Obama Heads to Europe, Its Stability and His Priorities in Question
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Version 0 of 1. WASHINGTON — For much of his time in the White House, President Obama has labored to pull the United States out of the Middle East so he could pivot to more promising horizons in Asia. Now, as he winds down his presidency, it is Europe, another place where Americans have deep ties and a long history, that is exerting an unwelcome pull. As Mr. Obama prepares for a six-day trip this week that will include stops in Britain and Germany, his administration is worried about a cascade of events that is destabilizing, and could even potentially unravel, the European Union. Britain and Germany are both reeling from political tempests and fear of a new wave of immigrants, raising the risk that the British might vote to leave the union in a referendum in June. White House officials said last week that Mr. Obama would deliver a message of solidarity when he visited Prime Minister David Cameron in Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany. Yet the president’s own well-publicized statements and foreign-policy priorities could complicate his efforts to be a trans-Atlantic cheerleader. Some critics in Europe viewed Mr. Obama’s “Asia pivot” as a realignment of priorities away from the Continent. And the president struck a nerve when he suggested, in a recent interview in The Atlantic, that Britain and France had been “free riders” in NATO’s air campaign in Libya, leaving the United States to bear most of the military burden. “Obama has been a good friend to Europe in many ways,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former United States ambassador to NATO who is now a professor at Harvard. “But there’s no question that the language of the pivot gave the impression that he was not focused as viscerally on Europe.” Mr. Burns said the president’s treatment of Europe — from his support of the European Union during its debt crisis to his compromises over the climate-change agreement — was better than his critics suggested. Mr. Obama, he said, was handicapped by the impossibly high expectations Europeans had for him when he was a presidential candidate in 2008. With this week’s trip, and a NATO summit meeting scheduled to be held in Warsaw in July, the president has a chance to leave office with a strong display of support for Europe. “The U.S. and Europe need to draw a bright line around Poland and the Baltic States and tell Putin that he won’t be allowed to destabilize them,” Mr. Burns said, referring to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. Administration officials note that Mr. Obama has already taken a step in that direction, requesting $3.4 billion in additional military spending in 2017 to deploy heavy weapons, armored vehicles and other equipment to NATO countries in Central and Eastern Europe, in part to deter Russia from further aggression in the region. These officials dispute the argument that the trans-Atlantic alliance has not been a priority for Mr. Obama. They say he has held more than 70 conversations with European leaders since the beginning of 2015. This will be his fifth visit each to Britain and Germany as president. Mr. Cameron and Ms. Merkel are among Mr. Obama’s closer friends in the rarefied club of foreign leaders. But both are in perilous situations, facing perhaps the most difficult days of their time in office — all of which add to the diplomatic challenge facing the president. Mr. Cameron has staked his government on winning the referendum vote on whether to stay in the European Union. But the campaign to avert a so-called Brexit took a hit after disclosures that Mr. Cameron — its chief spokesman — profited from offshore investments set up by his father. White House officials suggested that Mr. Obama would express his hope that British voters would decide to stay in the European Union, but that he would do so diplomatically. “If he’s asked his view as a friend, he will offer it, but he’ll make very clear that this is a matter that the British people themselves will decide when they head to the polls in June,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. Mr. Obama’s aides were quick to backtrack on his criticism of Mr. Cameron on the Libya operation, after those comments drew an angry response from British politicians and in British newspapers. Ms. Merkel is facing a different kind of pressure after she agreed to allow a legal case to proceed against a popular comedian who had crudely satirized the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The chancellor’s decision has been widely condemned; analysts said it reflected her desperation not to offend Turkey, with which Europe has a fragile deal to stem the flood of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Still, Mr. Obama believes Ms. Merkel “demonstrated bold leadership in responding to the refugee crisis, and the president wants to provide political support to her for doing so,” said Charles Kupchan, senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council. The White House has not commented on the case against the comic, while the State Department noted that Ms. Merkel had indicated her government planned to amend the 1871 law under which he may be tried. The president’s itinerary includes stops that will showcase the sunnier side of the trans-Atlantic relationship. On Friday, he will have lunch with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle to celebrate her 90th birthday, which is Thursday. On Sunday, in Germany, he will tour the Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industrial technology trade fair, where he will promote his ambitious European trade deal, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Strains within the trans-Atlantic alliance are neither new nor unique to the Obama administration. Complaints about Mr. Obama are mild compared with the anger Europeans expressed after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then serving as George W. Bush’s defense secretary, referred to Germany and France as “old Europe” when they refused to support the Iraq war. “We never get it right with the Europeans,” said John C. Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany. “We’re either getting too involved in their affairs and sermonizing them, or we’re doing a shift to Asia and abandoning them.” |