Obama and Asia-Pacific Leaders Vow to Work Toward Freer Trade

For this blog entry I went on NewYorkTimes.com to find an article. There were plenty of articles to choose from but the one that stuck out for me was how Obama was talking to asianpacific leaders about having better tradeand talked about creating a regional free trade zone. This meeting was the end of his 10 day diplomatic and economic journey where he recieved a warm welcome from India but was criticized for not being able to finalize a free trade pact with South Korea.

On his final say of his adventure Obama had a meeting with the President of Russia Dmitri A. Medvedev talking about how Obama is commited to lifting the Cold War era trade restrictions which would allow them to join the World Trade Organization. Obama also talked with 20 other countries and territories in the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum and agreed on taking steps to a free trade zone in that region. There is no official time table for this free trade yet but they thought a good starting point might be the Trans Pacific Partnership, Which is a free trade agreement that four small countries are in, but there are talks of five other countries including the US that might join in as well.

The Major leaders of the global economic activity agreed to remove protectionist measures put in place dring the current global economic crisis, but also to avois any sudden changes in the foriegn exchange markets. Obama also brought up with Medvedev that his top priority was the ratification of the two countries new arms treaty that was stalled in Senate. Obama and Medvedev will meet later on in the weel in Libson for the NATO summit meeting. Obama said that next time they meet he would like to talk about Afghanistan and missle defense.

The President then went to go see the Great Buddah of Kamakura before he left to deal with the Lame Duck Congress in Washington. Obama is seeming to make small steps into making other countries not hate us as much as they used to. This trade talk has seemed to have countries trust us a little more than they used to and hopefully if we follow through on these ideas it will help stimulate the global economy. I hope that we do lift the trade regulations on Russia from the Cold War era because we seem to always promise the Russians something then back out leading into a Cold War. If we lift the trade regulations then Russia will start getting alon with us better and hopefully other countries will follow.