During the G20 summit, Obama personally negotiated an agreement between France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and China’s President Hu Jintao that had threatened to disrupt the meeting. The disagreement on the surface was about China’s failure to support a French proposal to reign in international tax havens, but the relations between France and China have been on the skids since last year when Sarkozy met with the Dalai Lama – something that angered the Chinese and led them to cancel a state visit to France in return. Obama managed to broker a compromise between Sarkozy and Hu that allowed language on tax havens to be included in the final G20 agreement.
Obama then cleared the way for Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to become NATO’s new Secretary-General. All of the members of NATO agreed to the appointment of Rasmussen, except for Turkey, and because the appointment required the unanimous approval of all NATO members, Turkey effectively blocked Rasmussen’s candidacy.
Turkey’s opposition to Rasmussen goes all the way back to 2005 when several Danish newspapers published editorial cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad, something that caused outrage across the Muslim world. At the time Rasmussen refused demands to punish the cartoonists, though he said that he personally disagreed with the cartoons. He has also been an opponent of Turkey’s drive to join the European Union.
After meeting with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Rasmussen, Obama was again able to broker an agreement to get Turkey to drop their opposition and for Rasmussen to become NATO’s Secretary-General.
In the grand scheme of things they weren’t huge international agreements, but they were two noteworthy achievements for Obama during his first major trip abroad, and are an indication that America’s diplomatic power on the world stage may finally be returning.
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