Obama: No More Mr. Nice Guy?

Well, he was nice to the world tyrants (still is–note the silence on the hangings in Iran). He’s not so hip on America.

But meeting with the Dalai Lama is symbolic, I guess, of some new toughness. Meh.

On Friday the Obama administration signed off on a $6.4 billion (£4 billion) arms package for Taiwan. China, which claims the island, had repeatedly warned against the sale and retaliated by vowing to punish US companies.

Obama may butt heads with Beijing again in the coming weeks if he meets the Dalai Lama. The two nations also have a number of trade rows including Google’s threat to leave China over the hacking of political activists’ email accounts.

Officials and experts doubted that Obama was seeking to antagonise China. Rather, they said he had long planned to sell arms to Taiwan and meet the Dalai Lama but wanted first to develop a good rapport with Beijing.

Douglas H. Paal, a former top US policymaker on China and envoy to Taiwan, said that Obama had waited for the right time and saw an opportunity after Beijing balked in mid-January at backing tougher sanctions against Iran.

“It became clear that Beijing was not going to play on Iran and therefore there was nothing to hold up the arms sales anymore,” said Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

I’m thinking that Obama has figured out that we have enemies all over. And they aren’t cooperating just because of his magnificence. This is shocking. To him.

Posted in Barack Obama • Economy