Obama Writing Op-Eds

President Obama has decided that writing an op-ed for newspapers around the world is an effective way to convey his message and vision for the global economy in the time leading up to the G20 economic meeting. The op-ed was published in newspapers in Europe, Asia, the Arab world, South America, and South Africa.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find the op-ed or reactions to it in the online editions of foreign newspapers, such as Al Watan and the International Herald Tribune. Obama's statements seemed to be very generalized and included much of what he has been saying all along, with renewed commitments to promote economic growth throughout the world and improving the IMF.

The wording he used in addressing certain issues is what really stood out to me though. Although he talks about issues that face the whole world, he says things like, "The suffering caused by this crisis will be enlarged, and our own recovery will be delayed because markets for our goods will shrink further and more American jobs will be lost." To me, it seems as though simple things like this may be interpreted by foreigners as if Obama is looking at the economic crisis as something that is only affecting Americans, despite his insistence that this is a global crisis. I think that if he was intending this op-ed to simply be published in American papers, a statement such as this would be well received, but in a global context, it may cause a bit of a stir that he's addressing American job losses as opposed to world-wide job losses.

How do you interpret this statement and do you think it's important that Obama specifically addressed American job losses instead of referring to job losses around the world?

For the full op-ed go to:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/24/obama_reaches_out_to_the_world.html?wprss=44