US media sees Obama trip as wooing of corporate America

WASHINGTON - The US media is looking at President Barack Obama’s trip to India as a courtship with corporate America after the rout of his Democratic party due to voter dissatisfaction over the state of the economy.

“President Obama, fresh off a stinging electoral defeat for Democrats, opened a 10-day tour of Asia on Saturday with a courtship of corporate America, said the New York Times in a report from Mumbai.

“Days after reaping the political consequences of a poor economy, President Obama announced a set of measures Saturday to increase trade between the United States and India, his first stop on an Asian tour focused largely on promoting economic growth at home,” noted the Washington Post.

The Wall Street Journal in a report titled “Obama, in India, Makes Nice With US Business” suggested for Obama “one domestic goal was every bit as paramount: repairing his rocky relations with business.”

“After the ’shellacking’ his Democratic Party took in Tuesday’s midterm elections, the US president has been on a charm offensive with business, which pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the congressional campaigns, much of it for Republicans,” it said.

The Los Angeles Times likewise said in announcing almost $10 billion in export deals that could lead to 50,000 American jobs, Obama “moved quickly to show a laser-like focus on the economy after a bruising midterm election.”

“Although the president enjoys widespread popularity in Asia, his efforts to rebalance world trade have aroused suspicion in India and elsewhere,” it said. “So has his tough talk on the outsourcing of US jobs abroad.”

Conservative Fox News, which is generally critical of the president, also acknowledged that “Obama Brings Home the Bacon From India” just days after receiving a “shellacking” in the midterm elections.

In a separate piece titled “Obama Invokes Gandhi, Whose Ideal Eludes Modern India” New York Times said: “Gandhi remains India’s patriarch, the founding father whose face is printed on the currency, but modern India is hardly a Gandhian nation, if it ever was one.

“If anything, India’s rise as a global power seems likely to distance it even further from Gandhi,” it said suggesting “India is inching toward a tighter military relationship with the United States.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)