‘Barack Obama will focus on Asia-Pacific’

With the focus on cementing his legacy in the Asia-Pacific, US President Barack Obama will spend the last year of his presidency not only travelling to the region but also hosting a number of leaders from there, a top White House official has said.

“So it (Asia Pacific) will be a focus. You’ll see him spending a lot of time on it. I think we’d like to see the successful implementation of a lot of the things we worked on.”

“We will want to leave the next President with the US positioned on a much more sustained and high-level basis to be a partner in the Asia-Pacific,” said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser.

In an interaction with foreign journalist at the Washington Foreign Press Centre, Mr Rhodes said that in February Mr Obama will be hosting a first-of-its-kind summit with the leaders of ASEAN in Sunnylands, California.

“This demonstrates both the central focus of the Asia-Pacific to our foreign policy, but also the central focus of ASEAN in our view of the architecture of institutions and arrangements in the Asia-Pacific,” he said.

Mr Obama would also make multiple trips to Asia, including around the G7 in Japan in May and the G20 and ASEAN summits in China and Laos in September.

Mr Rhodes said in 2016, the President will be spending a lot of time in the Asia-Pacific because he believes that part of his most important legacy is going to be positioning the US in the Asia-Pacific both economically through vehicles like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and through bilateral relationships.

Meanwhile, the White House has praised Indian-origin South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for showing “courage” in her response to Mr Obama’s State of the Union address in which she appeared to take a jab at Republican presidential aspirant Donald Trump.

“Her willingness to stand up for some important principles was noted, and it took courage. And for that, she deserves credit,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

“The President did not get a chance to watch it live.... (He) has read news accounts of it, so he certainly is aware of her response,” he added.