![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I don't understand the international community's having gone gaga over US President Obama. The feeling of many people around the world is that Mr. Obama is going to create some kind of new openness and warm-and-fuzzy open-house policy for the United States that did not exist before.
Yet one of President Obama's first acts was to institute protectionist measures. Had it not been for Republican intervention, there would have been nothing in those measures to protect existing trade agreements with other countries. While I'm all for keeping jobs at home where feasible, as a citizen of the United States's largest trading partner, it seems to me that the risk of xenophobia is a real one, and anyone expecting a warm-and-fuzzy open door policy needs to wake up and smell the incense.
Mr. Obama is clearly a very intelligent, extremely articulate, charismatic, and no doubt a very nice man. But a lot of people are expecting a utopia under his presidency. I was no fan of Bush either, but I'm not naïve enough to expect what every indicator tells me not to expect.
Yet one of President Obama's first acts was to institute protectionist measures. Had it not been for Republican intervention, there would have been nothing in those measures to protect existing trade agreements with other countries. While I'm all for keeping jobs at home where feasible, as a citizen of the United States's largest trading partner, it seems to me that the risk of xenophobia is a real one, and anyone expecting a warm-and-fuzzy open door policy needs to wake up and smell the incense.
Mr. Obama is clearly a very intelligent, extremely articulate, charismatic, and no doubt a very nice man. But a lot of people are expecting a utopia under his presidency. I was no fan of Bush either, but I'm not naïve enough to expect what every indicator tells me not to expect.
