WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is jetting away from Washington’s political and budget battles just as crucial decisions and deadlines approach, focusing instead on Asia-Pacific nations and trying to convince voters at home the distant region is essential to American jobs and security.
Obama departed Friday for summits in Hawaii and Indonesia and a visit to Australia in between.
For nine days, the president will be as many as 10,000 miles from home at a time when jobs, the frail economy and other domestic concerns matter most to the U.S. electorate.
But Asia and the Pacific region are crucial to America’s future, the White House insists.
Obama was born in Hawaii, spent boyhood years in Indonesia and points to himself as America’s first Pacific president. His administration is showering attention on the region as a driver of global politics, a prized buyer of American products and a central player in protecting world peace.
“If you want America to be a world leader in this century, that leadership is going to have to include the Asia-Pacific,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser.
Such a focus is essential to American interests, analysts say, but still a test for a president who is seeking to govern and run for re-election at once.
The subtext of the trip agenda is Obama’s intention to keep the United States as a viable counterweight to a rising China, particularly in the eyes of other leaders in the region.
The element Obama aides don’t mention is the potential political cost of having the president out of the country, half a world away, as other debates rage back home.
The economy is king, from the presidential campaign to Obama’s jobs fights to a legislative supercommittee charged with finding more than $1 trillion in cuts by Nov. 23. Republicans and Democrats seem far apart, and there is growing pessimism they will succeed.
“I can see the domestic political advisers saying, ‘Ten days in the Pacific while people are out of work in the U.S. — Mr. President, you ought to cut this one short,’ ” said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former national security aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
White House officials say there are no plans to do that. A suddenly shortened trip would be seen as a slap to Asian allies, and the Australian leg has already been postponed twice because of higher-ranking domestic concerns for Obama.
En route to Hawaii, Obama attended a Veterans Day basketball game in San Diego between Michigan State and No. 1 North Carolina on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson.
The trip amounts to Obama’s most extensive travel of the year. He will be back in Washington Nov. 20.
President to talk jobs, trade, military on days-long visit
Hawaii
Obama will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, forum in Honolulu, to promote trade and jobs. The big push for Obama will be establishing a Pacific-wide free-trade zone. He also will hold private meetings with the leaders of Japan, Russia and China.
Australia
Obama will deliver a speech to Parliament in Canberra. He also is expected to announce a deeper U.S. military footprint in the country during a stop in Darwin, in the northern reaches of Australia.
Indonesia
He will be the first U.S. president to take part in the East Asia Summit, in Bali, known as a tropical paradise for tourism.
The Associated Press
