The Presidential visit to Europe and Turkey comes at a time when the world is questioning whether the bold experiment called America has become passé.
Capitalism is under unprecedented attack worldwide. President Obama has arrived for the G-20 Summit on a continent that believes in a fundamentally different economic system than the American way. The European economic artifice perhaps best described as market socialism is however the ultimate goal of the Congressional Democratic Liberal leadership. The President finds himself in the classic irony of advocating American capitalism to which he pretends but does not believe while European governments pretend but do not believe in socialism. As David Sanger described in the New York Times today European governments are quick to openly blame the world's economic crisis on America's capitalistic excesses but secretly are hoping that same system will be the engine of the world's economic recovery.
Mr. Obama is asking the governments of the world to follow his paradigm and spend billions in stimulus packages but this appears to be falling on mostly deaf ears. Even the true believers can only go so far so most European countries say their social programs are already much stronger than that of the U.S. thus any additional spending is not only unnecessary but would bring a significant risk of inflation and rising national debt. Instead Europe wants the United States to agree to subject American financial institutions to an international banking authority. Other nations including China especially want to see a conversion from using the dollar as the world's basic currency reference and instead use a new legal tender issued by the World Monetary Fund.
There is very little expectation that anything significant will be accomplished by the G-20 Summit. President Obama will conveniently be the target at whom the elected leaders of Europe can point the finger of blame for their problems. Showing agreement and even eagerness to compromise on any issue may at this time have more negative than positive ramifications for European leaders like Britain's Gordon Brown.
President Obama may be popular in Europe but it is important to ask why? Does his popularity arise because Europeans see him as an counter-cultural American who finally agrees with the European style of government and commerce? His acclaim in part no doubt comes from his vocal opposition to the Iraq war which projected to Europeans the image that Obama would never belief in military force use. Now that he is requesting support from NATO for the war in Afghanistan they will see him as hypocritical.
Foreign investors and banks were significant voluntary participants in marketing the Wall Street derivatives which contained the toxic assets. The American government has already been more than generous in repaying foreign banks as counterparties to the AIG bailout than it was to our own domestic banks. No one attending the G-20 summit can say they were not contributory to the crisis.
America needs to make changes in the regulation of non-bank financial institutions and should encourage more world wide cooperation in tracking financial institutions. However, we owe no apology to any country and we should not relinquish our sovereignty in regulating our own institutions. Our faith in the American dollar remains strong. Any challenges to the dollar's preeminence are welcome competitions but we should never participate in changing our currency for an international legal tender.
If President Obama does not defend our capitalist economic principles and begins relinquishing American sovereignty not only will this bring more economic chaos for America but the whole world. He should demand unapologetically much greater cooperation of the NATO allies in fighting in Afghanistan. If they do not wish to participate than the words of George Bush " If you are not with us than you are against us" may very well become relevant again. If NATO does not cooperate than maybe we should let them see how well they can pay and staff continental Europe when the U.S. pulls out all her European NATO forces.
America is not the world and the world is not America. Since the early twentieth century when Woodrow Wilson dreamed of forming a peaceful co-existent world alliance every American President has had to relearn for himself this truth. President Obama must remember that he was elected President by the American people and must serve their interests exclusively. America believes in helping her true allies but should not be a patsy for her "friends". If the President displays weakness in his confidence in the American capitalist economy this could add irreparable damage to the current crisis.
The world will be watching to see how much Obama really believes in the American way. We cannot expect respect from any other country if our own President doubts our core values
Dr. Tony Magana was raised in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M;University, and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. He has served in the United States Army Reserve. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
