Obama says goodbye on world stage
> President defends legacy at Asia-Pacific summit
LIMA: US President Barack Obama defended his legacy on free trade and security issues on Sunday at a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders thrown into uncertainty by the election of his radically different successor Donald Trump.
Ending his final foreign visit as president, Obama pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin – who has a far warmer relationship with Trump – on Syria and Ukraine, and rallied allies to forge ahead with free trade plans that the president-elect has trashed.
Trump’s shock election victory has made it a bittersweet goodbye for Obama, who campaigned against the brash billionaire as unfit to succeed him but is now asking the international community to give the Republican time and an open mind.
In what may be his last meeting with Putin, Obama called for greater efforts to end the violence in war-torn Syria, as concern mounts over a ferocious bombing campaign by the Moscow-backed regime in rebel-held parts of Aleppo.
He also urged Putin to “uphold Russia’s commitments” under the frayed peace accords to end conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Obama had more amiable talks with allies like Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Canada’s Justin Trudeau, gently prodding them to stick with their existing free trade plans. world’s most powerful leaders on both sides of the Pacific, is seeking to live down old jokes that Apec, formally named AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation, is “four adjectives in search of a noun and a verb” – an ill-defined group that struggles to take decisive action.
A draft version of its final statement seen by AFP praises open markets, denounces protectionism and warns that curbing free trade will slow the ongoing recovery of the world economy. – AFP