Barack Obama & the Not-so Midas Touch: The One Suffers Embarrassing Setback on South Korea Trade Deal

Obama and the non-Midas Touch … With the One, all that glitters is not gold.

How bad is it for President Barack Hussein Obama? Even the New York Times called the last minute failure to seal a trade deal with South Korea that would expand American exports  an “embarrassing setback”. Heck, even Chris Farley as Tommy Boy  sold enough brake pads to keep the Callahan business going.

For President Obama, the last-minute failure to seal a trade deal with South Korea that would expand American exports of automobiles and beef is an embarrassing setback that deprives him of a foreign policy trophy and demonstrates how the midterm elections may have weakened his position abroad.

U.S. and South Korea Fail to Agree on Trade (November 12, 2010) Mr. Obama has made free trade a central theme of his 10-day mission to Asia.From Seoul to Washington, business leaders, foreign policy analysts and diplomats were convinced that the president would wrap up the accord during a meeting with President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea on Thursday. Instead, the two leaders emerged empty-handed, arriving at their joint news conference to say that they had instructed their negotiators to keep at it a little while longer.

“We need to make sure that over the next several weeks, we are crossing all the t’s, dotting all the i’s, being able to make the case to both the Korean people and the United States population that this is good for both countries,” said Mr. Obama, who is in Seoul for the Group of 20 conference. “And if we rush something that then can’t garner popular support, that’s going to be a problem. We think we can make the case, but we want to make sure that that case is airtight.”