LIMA, Peru: Trying to tie up loose ends of his foreign policy agenda, President Barack Obama on Saturday instead found world leaders more focused on someone else: President-elect Donald Trump.
Global hand-wringing over America’s next president has taken much of the wind out of Obama’s final overseas trip. Adopting an altruistic tone, Obama has offered frequent reassurances that the U.S. won’t renege on its commitments. Yet he’s been at a loss to quell concerns fully, given new signals from Trump that he intends to govern much the way he campaigned.
Obama’s visit to Peru, the last stop on his trip, has brought those concerns to the forefront: Much of Latin America is on edge about a potentially dramatic shift in U.S. immigration policy under Trump. And Asian leaders gathered in Lima for an Asia-Pacific economic summit are trying to game out what Trump’s presidency will mean for trade with the world’s largest economy.
“We’re going to have a busy agenda,” Obama said as he sat down with leaders of countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the sweeping free trade deal with Asia that Obama painstakingly brokered.
Vehemently opposed to the Pacific agreement and similar deals, Trump has vowed it won’t be ratified on his watch.
Obama didn’t mention the trade deal at all as reporters were allowed in briefly for the beginning of his meeting with TPP nations, which include Mexico, Chile, Japan, Australia and Vietnam. Instead, Obama called it a useful occasion to talk about creating jobs, opportunity and prosperity.
Obama has made it a tradition to attend the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. His attendance this year was designed to reinforce the importance of that venue.
His visit also offered a chance for a round of farewell meetings, including with President Xi Jinping of China, a sometimes U.S. rival. Xi commended Obama for “active efforts” to grow U.S.-China ties. Obama, with just a hint of nostalgia, noted it was their last meeting, and called the two countries’ relationship the most consequential in the world.
Before returning to Washington, Obama will sit down Sunday with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. He also will participate in a pull-aside with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Obama’s chief antagonist on the world stage, was also in Lima, but the White House did not expect them to have any substantive interaction.
By this point, Obama has come to terms with the fact that his remaining weeks in office will be overshadowed by the provocative businessman who soon moves into the home Obama’s family now occupies.
Obama’s message to young leaders at a town hall-style meeting in Lima was sanguine: “Don’t assume the worst.”
“I think it will be important for everybody around the world to not make immediate judgments, but give this new president-elect a chance to put their team together, to examine the issues, to determine what their policies will be,” Obama said. “How you campaign is not always how you govern.”
Xi, speaking before his meeting with Obama, made an impassioned call against protectionism as Chinese state media said Trump’s trade-bashing could drag the world into “deeper economic distress.” Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto defended his country’s trade relationship with the U.S., but took a cautious approach to Trump’s pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“In the face of Trump’s positioning, we’re now in a stage of favoring dialogue as a way to build a new agenda in our bilateral relationship,” Pena Nieto said.