This alone justifies four years of Obamareign. A confrontation between these two nuclear-armed global powers would have destabilized the world to the point of millions of lives lost and untold suffering. http://www.france24.com/en/20090402-obama-broke-france-china-tax-haven-logjam-us-official-g20-summit AFP - US President Barack Obama broke a "logjam" inside tense G20 negotiations between France and China on Thursday over the crucial issue of tax havens, a senior US official said. The G20 crisis talks ended with an agreement that summit participants would take note of a list of non-compliant tax havens to be published by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The official said, on condition of anonymity, that the language was amended as a direct result of Obama's intervention between France, which was adamant the meeting should endorse a list, and China, which opposed the move. "There was a great deal of back and forth," throughout the meeting, the official said. According to the US version of events, Obama took French President Nicolas Sarkozy aside to suggest a formulation for compromise language on tax havens in the final communique. "Sarkozy was objecting to a lack of a list. The Chinese were objecting to the existence of a list," the official said. Before the international meeting, Sarkozy had earlier threatened to walk out of the talks if they did not satisfy French demands for greater regulation of tax havens. Obama then took the Chinese delegation, led by President Hu Jintao into a corner of the plenary session room and received agreement on the language, before bringing the two sides together to seal the deal, the official said. "He called over Mr Sarkozy with translators and sherpas in tow and reached agreement, there was a shaking of hands. The resolution was that the G20 would take note that the OECD had published today a list," the official said.
Sam, you must have had a Chinese lover spurn you in the past. Don't say I didn't warn you about Maggie's in Beijing.
I am impressed with this. And it's too bad, in a sense, that the presidents' first successful negotiation between to highly stratified parties happened overseas. (Remember one of his major selling points for himself was that he was good at finding common ground for agreement. This would count as a major success in that arena.) However the above quote is hyperbolic. What happened is great, but it's not like he singlehandedly averted nuclear war. Congrats to our pres.
Perhaps it's just an indication of what he can do when working with other rational people willing to compromise...
How naive must people be to think that this story is true? Honestly, people, Obama is nothing more than a public relations-friendly vehicle for the left wing to advance their agenda. The man is outwitted and outclassed in a major way when dealing with the heads of the G20. To think that he could negotiate a difficult situation such as what is described is the height of naivete. The man still has his training wheels on -- as he is totally in over his head. This is a manufactured story to help give him some cred, after his clumsy first couple of months in office.
It's out there plain as day for you to read. Then again, you probably don't believe anyone landed on the moon and the rest of us are just "naive".
Do you have any proof that he didn't negotiate that agreement? Anyway good job by the Pres but Sam is being as deliberately hyperbolic as T_J.
I certainly like seeing that Obama can be a mediator between other leaders. That being said, it isn't like France or China were going to launch nukes if France walked out of the summit. Besides, we all know that the French would surrender quickly.
I'm sure that if Obama did not step in, we would see nukes launched all over the world this Friday morning.
Quite right, with France renewing its military commitments with NATO, it would have been Fallout 3 in no time.
ditto, what a difference competence makes. O has demonstrated his competence in his endeavers to clean up the mess (economic, foreigh affairs, enviornment, energy, health care,e tc.) left behind by the incompetent W
This would be acceptable if you could figure out that Bush was intended to be the same thing for the right wing, but the complete opposite, in order to make Obama so attractive down the road. It's all a big setup.
While I certainly appreciate Obama's ability to unite foreign leaders, which is extremely important, let's not applaud his economic skills quite yet. The fact is that G20 accomplished one economic thing...a continuation of throwing f*%&tons of money at the problem hoping it will go away. That alone will not do it. Another thing is that we do not know what kind of inflation such a tactic will eventually cause. The jury is still out.
