Obama, McCain pledge to work together on reform
November 18, 2008
Obama, McCain pledge to work together on reform
CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama and vanquished rival John McCain met for the first time since the November 4 election on Monday, pledging to work together to face the financial crisis and reduce government waste.
Obama says aiding economy trumps budget deficit
November 17, 2008
Obama says aiding economy trumps budget deficit
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The United States government should not worry about deficits over the next two years while spending money to jumpstart the ailing economy, President-elect Barack Obama said in a television interview that aired on Sunday.
Obama, Clinton discussed secretary of state job
November 15, 2008
Obama, Clinton discussed secretary of state job
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton left the door open to becoming secretary of state on Friday, a day after a meeting with President-elect Barack Obama at which a Democratic official said they discussed the job.
Healthcare reform gets backing in Congress
November 13, 2008
Healthcare reform gets backing in Congress
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Efforts to reform the U.S. healthcare system got a big boost on Wednesday as a powerful Democratic senator unveiled a plan similar to President-elect Barack Obama’s and an analysis said the financial crisis could accelerate any efforts, not hinder them.
White House says Bush says didn’t link trade, autos
November 12, 2008
White House says Bush says didn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The White House said on Tuesday President George W. Bush did not link support for economic stimulus measures or further aid to U.S. automakers to congressional passage of free trade pacts in a meeting with President-elect Barack Obama.
“The president did not suggest a quid-pro-quo,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters, adding, however, that Bush did speak to Obama about the merits of free trade.
An Obama adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Bush did not link the issues in their White House meeting on Monday.
The New York Times, citing people familiar with the discussion, reported Bush indicated he might support further aid to struggling automakers and a broader economic stimulus package if Democrats in Congress passed a stalled free-trade agreement with Colombia.
At the meeting, Obama urged Bush to use existing bailout measures to help the ailing industry on top of a $25 billion loan packaged approved in September, another Obama aide said.
That aide, who insisted on anonymity, said Obama suggested accelerating implementation of the current loan package and exploring avenues that exist under current law.
Obama suggested identifying someone in charge of the auto issue who would have authority to bring about reforms that would lead to a viable auto industry, the aide said.
Obama also raised the need for a second stimulus plan that would create jobs and help relieve “the squeeze on families,” the aide said.
EXISTING PACKAGE
The Bush administration said any new and substantial money for manufacturers could come out of the existing loan package, which was passed to help Detroit make more fuel-efficient vehicles. But any change would require additional legislative action, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
“We’re open to ideas from Congress to accelerate funds they’ve already appropriated in the auto loan program — as long as funding will continue to go to viable firms and with strong taxpayer protections,” Fratto said.
Detroit has asked for up to $25 billion in additional loans to stave off collapse. U.S. auto sales are plunging and General Motors Corp, Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co, are burning through billions of dollars of cash monthly.
Automakers privately say the financing for fuel-efficient vehicles would take too long to obtain and has too many strings attached to help shake the current crisis. They would like another $25 billion later to reduce retiree health-care costs.
Top congressional Democrats asked Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Saturday to consider using the $700 billion financial bailout initiative that has so far covered banks and other financial services companies to help automakers as well.
Congress next week could act to increase the flexibility of the bailout program if Treasury balks.
Obama, who takes office on January 20, said in a news conference on Friday that aid for automakers is a high priority of his transition team.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said on the plane back from Washington after the meeting on Monday that Obama did not ask Bush for help for a specific American automaker.
Obama seeks new approach in Afghanistan: report
November 11, 2008
Obama seeks new approach in Afghanistan: report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama plans to try a more regional approach to the war in Afghanistan including possible talks with Iran, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing national security advisers to Obama.
The president-elect also intends to move ahead with a planned deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan and refocus on the hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the newspaper reported.
However, the Obama team is far from working out how to bring bin Laden back to the forefront of the U.S. counter-terrorism agenda, The Washington Post reported.
Obama received his first high-level intelligence briefing as president-elect last week.
While emphasizing the importance of continuing U.S. operations against Pakistan-based Taliban fighters who attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the incoming administration intends to remind Americans about the fight against Islamist extremists and the September 11 attacks, the newspaper said.
Advisers told the newspaper that Obama plans to underscore that al Qaeda remains the nation’s highest priority.
“This is our enemy,” on Obama adviser told the newspaper, referring to bin Laden “and he should be our principal target.”
Iran, on Afghanistan’s western border, has been kept at arm’s length by the Bush administration, but should be considered in formulating a new Afghanistan strategy, a senior U.S. military official was cited as saying.
“As we look to the future, it would be helpful to have an interlocutor” to explore shared objectives, the official told the newspaper. The Iranians “don’t want Sunni extremists in charge of Afghanistan any more than we do,” the official said.
Source: reuters.com
Obama to White House for first post-election visit
November 10, 2008
Obama to White House for first post-election visit
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Less than one week after his historic victory, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama heads to Washington on Monday to learn firsthand from President George W. Bush about the challenges that await him on January 20.
Obama, 47, who swept to office after two years of campaigning on a theme of change — particularly from Bush’s economic and foreign policies — will put politics aside as he visits the White House.
Obama and Medvedev to meet soon, Kremlin says
November 9, 2008
Obama and Medvedev to meet soon, Kremlin says
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President-elect Barack Obama agreed to meet soon during a telephone conversation on Saturday, a Kremlin spokesman said.
He said the meeting would most probably take place when they were in Washington for the Group of 20 summit next weekend.
The G20, comprising major industrialized powers and leading developing countries, will meet to discuss how to tackle the global financial crisis.
The Kremlin spokesman declined to give details of the call, saying only that Medvedev congratulated Obama on his successful campaign for the presidency.
Washington’s relations with Moscow plunged to a post-Cold War low during George W. Bush’s presidency, and many in Russia have been cautiously hopeful for an improvement under Obama.
But hours after Obama won the U.S. presidential election, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Washington of “conceit” in causing turmoil on world markets and said it partly triggered Moscow’s war with Georgia in August.
Medvedev also said in a state of the nation address on Wednesday that Russia would respond to U.S. plans to build parts of a missile defense shield in eastern Europe by stationing new missiles near Poland’s border.
Poland said earlier on Saturday that Obama had declared he would continue with the missile shield, but an Obama aide in Washington said he had given no commitment to deploy the system.
(Reporting by Denis Dyomkin, writing by Simon Shuster; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
Obama says will confront economic woes head-on
November 8, 2008
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Friday the United States was facing one of its greatest economic challenges and vowed to confront the crisis head-on as soon as he takes office in January.
Investors are awaiting Obama’s choice of Treasury secretary who will spearhead economic recovery, but Obama made clear he would not be rushed into making hasty appointments.
“I want to move with all deliberate haste, but I want to emphasize deliberate as well as haste,” he said.
A president-elect would typically take weeks, if not months, to settle on Cabinet choices. But in light of the financial crisis Obama is moving swiftly and will likely name his economic team soon.
“I’m confident that we’re going to have an outstanding team, and we will be rolling that out in subsequent weeks,” added Obama, 47, who swept to a decisive victory in Tuesday’s election.
At his first news conference since being elected, Obama noted the latest Labor Department figures which showed that U.S. unemployment hit a 14-year-high in October after employers slashed jobs by an unexpectedly steep 240,000.
“We are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime and we’re going to have to act swiftly to resolve it,” Obama said, as his team of economic advisers, who include top businessmen and well-regarded former government officials, stood in a line behind him.
Obama was speaking after two days in which Wall Street has plunged around 10 percent. The market, which has fallen because of negative economic news and poor corporate results, recovered a bit on Friday and finished the day nearly 3 percent higher.
The brief news conference in Chicago followed a meeting with his 17-member transition economic advisory board on how to tackle the worst economic crisis confronting the United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The economic advisory board includes former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, former Labor secretary Robert Reich, former chair of the National Economy Council Laura Tyson, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
SECOND STIMULUS SOON
Obama said he wanted the Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress to pass a second stimulus package as soon as possible to stabilize the economy, which analysts say may be in deep recession by the time he is inaugurated on January 20.
“We are going to need to see a stimulus package passed either before or after the inauguration. I want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later.”
Whoever takes the Treasury job will guide the $700 billion economic bailout package and the regulatory reform needed to prevent a repeat of the current crisis.
With U.S. automakers also reporting billions in losses on Friday, Obama also urged the Bush administration to accelerate a $25 billion retooling assistance plan already passed by Congress.
The automakers are lobbying for up to $50 billion to prevent a collapse that could cost over two million jobs.
Financial analysts and traders said they did not hear any surprises from Obama in his news conference.
“He is sending a strong message that he is already on the job,” said Greg Salvaggio, senior currency trader at Tempus Consulting in Washington. “He is showing he will be ready to hit the ground running and that should provide some confidence to markets. But the truth is that this economy is hemorrhaging.”
In his first foreign policy pronouncement as president-elect, Obama called for an international effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, a day after Iran’s president urged him to implement a “fairer” U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Obama, who has said he does not rule out direct talks with Iran’s leaders, also called on Tehran to end what he called the country’s support for terrorist organizations.
Obama said he would be reviewing a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, congratulating him on his election, and would “respond appropriately.”
But he said the U.S. approach to Iran could not be done in a “knee-jerk” fashion. “I think we’ve got to think it through,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin, Donna Smith, Kristin Roberts and Andrew Quinn in Washington)
Source: reuters.com
Analysis: High hopes and high expectations abroad for Obama
November 6, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama faces a litany of foreign policy problems when he takes office January 20.
In a congratulatory letter to president-elect Barack Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy writes, “Your election raises in France, in Europe, and beyond throughout the world, immense hope.”
Obama’s election offers a monumental transformation of America’s face to the world. Many see him as the epitome of the American dream. But his appeal is not solely based on the fact that he is black or that his middle name is Hussein or that his father was Kenyan or that he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia.
The global excitement over Obama’s election is as much about the fact that he isn’t President Bush.
In his victory speech Tuesday night, Obama said, “To all those watching from beyond our shores, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.” Those were welcome words to those who resented what they viewed as eight years of “unilateralist” Bush policies. His words spark hope that an Obama administration will repair America’s relations with the rest of the world.
It is difficult to think of a U.S. president who has come to power with a more complex and pressing web of domestic and international burdens. He inherits a global financial meltdown, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a global struggle against terrorism, and a military already stretched to its limits. Add to that, a simmering crisis with Iran, renewed tensions with Russia, and the rise of China as a global economic powerhouse, and Obama’s plate starts to get pretty full.
Obama also takes the reins at a time of enormous anti-American sentiment after the stains of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and, closer to home, Hurricane Katrina.
U.S. power is declining, and not entirely by fault of its own. The concept of a single-superpower world no longer fits. Developing countries like China, Brazil and India, coupled with a stronger European Union belong to a new world where many players call the shots. Globalization requires more cooperation with a wider range of countries and organizations.
Obama’s speech in Europe this summer about the need for reconciliation, signaled he wants to strengthen ties with Europe damaged during the Bush administration, especially over Iraq.
His pledge to withdraw from Iraq and his promise for strong action on climate change is bound to make European allies happy. But issues like trade and increased troops for Afghanistan could spark new differences with Europe.
Obama has pledged to make Middle East peace a priority from Day One. Arabs are already calling for a more even-handed approach, while Israel is expecting Obama to stay true to the pro-Israel posture he showed during the campaign.
And there are other complications — like politics on the ground. Israeli elections early next year could bring hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back to power. And if moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is unable to win support from Hamas next year to extend his term, his re-election is far from certain.
Obama has promised to engage Iran’s leaders on a multitude of issues, but it remains to be seen if Iran would accept any deal to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Obama could be forced into a devil’s choice between military action (or supporting an Israeli strike) and living with a nuclear Iran.
There is a long list of other pressing issues. Obama is likely to continue the Bush administration’s policy of going after extremists in Pakistan. And in Africa, conflicts in Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to churn. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Countries around the world will compete for Obama’s attention. Africa, elated over the election of America’s first black president, may expect increased attention and aid from the United States. Additionally, Muslims familiar with Obama’s Kenyan father and middle name, “Hussein,” may think he will be more understanding of their concerns. Will he embrace them or distance himself from them, in an effort to prove he does not hold any bias?
The president-elect must navigate this minefield of expectations. Once the gloss of this historic election wears off, the world will find Obama cannot be president to the world. He can only be president of the United States and Americans will expect him to protect their interests first and foremost.
Source: cnn.com