US Magic is Over
March 16, 2008 by Jean Mercedes
Filed under Business
The past 7 years of US politics have done a lot of damage to the country’s reputation abroad. (Refer also to my previous post on this topic.) But it was still a shock to see the headline in the International Herald Tribune this week “U.S. ‘magic is over’….French diplomat talks of challenges”.
Roger Cohen of the IHT interviewed Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, who spoke last week at the Forum for New Diplomacy. The presidential successor to Bush will not have an easy time restoring the battered image of the US overseas. There are no easy ways out of Iraq and no easy solutions to bring peace to the Middle East, Iran and Israel in particular.
US businesses noted the strong headwind abroad starting after the Iraq invasion in 2003. Although animosities in some areas have died down, the association “Business for Diplomatic Action” is still lobbying for increased cultural awareness both for US politicians and business-people.
Hopefully, the next US President can start turning the ship around, but the outlook from Kouchner is not encouraging: “It will never be as it was before.”
Image from www.nps.gov.
