even if almost everyone agreed that next time he lands in India, Mr Obama should stick to policy and let his wife do the dancing. The plain fact is that in the American political system, a president whose wings have been clipped by a turn in Congress is likely to spend more time abroad.

That is because while the newly hostile Congress can frustrate Mr Obama's legislative agenda, it can do almost nothing to check his foreign policy. The president remains commander-in-chief, negotiator of treaties, the executive of his nation. And if he can get little done in Washington over the next two years, he can use that time to do much on the foreign front.

Much to be done

At the moment, there's quite a lot to be done. For starters, with the world economy still teetering on the brink of recession, Mr Obama is anxious to prevent a currency war breaking out. The US central bank's decision to print money to stimulate demand generated a storm of criticism by America's trade partners, with China, Germany and Brazil leading the charge. If China tries to devalue its currency in response to a decline in the US dollar, things could get ugly.

En route to the Seoul G-20 Summit, Mr Obama called to Indonesia and India. China loomed large in the background. Both India and Indonesia are ascendant economic powers. Both are wary of China's intentions, but both have benefited from the rise of the economic superpower to the north. Mr Obama seemed keen to lure them more warmly into the US embrace, charming the Indonesians with tales of his childhood years there, and promising to support the Indian bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

When the US president comes calling, people stop to listen. Nonetheless, Mr Obama confronts a new reality in global politics. Over the last couple of decades, China's star - and with that, the sack of gifts with which it turns up - has grown ever bigger. Mean-while, the US overreached in Iraq, accumulated a massive debt, and now must draw in its horns. It is finding it ever harder to match Chinese largesse.

Mr Obama is a president who understands better than most what America's newly constrained role on the world stage will have to be. But his efforts to win friends ahead of his showdown with China yielded uncertain results. Once he got to Seoul and met with the Chinese, they would not budge. And the communiqué issued by the assembled leaders at the end of the meeting revealed that the G-20 had decided to kick the can a bit further down the road: it will only resolve the matter of Chinese alleged currency manipulation at next year's G-20 Summit in France.

Irish troubles

Between now and then, a lot could happen. Ireland, saddled with a massive debt after its own bank bailout, finds itself locked in a downward spiral of budget-cutting and deepening recession. Fears of a default, which could have knock-on effects throughout Europe, are rising. At the other end of the spectrum, because the Chinese economy is booming, Beijing may need to raise interest rates to slow inflation. But this could depress demand, thereby inhibiting China's ability to rescue the world economy by buying everyone's stuff.

Whether we're heading into the next phase of the global financial crisis, or merely bumping along bottom for a while, remains to be seen. But it would have been nice to get something a little more reassuring from Seoul than: "We're working on it."

But, at least they're working on it.

John Rapley is president of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute, an independent research think tank affiliated with the University of the West Indies, Mona. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.