[But
in four messy days, the president lost the clear message choreographed by his
advance team. There was the chaotic arrival ceremony in China, in which missing
aircraft stairs unexpectedly trumped the theme of global warming. And then, an
ugly personal outburst that prompted Mr. Obama to cancel a meeting with the new
leader of the Philippines, an ally the United States will need in the coming
contest with China for regional influence.]
By Mark Landler
 |
|
President Obama during a luncheon on Tuesday at the
Presidential Palace in
Vientiane, Laos, with President Bounnhang Vorachith,
seated at left.
Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
|
VIENTIANE,
Laos — President Obama has
grown accustomed to having his foreign travels overshadowed by terrorist
attacks or police shootings. This might be the first time one of his trips has
been marred by bad manners.
On his final visit to Asia as president this
week, Mr. Obama had intended to confront America’s wartime legacy in Laos and
to reaffirm his strategic pivot to the region. Like all presidential trips, it
has been meticulously planned to showcase achievements: a climate-change
partnership with China and vigorous American engagement with China’s neighbors.
But in four messy days, the president lost
the clear message choreographed by his advance team. There was the chaotic
arrival ceremony in China, in which missing aircraft stairs unexpectedly
trumped the theme of global warming. And then, an ugly personal outburst that
prompted Mr. Obama to cancel a meeting with the new leader of the Philippines,
an ally the United States will need in the coming contest with China for
regional influence.
On Tuesday, the White House scrambled to
limit the fallout from skipping a meeting with Rodrigo Duterte, the
Philippines’ president. Mr. Obama pulled the plug after hearing that Mr.
Duterte had unleashed a profane diatribe against him, threatening to repeat it
to Mr. Obama’s face if he dared ask him about recent extrajudicial killings in
his country.
Mr. Rhodes insisted that the alliance between
the United States and the Philippines was “rock solid”; the two countries work
together on a range of issues, from drug interdiction to counterterrorism. He
said it was possible that Mr. Obama might run into Mr. Duterte anyway, since
the two are attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
here in Vientiane.
Hillary Clinton said Mr. Obama’s decision to
cancel the meeting was “exactly the right choice.” She said the president was
likely to raise concerns about extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers,
“and when the president of the Philippines insulted our president, it was
appropriate in a very low-key way to say, ‘Sorry, no meeting.’ ”
Mr. Duterte seemed eager to defuse the
situation. In a statement, he said he regretted that his comments “came across
as a personal attack on the U.S. president.” He said he had overreacted to
reports that said Mr. Obama planned to lecture him in their meeting about his
unorthodox methods in combating the drug trade. “We look forward to ironing out
differences arising out of national priorities and perceptions,” Mr. Duterte
said, “and working in mutually responsible ways for both countries.”
For Mr. Obama, it was an unseemly distraction
from what he hoped would be a somber day of remembrance and reconciliation. The
first president to visit Laos, Mr. Obama came with a pledge to double American
aid, to $30 million a year over three years, to help Laotians find unexploded
bombs in their forests and fields.
Mr. Rhodes insisted that the alliance between
the United States and the Philippines was “rock solid”; the two countries work
together on a range of issues, from drug interdiction to counterterrorism. He
said it was possible that Mr. Obama might run into Mr. Duterte anyway, since
the two are attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
here in Vientiane.
Hillary Clinton said Mr. Obama’s decision to
cancel the meeting was “exactly the right choice.” She said the president was
likely to raise concerns about extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers,
“and when the president of the Philippines insulted our president, it was
appropriate in a very low-key way to say, ‘Sorry, no meeting.’ ”
Mr. Duterte seemed eager to defuse the
situation. In a statement, he said he regretted that his comments “came across
as a personal attack on the U.S. president.” He said he had overreacted to
reports that said Mr. Obama planned to lecture him in their meeting about his
unorthodox methods in combating the drug trade. “We look forward to ironing out
differences arising out of national priorities and perceptions,” Mr. Duterte
said, “and working in mutually responsible ways for both countries.”
For Mr. Obama, it was an unseemly distraction
from what he hoped would be a somber day of remembrance and reconciliation. The
first president to visit Laos, Mr. Obama came with a pledge to double American
aid, to $30 million a year over three years, to help Laotians find unexploded
bombs in their forests and fields.
The United States dropped more than two
million tons of explosives on this country during its secret war from 1964 to
1973, a legacy Mr. Obama said too few Americans understood. “As one Laotian
said, the ‘bombs fell like rain,’ ”
he said to a polite audience at the Lao National Cultural Hall.
There was no evidence that Mr. Duterte’s tiff
with Mr. Obama mattered much to Laotians. But it could matter more to
Philippine-American relations than Mr. Rhodes’s reassuring words suggest.
Mr. Duterte appears determined to carve out a
more independent foreign policy than his reliably pro-American predecessor,
Benigno S. Aquino III. He has talked about trying to settle an impasse with
China over the Scarborough Shoal, a disputed clump of rocks in the South China
Sea.
The United States worries that China will use
its influence to pressure its neighbors into agreements over disputed reefs and
shoals throughout the South China Sea that could eventually hinder the freedom
of navigation for American ships.
Mr. Rhodes said the United States would give
the Philippines leeway to negotiate an agreement with China, with the important
caveat that it adhere to international law. That is a message Mr. Obama would
likely have given Mr. Duterte in person.
“We should prepare for a wild ride since the
constantly changing outbursts of President Duterte undermine the stability of
the government’s foreign policy, including U.S.-Philippine relations,” Ramon
Casiple, head of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform in Manila.
The diatribe against Mr. Obama, he said, was “kneejerk as an outburst, but
calculated to produce a certain breathing space for negotiations with China.”
Mr. Obama had his own awkwardness with the
Chinese when he arrived at a Group of 20 summit meeting Saturday. A last-minute
dispute over who would drive the staircase to the doorway on Air Force One
forced him to exit from a door in the plane’s belly. White House officials
attributed the dispute to inexperienced, overzealous security officials rather
than any premeditated effort to humiliate Mr. Obama. But the images of Chinese
guards shouting at reporters and hassling the president’s national security
adviser, Susan E. Rice, added to the sense that the Chinese were sticking a
thumb in his eye.
As with the Philippine affair, administration
officials said the airport scene would have no spillover effect. Mr. Obama
himself described the visit as “extraordinarily productive,” noting that he and
President Xi Jinping had continued their landmark collaboration on climate
change. “None of this detracts from the broader scope of the relationship,” he
said.
And yet, administration officials showed
delight in the fact that when Mr. Obama left Hangzhou on Monday evening, the
Chinese moved a shiny staircase with blue lighting to the side of Air Force
One.
Felipe Villamor contributed reporting from
Manila, and Amy Chozick from Tampa, Fla.
