Americans give thumbs-up to Obama visit

There is no doubt that US president Barack Obama’s visit to India, especially the Mumbai leg, has satisfied one of his critical domestic goals by repairing his rocky relations with American business.

White House officials and American business leaders were at loggerheads ahead of last week’s midterm elections, squabbling over hundreds of millions of dollars which US business pumped into the congressional campaigns, much of it for Republicans. But Obama’s passage to India with a jumbo-sized business delegation has put a band-aid on the fractious relationship.

The Western media declared that Obama’s visit to India might have lacked a little in “emotions and showmanship” but business-wise, the world’s two biggest democracies were on a song as they signed or committed to a total of $15 billion worth in deals.

“Having the president here in India, it helps,” beamed
W James McNerney Jr, chairman and chief executive of Boeing, who was invited by Obama to travel with him in his presidential helicopter into Mumbai.

Aside from the ride, McNerney had every reason to be charitable about Obama as Boeing and the Indian Air Force have reached a preliminary agreement on the purchase of 10 C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft. The deal, valued at $4.1 billion, has the potential to create 22,160 US jobs.

Officials from both sides met or talked by telephone 14 times to hash through negotiations to complete the deal. First proposed in January, the purchase of planes by India could keep Boeing’s Long Beach plant open a year beyond the now-scheduled closing in 2013. Boeing will also sell SpiceJet 30 new B737-800 commercial aircraft for $2.7 billion creating 12,970 US jobs.

The US media also pored over details regarding gas and steam turbine sales and a diesel locomotive manufacturing venture. The Wall Street Journal highlighted Obama’s Mumbai visit as a “charm offensive with business” noting that White House officials sent the chief executives of PepsiCo, Honeywell International, McGraw-Hill and AES Corp to brief the press before any senior administration official spoke.

CNN noted that as Asia’s third largest economy and one of the world’s fastest growing markets, India is high on Obama’s goal list to build a “defining” partnership. The Washington Post said Obama’s decision to support India’s membership to the 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is “among the clearest indications yet that he has heard some of India’s complaints”.

US non-proliferation groups condemned Obama’s support for India to join the NSG — established 35 years ago in response to India’s first nuclear test — as another undeserved reward that will undermine those goals.

“The move would cause a lot of nonproliferation pain and absolutely no gain,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

Foreign policy analyst Daniel Gillard observed Obama had done a remarkable job in skirting other controversies; “The US president has also been able to weather the trip quite well so far by cautiously staying clear of the P-word and the K-word, which are guaranteed to send Islamabad and New Delhi into paroxysms.”

Many poorer white Americans feel alienated by Obama’s failure to deliver promises two years after his rip-roaring election win.

US officials are hoping that Obama’s 10-day Asia trip will breathe new life into his presidency. Commentrators say that a whirl of deal-making and diplomacy from Tokyo to Delhi is giving the US an opportunity to reassert itself in a region where America’s eclipse by China has been viewed as inevitable.

The significance of the trip to Asia by Obama is not lost on anyone: It will take him to Asia’s big democracies, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, skirting authoritarian China. Those countries and others have taken steps — with varying degrees of candour — to blunt China’s assertiveness in the region, pointed out analysts.