Issue of the week: Obama lays an egg in Seoul
At the G-20 summit, the President failed to persuade other nations to condemn China’s currency manipulation, and he was berated for the Fed's decision to pump more money into the U.S. economy.
Well, that could have gone better, said Christi Parsons, John Glionna, and Don Lee in the Los Angeles Times. Last week’s G-20 summit in Seoul was “frequently rancorous,” produced “far more setbacks than gains,” and highlighted the group’s “inability to find common ground” on steps to avert currency and trade wars. President Obama, who was counting on the summit to restore some of the luster rubbed off by the midterm elections, “suffered the biggest disappointment.” He failed to persuade other nations to condemn China’s currency manipulation and he took a drubbing for the Federal Reserve’s “recent decision to pump $600 billion into the U.S. financial system.” He also couldn’t reach agreement with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on a long-delayed free-trade pact. The only thing the summiteers—heads of state from the leading economies of the industrialized and developing worlds—managed to produce was a mushy promise to monitor trade imbalances, said Howard Schneider and Scott Wilson in The Washington Post. But even that undertaking “deferred the substance of the work” to a later date.
Obama and his treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, have only themselves to blame for their rude reception, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The president arrived in Seoul “blaming the rest of the world for U.S. economic weakness.” Rather than take responsibility for mismanaging America’s finances, Obama faulted “the export and exchange-rate policies of the Germans, Chinese, or Brazilians.” Obama wasn’t alone in playing the blame game, said the Financial Times. The entire meeting was a “joint abdication of power.” The G-20, which in the darkest days of the 2008 financial crisis worked together to avert worldwide depression, has devolved into a spectacle in which “old and emerging powers agree to disagree.” Their failure to take collective action to speed the industrialized world’s recovery and to prevent developing economies from overheating will only end up “making things harder for each other.”
The criticism of the Fed’s policy is “understandable but shortsighted,” said The New York Times. America’s trading partners worry that the Fed’s injection of $600 billion into the economy will “harm their export sectors,” but in fact, it’s designed to “head off deflation” and boost demand at home, including demand for exports. If the Fed can “spur households and businesses to spend and invest,” it will earn praise for reinvigorating “one of the main sources of global demand and global growth.” Until then, however, Obama will have to live with the consequences of “a weak economy, heavy external debt burden, and general loss of faith in American capitalism,” said Alan Beattie in the Financial Times. “This, perhaps, is what the decline of economic hegemony looks like.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Today's political cartoons - May 11, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - bathroom blues, family feud, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 blustery cartoons about the Stormy Daniels testimony
Cartoons Artists take on gag orders, lurid details, and more
By The Week US Published
-
The Idea of You review: 'impossible escapism' starring Anne Hathaway
The Week Recommends Steamy romcom about a 40-year-old who falls for a boy band singer
By The Week UK Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published