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Obama looks to Asia with Europe in decline
Obama pledged greater involvement in a wide array of regional security and economic concerns as the U.S. ratchets down its military presence in the Middle East with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; and as it seeks to extricate itself from Afghanistan.
“The Asian economies are the fastest growing economies on the planet. It’s where the action is, where U.S. businesses are increasingly looking for growth,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “We’ve got to be looking toward Asia. Europe is in trouble.”
Rapid growth of Asian economies could help offset weaknesses in Europe. Still, China and several other Asian exporting countries do substantial business selling their goods in European countries.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned that the European crisis is still “the central challenge to global growth” and urged Asia-Pacific leaders to do more to help keep the European contagion from spreading, including boosting demand in their own countries.
Still, economists generally say that so long as any new recession in Europe is relatively mild, it seems unlikely that it would drag down other economies.
“Asia is in ascendency while Europe is fading in the power lineup of the world,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics. He said the new U.S. focus on the region “is long overdue.”
Obama’s trip follows congressional approval of a free-trade pact with South Korea, initially negotiated by the Bush administration. The president said the pact would help open the big South Korean market to U.S. goods and services and help create badly needed jobs in the United States.
With unemployment hovering at a stubbornly high 9 percent, and congressional negotiators straining to meet a November 23 deadline for delivering a deficit-cutting plan, Obama did take some heat from Republicans for leaving the country instead of focusing on domestic priorities, even as he promoted job-creation as a key part of his mission.
And a few Democrats voiced skepticism about some aspects of the trip.
“I guess the strategic purpose, we’re told, is we have to contain China. I think we overdo that,” said Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.
