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| U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: '97 IN REVIEW
December 23, 1997NewsHour Transcript |
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From the stalled Middle East peace process to the collapse of the Asian economies, the Clinton administration faced many global challenges in 1997. Following a background report, Margaret Warner and guests discuss the success, failure and future of U.S. foreign policy.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
December 23, 1997:
A discussion on the U.S.'s role as a super power.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Africa Asia, Bosnia, Europe, International Latin America, and the Middle East.
OUTSIDE LINKS
U.S. State Department
United Nations
NATO
MARGARET WARNER: At his news conference last week, President Clinton gave an upbeat assessment of his administration's year in foreign affairs.
President Clinton assesses his administration's foreign policy decisions.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: We made the world safer by ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention, and at Kyoto, with the Vice President's leadership, we took an important step toward protecting the environment even as we promote global economy growth. We renewed the consensus for honest engagement with China. We stood strong against a rogue regime in Iraq. We made real progress toward lasting peace in Bosnia.
MARGARET WARNER: As the first post-Cold War president Mr. Clinton leads a nation with an enviable position in the world. The U.S. continued this year to be the globe's sole superpower--economically and militarily. The country was at peace and faced no direct military threat. At the start of the year the President put a new face on his foreign policy, naming Madeleine Albright as the nation's first women secretary of state.
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Secretary of State: America is strong, our principles are ascendant, and our leadership both respected and welcome in most corners of the world. But if we are complacent or timid or unwilling to look beyond our borders, our citizens will not prosper and the framework of American leadership and the foundation of American security we have built could crumble with 21st century speed. We cannot allow that to happen.
MARGARET WARNER: The President also forged new directions in a couple of areas. In Europe, the administration pushed for an expansion of NATO. At a July summit in Madrid, the Western Alliance invited three countries from the former Soviet Bloc to become new members. The Clinton administration also shifted course with China. In October, Mr. Clinton hosted Chinese President Jiang Zemin for a state visit in Washington, symbolizing a new, more engaged Sino-American relationship eight years after the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Also high on the White House agenda this year were issues that would not have been considered foreign policy 10 years ago. For instance, Vice President Gore made a last minute push earlier this month to put the U.S. imprint on a global warming treaty to be negotiated in Kyoto, Japan. And top administration policy makers have been working overtime with the International Monetary Fund to stabilize several Asian economies beset by financial and currency upheavals.
Continuing challenges.
Yet, much of the administration's attention has focused on managing ongoing, post Cold War problems inherited from Mr. Clinton's predecessor, George Bush. In Bosnia, U.S. troops are completing a second year as part of a NATO peacekeeping force, and last week, President Clinton announced an open-ended commitment to stay on.
In the Middle East, terrorist violence by some Arabs and a hard-line Israeli government have made it more difficult for President Clinton to hold together one of his early achievements, the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. And in the Persian Gulf the United States is still working to maintain United Nations solidarity in the face of Iraq's intermittent defiance of UN weapons inspectors. Despite America's superpower status, the President has faced opposition from both the allies abroad and in Congress. In the Gulf, America's European and Arab allies are increasingly pursuing their own economic and political interests, rather than support U.S. efforts to isolate both Iraq and Iran.
And the United States was a major holdout earlier this month when more than 100 other nations assigned a Canadian-backed treaty to ban the production and use of land mines. At home, Congress refused to approve the President's bid for renewed fast-track negotiating authority in trade matters. Lawmakers also scrapped a carefully constructed compromise to pay off most of America's unpaid dues to the United Nations. And Congress refused the administration's request for an increased contribution to the International Monetary Fund.
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