On Foreign Trip, Obama Yet Again Contends With Events Elsewhere
|
Version 0 of 1. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — President Obama traveled more than 12,000 miles last week to shower attention on Asia. But he spent most of the trip in grim consultations about the attacks in Paris and Mali and in a long-distance war of words with Republicans. Like so many of his previous overseas trips, the president’s trade and economic missions to Turkey, the Philippines and Malaysia were quickly eclipsed by the swirl of other news, overshadowed by the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in France and Mali and the red-hot debate back home about whether to stop admitting Syrian refugees. It has been a source of endless frustration for Mr. Obama and his aides that the traveling press corps often overlooks his diplomacy abroad, instead questioning him about congressional standoffs, domestic scandals or global turmoil. But this time Mr. Obama seemed to welcome the queries. Standing in Manila beside President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines on Wednesday to discuss the American “rebalance” toward Asia, Mr. Obama spent most of his time in a rare, emotional display of pique about Republican rhetoric on refugees. “Yeah, I’ve got some comments on that,” Mr. Obama told reporters before proceeding to mock Republican officials and candidates as being “scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America.” Their rhetoric on refugees amounted to nothing less than a “recruitment tool for ISIL,” he said derisively, using an acronym for the Islamic State. Nearly 1,000 words later, Mr. Obama apologized to Mr. Aquino: “Sorry, Mr. President, I had a lot to say on that one.” It is a vivid reminder of how quickly and easily a president’s message can be hijacked by events and agendas beyond his control — and how important it can be to the White House to respond in real time, even from a distance. Despite his command of a communications infrastructure — one that includes Twitter, Facebook and Instagram — Mr. Obama is subject to the vagaries of the news cycle even when he is abroad. On presidential trips, Mr. Obama brings his public relations team with him. Aides set up round-the-clock media offices in hotels in every city, including a stage and lectern in case an impromptu presidential news conference should be necessary. His press secretary and his national security spokesman hold regular briefings for reporters. But their presence on the trip hardly guarantees that the planned message will be delivered, or received. When Michael B. Froman, the United States trade representative, kicked off a briefing for reporters Thursday night, there were barely three quick questions for him about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Reporters then grilled other aides about Syria for close to an hour. It has almost always been that way for Mr. Obama. In 2011, the president’s trip to Brazil to sign a trade agreement was consumed by America’s deepening involvement in Libya. In remarks delivered in Brasília, Mr. Obama announced that he had authorized what he called a “limited military action” to protect Libyan citizens from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the country’s dictator. A year later, the president sought to focus the world’s attention on the importance of Asia and the need to counter China’s economic and military might. Instead, he was dogged by a looming fiscal disaster back home and a surge of violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Middle East. His visit to Berlin in 2013 was marred by tensions with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, about American surveillance. Russian aggression in Ukraine interrupted Mr. Obama’s visit to Mexico in 2014 and dominated his trip to the Netherlands and Belgium the following month. And efforts to create a public message when he returned to Europe later that year were overtaken by controversy over the president’s decision to order a prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier who had been held by the Taliban after walking off his Army outpost in Afghanistan. His current trip has hardly been different. The terrorist attacks in Paris, which took place just hours before Air Force One left the United States for the Group of 20 summit meeting in Antalya, Turkey, changed the gathering’s dynamic. The conflict in Syria had always been on the agenda, but the assault by the Islamic State far outside its territory in Iraq and Syria pushed it to the top. Mr. Obama acknowledged as much after meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. “Traditionally, the G-20 has been a forum primarily to discuss important economic issues facing the globe,” Mr. Obama said. “But as President Erdogan noted, the skies have been darkened by the horrific attacks that took place in Paris just a day and a half ago.” Even before Mr. Obama reached Manila a few days later, the Paris attacks had spawned another distraction for him. Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates had seized on the attacks as evidence that Syrian refugees should not be let into the United States. Aides said the president received briefings on the comments but also followed them himself, reading news accounts on his iPad — and fuming about them. When he did not receive a question about refugees at his first news conference, he brought it up himself, mocking comments by the Republican candidate Jeb Bush that only Christian refugees — not Muslims — should be considered for entry. “That’s shameful,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.” Mr. Obama stuck to his schedule, delivering remarks to a chief executives’ forum in Manila on climate change, meeting with Asian leaders about tensions in the South China Sea, and discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with business executives in Kuala Lumpur. But even as the Paris attacks receded a bit toward the end of his trip, Mr. Obama did not catch a break. Shortly after beginning a town-hall meeting with young entrepreneurs at a college in Kuala Lumpur, the phones of reporters in the audience started buzzing. Gunmen had stormed a hotel in Mali, seizing hostages in yet another terrorist attack. Less than an hour later, as Mr. Obama finished a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Razak, a reporter yelled out a question about the siege in Mali. “We’re monitoring the situation,” the president said as reporters were shuffled out. Later, he began another Trans-Pacific Partnership speech by expressing outrage about the Mali attacks and offering his condolences for those killed and wounded. “This is another awful reminder that the scourge of terrorism threatens so many of our nations,” he said. And a reminder that presidents do not control the agenda, no matter where in the world they find themselves. |