TIME: Barack Obama's new world order

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-04 18:26

The United States is still the same country it was a year ago, give or take about 6 million jobs. But its international branding campaign, as led by the new President, Barack Obama, is so different that the rest of the world might be forgiven if it has to do a double take.

Most of the hallmarks of the foreign policy of George W. Bush are gone.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (L), Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (2nd L), German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama (R) arrive for a working dinner at the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden April 3, 2009. [Agencies]

The old conservative idea of "American exceptionalism," which placed the US on a plane above the rest of the world as a unique beacon of financial might, has been rejected. At almost every stop, Obama has made clear that the US is but one actor in a global community.

Talk of American economic supremacy has been replaced by a call from Obama for more growth in developing countries. Claims of American military supremacy have been replaced with heavy emphasis on cooperation and diplomatic hard labor.

The tone was set from Obama's first public remarks in London on Wednesday, at a press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, where the American President said he had come "to listen, not to lecture."

At a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Baden-Baden on Friday, a German reporter asked Obama about his "grand designs" for NATO. "I don't come bearing grand designs," Obama said, scrapping the leadership role the US maintained through the Cold War. "I'm here to listen, to share ideas and to jointly, as one of many NATO allies, help shape our vision for the future."

On Thursday night, after the G-20 summit ended, Obama took so many questions from the foreign press, including British, Indian and Chinese reporters, that a group of them applauded when he left the stage.

Two American reporters asked Obama for his response to the claim by Brown that the "Washington consensus is over." Obama all but agreed with Brown, noting that the phrase had its roots in a significant set of economic policies that had shown itself to be imperfect.

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