Obama Asia tour doesn't go exactly according to plan

Obama
“demonstrate he was serious about improved U.S. ties with nations in China’s backyard”
but he
“stopped short of firmly backing allies Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam” in their disputes with China.

It sound like he only serious when he is in the Chinese backyard, but too afraid to back friends up when he is in the front door. I feel sorry for his friends.

“…seemed to be more symbolism than substance.” That line perfectly illustrates the obama administration from day #1.

All barry can do is pose for pictures, make silvery speeches, and promise to take from the rich to give to the poor. Barry will ignore the majority in order to satisfy the minority hordes of special interest groups. The wants of the special interests have more weight than the needs of the majority in an obama america. Nothing will go as planned for this fellow so long as he remains backed by children and degenerates.

A tourist is a tourist, be he the president or Joe Average. He showed the country’s face in the Far East to little purpose. Not worth the expense.

Everything Obama does is more symbolism than substance.

@stambo2001 Couldn’t agree with you more! Well said.

“Obama urged Asian leaders to reduce tensions in the South China Sea and other disputed territory, but stopped short of firmly backing allies Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in their disputes with China.”

The message was that the President crashed the party, spoke softly, and had his big stick positioned offshore in the form of aircraft carriers.

Everyone there already knew the U.S. position on the various disputes. You don’t go to a conference of Asian leaders and stake out a public position on controversial issues with a real potential to flare up into military conflict. To do something like that in front of a group like that would have been tantamount to telling everyone in the Asian Pacific not to take the U.S. seriously.

Really, if you want to know how the various leaders fared, look at their facial expressions and body language.

At least he didn’t barf on Asia like Bush II or insult every country like Romney. Asians still refer to public barfing as “doing the Bush”.

Enough with the sour grapes aleady. I can see that some repubs are still in denial. Plenty of middle and upperclass and educated hardworking Americans voted for Obama, including myself and Warren Buffet. You candidate lost to a better candidate with a better plan for the future. Get over it.

Anyone suprised….

Did anyone really expect the West and the East to accomplish anything? Capitalism and Communism never did get along, never mind how distorted both have become.

@stambo2001

…so long as he remains backed by children and degenerates”

And this is why he won, because all you can do is hurl insults and ineffective platitudes at him. Neither party has done anything for the “common man”. neither has the interest of anyone but themselves in hand. But go on hating and whining and complaining and playing like a victim and see if that helps.

“The wants of the special interests have more weight than the needs of the majority “…yes they do, and have in every administration for the last 40 years or so. You’re just sore that the ones being represented aren’t yours.But I guess giving other special intrests a voice is just pure poppycock and nonsense.

Maybe the other side will win and pander to their specific subset of America, wouldn’t that be lovely, then you can beat your chest in victory and have nothing to complain about.

By the way I backed Obama, twice, and I am neither a child nor a degenerate. He got my support because he was a far better alternative than the opponent. Maybe next time he or his party won’t be, but this time he was.

But thanks for being so stereotypically ignorant. U Mad bro?

stambo2001 — you have your parties mixed — Obama is a Democrat, not a Republican as described in your letter…

Once again Obama shows he’s merely a legend in his own mind.

Zzzzzzz. Nothing really new worthy. Hope he enjoyed the food.

The best way to deal simultaneously with fiscal cliffs and China is to figure out how to stop shipping US jobs and technology to China as soon as possible. This alone would bring more incomes to US households, more taxes to US coffers, and this would lower the US borrowing needs as well.
China (and our dependency on it) is a monster that we ourselves created by allowing corporate greed to run amok.

@ Timbuk3
Well said. We’re all tired of the whining from the losers.

“…seemed be more symbolism than substance.”

Sounds like the entire Obama administration!

Gotta say Reuters you are playing this very well. Build up the guy for 4 years (no bad press AT ALL) then you start to bash him when he wins! Four more years of high rating and damn the American public who you helped fool!

A lot of republican bitterness still dogging the GOP. Look on the bright side, republicans. You guys won Kentucky!

Good times. Good riddance.

@drfranknfurter Yes, having the minority special interests forced upon the majority is offensive. This is the tyranny of minorities and special interests of which the founding fathers spoke. I don’t expect you to understand at all. Nope. Understand you believe it right for the lesser to command the greater and that is insanity, and completely undemocratic. You argue about the 1% yet do the very same yourself and that makes you insane by definition. You believe that 5% of homosexuals have more validity than 95% of straights. You believe that 47% of takers outweigh the 53% of producers. You believe that the 12% of blacks outweigh the 75-80% of whites. Individually each and every one of those ‘special interests’ has no possibility of outvoting the ‘majority’ BUT by making promises to each and every special interest minority group Obama has won. Big deal. The dems won by collecting the maggots, the ants, and the cockroaches all under one banner to beat the majority of regular american people. America is broken.

Edit: “At a regional summit in Phnom Penh, Asian leaders no longer seemed starry-eyed in his presence, as they did when he first swept into took office and was feted globally like a rock star.”
Missing words and “feted” should be “treated” simple mistake

Timbuk3 wrote:
You candidate lost to a better candidate with a better plan for the future. Get over it.

I have been waiting for the budget for 4 years – I know this is small and trivial to great intelligentsia. But what plan? There is a difference between talk and action – plans and execution – there is also reality. I want a better America – all I see is a sea of debt and no plan…….

$Tens of thousands on jet fuel, security, and photographers.

OR, $200 for a videophone call and some image editing software.

Would have had the same result either way. But at least Barry got to take another vacation.

@stambo2001: how do you classify Buffet, Bloomberg, Schmidt et al… as the maggots, the ants, or the cockroaches? :)

Stambo, I take back what I said about republicans remaining bitter. You’re clearly not bitter :)

Oh this is classic. Spetalnick and Friends (you fool cons) are falling all over themselves to label this Southeast Asia trip as “another vacation” for President Obama. This is because they are intelectually stunted and do not understand subtlety. Newly liberated Burma and the the rest of the ASEAN quarter are expected to undergo some serious economic growth. They have to have an option if they are going to resist demands by China to fold and become new satellite states. This was a highly successful state visit if only for those trade talks the President opened up. The nations on the schedule here don’t like China any more than we do. They know it’s just drooling to eat up that new wealth. Our President has cut the legs out from under the Chinese by showing up and giving them a trade option that doesn’t involve becoming a Chinese vassal. The conservative idiot brigade wants to call this a failure because Barack Obama didn’t turkey slap Hun Sen and punch Wen Jibao in the nads, once again because they don’t. Understand. Anything.

An aside: Stambo, you are the most asinine, offensive fool I have ever had the misfortune to read. Cockroaches indeed. I hope you enjoy your breathtaking irrelevance.

@stambo2001, what your religious fundamentalist mind does not grasp is that ‘we’, those who believe in EQUAL rights, do not, as you say, ‘believe that 5% of homosexuals have more validity than 95% of straights. You believe that 47% of takers outweigh the 53% of producers. You believe that the 12% of blacks outweigh the 75-80% of whites’. While in fact ‘we’ believe in EQUAL rights for all. E.G. the whole ‘gay marriage’ issue, it is a matter of equality, if a gay person wants to get married and have the same marriage rights as a straight person, then they should have that right. That does not diminish the rights of a straight person one bit. What it may do is make people who are bigoted against gays, like you, feel resentful towards said policy, but that is the bigot’s problem not society.

We will see kids…and when it goes from bad to worse…already started…can’t wait to hear you then…still going to blame the Bush Family and the GOP for your bad policies….

Stambo = S.ad-T.ruth-A.bout-M.ale-B.igoted-O.bama haters. (2001)

It is devastatingly sad that there is actually a populous out there feeling so much hate and a lack of pride in our America. Yes, OUR America. Whether you feel a part of it or not, this election and the results are a reflection of OUR America. Whether you feel your voice was or wasn’t “heard” in this election, this is still OUR America.

Yes, America is changing…the face of it’s people is changing, the moral sense of fairness is changing, the interests of it’s people and their future is changing. The days of Ward and the Beaver are long gone and those days were not as great as some remember them to be. We are in a new century, with a changing nation and an evolving population. You can try and fight it all you like, you can bad mouth it, be hateful and put others down, but it does not change the reality.

Society has spoken through this election with a resounding victory over out modded, dated and racist thinking. I read your words and feel your heart and I feel very sad for you indeed.

@stambo2001: “The dems won by collecting the maggots, the ants, and the cockroaches all under one banner to beat the majority of regular american people.”

I don’t understand your math. Obama won by a majority, so how is it that your so called “majority of ‘regular’ American people” lost the election?

A very biased anti-Obama interpretation. That author has obviously no idea what Obamas plan was, or even if he had a plan — so how could a “plan” have gone wrong? Obama simply attended the ASEAN as he does every year. The Chinese sent outgoing Mr. Wen who conveyed greetings to Obama from President Xi, and Russian President Putin did not show up, even though he was expected.

@ xit007: Rather than perpetuate the fox news myth that the president has never proposed a budget (on a foreign policy article no less) spend 5 minutes on google to see his budget proposal and understand the process. It would probably take less time than repeating your factually incorrect mythology.

Here is a start:

Budget process:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbudgetprocess/a/budgetprop.htm

Obama’s budget proposal:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/index.html

China charges us a 20% tariff on any goods that we try to export to them.

We currently charge them 1.3% for goods they export to the U.S. We historically charged them around 20%, but that has slipped over the past 30 years only 1.3%.

Start the tariffs. They need us as customers more than we need them as manufacturers. We can find factory workers in Guatemala or Sri Lanka. And we’re doing that. But China can not find a trillion dollar customer base in Guatemala or Sri Lanka. China needs us more than we need them. Start the tariffs.

What a fail. Obama may as well have stayed at home and sent America’s ‘friends’ an email saying ‘Good luck, your own your own’. Why the hell have we bled together for the last 100 years. The US security umbrella in the asia-pacific is going to disintergrate before we even start to resemble unity out here.

“And China sometimes looked like the one setting the agenda at the East Asia summit.”

More and more this is going to be the way things wash out in global affairs. Like it or not America, your days of influence globally have faded.

Every day I see righties whining about Obama is a good day.
Maybe if you clowns start looking now you can find somebody in your party worth running for president in 4 years…….but I doubt it.

Wow! The Obama haters prove once again that reading and understanding the article is a pure waste of time. Instead of offering intellectual insights on what was written, they offer sophomoric comments that demonstrate their lack of understanding of world affairs and foreign policy missions. And, shows earning a BS from Glen Beck University does not pass for a world class education.

Japan,the Philippines and Vietnam must be thinking “With friends like the US, who needs enemies”. Trans-Pacific trade agreements – here we go again. With companies like Ford increasing their factory investments in China, we are once again losing more than we gain.

@USAPragmatist

Well said. Republicans like Stambo will never see that no one will listen to their fiscal agenda, while their social agenda is centered around denying rights and liberties to the rest of the country.

@AlkilineState

I agree with you, but you do know that a trade war with China is going to crush the poor in America. The $1 store will be the $10 store, and Wallmart products will cost a whole lot more.

NewWorld, it will not crush the poor. Most things at the dollar store are useless. The most expensive things we pay for… homes, cars, insurance, utilities, food….. don’t come from China anyway.

Tariffs on manufactured goods from China would be direct revenue for the U.S. and they would encourage more manufacturing here or in a broader range of countries. Takes a few eggs out of the China basket at no cost to us.

China is more capitalistic than the USA – they just have less rules and regulations to answer to. We have the same styles of business.

Free trade has moved massive amounts of wealth split between China and global corporations that use free trade to move the labor the the least costliest country.

The poor in China and the once middle class here are diligently working 2 jobs to make ends meet so the rich get richer. Chinese rich, American rich, Swedish rich – does not matter.

The rich and politics are married to the brain stem. Killing or changing one would change the other. Short of a civil war – little will change the course of the old/new class divide.