Financial Times Editorial: Obama gets less than he deserves

Financial Times Editorial: Obama gets less than he deserves
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 5 2009 17:51 | Last updated: April 5 2009 17:51
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/13f088da-2200-11de-8380-00144feabdc0.html


Barack Obama’s European tour has confirmed that the new US president is admired as much abroad as at home. His diplomacy builds on this appeal. He came to listen not to lecture, he told Europe’s leaders last week, giving every sign he meant it. He is the kind of US president that Europe has longed for. Yet after the Group of 20 and Nato summits, what does this European model of a US president have to show for his efforts? Rave reviews and words of friendship – but of substance all too little.

The G20 failed to agree on what the US sought above all, namely stronger fiscal expansion. Its communiqué blended measures already announced and commitments to do the right thing. As far as promising to maintain liberal trade and keep markets open is concerned, the same commitments were made last November and promptly broken.

At the Nato summit, Mr Obama’s chief goal was to secure real support – meaning European troops – for US forces in Afghanistan. Europe’s governments congratulated him on his new strategy and offered some extra troops on a temporary and conditional basis, but told the president, in effect, to expect no serious help in rooting out al-Qaeda. That kind of work is too dangerous for Europe’s soldiers.

On both issues, Mr Obama’s proposals are sound and deserved a generous response. Europe’s stimulus is indeed too puny. France and Germany, especially, should do more. The preference of European governments to move first on reform of global regulation is ill advised. Regulatory reform is not the priority. Loosely aligned national reforms make more sense in any case than striving for a chimerical global regulator. When Europe actually has a single regulator for itself it will have more credibility in calling for one for the world.

In Afghanistan, admittedly, doubts persist about the new aims of US policy. Mr Obama says his main goal is to deny al-Qaeda a sanctuary, yet he also talks of humanitarian help and promoting development. The line between this and the nation building that the administration sees as unwarranted and over-ambitious is not entirely clear. What matters most, though, is that Mr Obama is right when he says that al-Qaeda threatens Europe at least as much as it threatens the United States. The fight to contain it is Europe’s fight too.

Mr Obama was by no means humiliated on this trip – the reception was too rapturous for that – but he was rebuffed nonetheless and is entitled to feel disappointed. Applause is fine, but not enough. Mr Obama deserves Europe’s help.