Politics

For Obama in Asia, Focus Will be Economy

By Robert Hendin

November 12, 2009 / 5:33 PM EST / CBS News

(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

As President Obama was leaving the White House for his trip to Japan, he announced he would host a Jobs Summit next month. With unemployment over 10 percent, he said the summit is needed: "Millions of Americans -- our friends, our neighbors, our family members -- are desperately searching for jobs," said the president.

Jobs and the economy are going to be the key issue on his trip to Asia. While other diplomatic issues are on the agenda, specifically nuclear weapons issues with Iran and North Korea as well as global climate change, no issue is as pressing as the economy.

"Asian economies, in particular China, are emerging from the economic crisis stronger and earlier than almost anyone else. So these countries are assuming much greater roles in the global system," said Evan Feigenbaum of the Council on Foreign Relations. "I think the trip to Asia is in part a recognition of that."

Specifically, President Obama will wrestle with the issue of free trade, trying to make sure emerging Asian markets are open to U.S. made goods. He will be attending a major economic summit while here, but the president does not have any new free trade agreements to announce with Asian markets.

"At a time when Asians are reducing tariffs and making trade easier with one another's economies, the United States not engaging through free trade expansion of its own, really risks being left out of that and American firms will suffer," said Feigenbaum. "Because American firms will sell for instance, the things they manufacture to China at much higher tax and tariff rates than Asian countries sell to China."

Though trade talks may be tough here, there is some good news for the president: he is incredibly popular in these countries. Especially at his first stop in Tokyo, where he will need that popularity to charm the new government here that has recently pushed for re-defining the decades old relationship between the two countries.

"President Obama is simply loved by the Japanese public, there is very strong support for him, and there is a high hope that is attached to President Obama," said Kiichi Fuijwara of the University of Tokyo. "The simple fact that a president with African American blood can become president in the US shows that the United States is the land of opportunity."

Robert Hendin is a CBS News White House producer. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here.