Post India, Obama Moves On to Indonesia

Added by James Morley on November 14, 2010

Barrack Obama, U.S. president, heads towards Indonesia after spending three days in India.

While the Indian trip emphasized on securing more jobs for America, the Indonesian trip focuses on Comprehensive Partnership agreement pending formalization for more than a year now.

Strategic reasons apart, the trip is important for personal reasons as Obama spent a few years growing up in Indonesia.

Indonesia has proved resilient to the economic crisis and has attracted huge investments. However, political and legal uncertainty combined with low trade figures has cast a shadow on the U.S. Indonesian relationship.

The focus on investment in clean energy combined with personal popularity of Obama is expected to make a difference.

Obama is expected to announce millions of dollars worth of assistance for protection of Indonesian forests and to combat climate change. The trip wll also be used to reach out to the Muslim world, which has felt alienated because of the Afghan and Iraq war.

Obama is also expected to make a public speech in one of the largest mosques in the world in Indonesia – the Istiqlal mosque. Obama will be moving on to be G20 summit in South Korea and to the Asia Pacific economic meeting in Japan.