WASHINGTON (AP) – It was supposed to be his grand valedictory tour. Now President Barack Obama must use his last major trip abroad to try to calm shocked world leaders about the outcome of the U.S. election, and what comes next when Donald Trump is president.
Trump’s unforeseen victory has triggered pangs of uncertainty at home and grave concerns around the world. Though Obama has urged unity and said the U.S. must root for Trump’s success, the president’s trip to Greece, Germany and Peru forces him to confront global concerns about the future of America’s leadership. Obama departs Monday on the six-day trip.
In some ways, there’s nothing to say,” said Heather Conley, a Europe scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Conley said Obama’s trip, planned when it seemed certain Hillary Clinton would win, had been designed to reassure the world that the U.S. had regained its footing after a toxic campaign that unnerved foreign capitals. “Now the president has the unenviable task of telling his counterparts and explaining what Europeans are now coining ‘the Trump effect,'” Conley said.
For months, Obama lent credence to those concerns as he urged Americans to reject Trump. Standing alongside Singapore’s prime minister in August, Obama said Trump was “woefully unprepared” because he lacked “basic knowledge” about critical issues in Europe, Asia and the Mideast. And during a visit to Japan, Obama said he wasn’t the only world leader worried about Trump.