President Obama's Diplomatic Approach Towards Foreign Policy

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Overwhelmed by numerous armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, a formidable domestic economic crisis, and a growing challenge of primacy from China, the United States government and public began prioritizing domestic issues. However, persisting transnational concerns, especially illicit drug trafficking, nuclear weapons proliferation, and the threat of terrorism, largely depend on U.S. involvement based on our relatively successful past efforts and President Barack Obama’s promising diplomatic approach towards foreign policy.

Obama’s diplomatic, multilateral outreach towards foreign governments, most recently China and Russia, began to gain significant support from the general public in America as well as abroad. “When asked to name the best things about Obama’s handling of foreign policy, Council on Foreign Relations members overwhelmingly cite the administration’s emphasis on engagement and diplomacy” (The Pew Research Center 2009: 6). Obama’s approach proved instrumental in regulating the growing threat of drug trafficking. Collaboration of the U.S. government with governments in South America in regards to drug laws allowed for a more responsive and flexible suppression of narco-trafficking, particularly in Mexico and Colombia. “The National Drug Intelligence Center’s 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment describes historic disrup¬tions in the cocaine and methamphetamine markets as a result of cumulative progress in Colombia, the transit zone, Mexico, and on the Southwest Border” (President’s National Drug Control Strategy 2009: 1). In such regions, where drug trafficking is proportionate to the level of violence, effective disruption of criminal activity continues to increase human rights and stability, an important...

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The Pew Research Center for People and the Press. “U.S. Seen as Less Important, China as

More Powerful: Isolationism surges to a Four-Decade High” (December 3, 2009).

1-11. Web. March 24, 2010. http://people-press.org/report/569/americas-place-in-the-world

“The President’s National Drug Control Strategy (January 2009).” Office of National Drug

Control Policy. Ch. 3. pgs. 1-11. January 2009. Web. Accessed March 24, 2010.

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/ndcs09/chapter3.pdf

U.S. National Academies Committee on U.S.-Russian Cooperation on Nuclear Nonproliferation, National Research Council of the National Academies. “Overcoming Impediments to ______U.S.- Russian Cooperation on Nuclear Nonproliferation.” National Academic Press ______(2004). Web. 1-119. Accessed March 24, 2010. http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10928

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