Each January, the American President’s annual State of the Union address is widely noted across the world. As the United States has economic, military and political interests worldwide, the President typically covers broad ground. Observers from other nations take soundings from the President’s speech about the intentions of the world’s most powerful nation to see how its future actions might impact them. The difference this time is that President Barack Obama delivered the last such address of his four-year term before entering the field as his party’s nominee for re-election later this year. As such, his speech was a campaign kickoff more than anything else. And yet, it will not do to not look for signs of US actions internationally as 2012 pans out.
Appropriately, in line with the understanding that it is the state of the economy that US voters are concerned with most, Mr Obama went to some lengths to talk about issues such as taxes, expanding job opportunities, creating new businesses and high technology manufacturing within America, enhancing facilities for retraining workers and strengthening the education sector so that the US may not lag behind other leading countries of the world in this area. What would catch attention in India (and some other countries) is the President’s intention (and rhetoric) that American companies that ship jobs abroad should be disallowed tax breaks. The extent of impact such a move may have on India is debatable, but policies that underpin it will need to be studied. Interestingly, Mr Obama would also like to give the international students in the United States greater opportunities to become American citizens. He is working on the belief that after being enabled by the US educational system, their future contribution should help bolster America’s economy and society rather than those of other countries.
The US President made it clear that his country’s defence spending would come down even while he sought to stamp American leadership on the world. This may be expected to necessitate a policy of seeking durable partnerships and alliances abroad. Several countries, including India, would be called upon to clearly think through their goals and objectives in this context, especially when American hostility to Iran remains implacable, its determination to be proactive as a Pacific power made explicit, and its engagement with the inner dynamics of West Asian countries spelt out and restated.