The Obama administration is earning a B on trade policy so far, mostly on the grounds that no news is good news in this area. Some analysts might feel it is more accurate to give the administration an “incomplete.”
Much attention has recently been focused on the poverty-stricken country of Yemen.
In his first year in office, Barack Obama gave several exceptional speeches on foreign policy. In Prague, he endorsed nuclear disarmament. In Cairo, he called for a new engagement with the Islamic world. In Oslo, he repudiated torture. At these moments, the new president firmly broke with the policies of his predecessor and provided a glimpse of what a new, cooperative, just U.S. foreign policy could be.
Barack Obama is not the first U.S. president to find Yemen a challenge. And the current $70 million package of military and security assistance is not the first $70 million US aid program to Yemen.