Euro News: Christiane Amanpour: 'US Still Dominates'

Source:Euro News- ABC News foreign affairs anchor Christiane Amanpour talking to Euro News.

"Against the background of the global economic crisis, domestic issues have trumped foreign policy in the run-up to the US election. 

To discuss the major foreign policy questions facing the next US administration, euronews spoke to Christiane Amanpour, Global Affairs anchor at ABC News, in New York.

Lise Pedersen, euronews: "What major foreign policy changes can we expect in the next four years? Is America's influence still as great as it used to be?"

Christiane Amanpour: "Well, two separate questions there: Yes, America's influence is still great by virtue of the fact that it is the only superpower. It has the world's strongest economy despite this economic crisis globally right now, and it has, obviously, the world's strongest military. So yes, the US can be expected to still be in a dominant position. 

"The real question is how the US chooses, under a new administration, either Obama or Romney, to project that power and where it chooses to do so. Will it choose to retreat because of the economic crisis and because of what both candidates have been saying: the need to do nation-building at home, and the need to get the economy really back on track to serious growth back at home? However, as you've seen in the foreign policy debate, there was not a whole lot of difference between either Romney or Obama on the major issues."

euronews: "Peace in the Middle East is all but stalled. Relations with Israel are at an all-time low - can we expect the Middle East peace process to be revived, and which of the candidates is more likely to do that?" 

Amanpour: "Well, I don't think either, if you want my very frank analysis. If there is to be a Middle East peace process, both the United States and the parties have to be thoroughly engaged. That is, the US really has to be there as the good faith third party, the backer of this process, and also the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas - I know they're not even involved in it - but the fact is that the Palestinians are split. Now, having said that, there's no indication at all that either candidate will use the full weight of the US presidency, to throw it behind a renewed push, for peace in the Middle East." 

euronews: "What is the biggest threat facing the US? Does the main security threat still come from the Middle East or is it no longer a security threat but an economic one coming from China?"

Amanpour: "Obviously, there is an economic challenge from China. But by the flip-side if China's economic health is bad: that also has a reverberation on the US and Europe, so nobody's wishing for a decrease in Chinese economic growth. Obviously, both candidates want to manage it better so that it's more advantageous to the US, but in those foreign policy debates, President Obama identified terrorism as the biggest threat facing America going forward, and Governor Romney identified a nuclear Iran as the biggest threat going forward." 

euronews: "During the third presidential debate, which was about foreign policy, the eurozone crisis wasn't even mentioned. But how could this crisis impact on US-EU relations, bearing in mind the EU is the largest trading partner of the United States?"

Amanpour: "Well precisely, and it was perhaps a glaring error. The only problem is that US polling doesn't show the eurozone crisis to be a huge issue. But even though the European system doesn't play in an American election overtly, remember that when the United States wants to act anywhere in the world... let's just go back to Libya: who did it call first? The eurozone, the Europeans! Who did it bond with, who did it go into alliance with? Britain and France, which led the action in Libya, and then the US joined up, and there was a broader impact. So, my point is to say that Europe is very, very important to the United States, even though it doesn't play a huge role, either in presidential debates or in the campaign."

From Euro News

"Euronews (styled on-air in lowercase as euronews) is a European television news network, headquartered in Lyon, France. The network began broadcasting on 1 January 1993 and covers world news from a European perspective.

The majority of Euronews (88%) is owned by Portuguese investment management firm Alpac Capital[2][3][4] with the rest partly owned by several European and North African public and state-owned broadcasting organizations.

It is a provider of livestreamed news, which can be viewed in most of the world (with the exceptions of Canada, Turkey, Singapore, China, Cuba, and North Korea)[citation needed] via its website, on YouTube, and on various mobile devices and digital media players, including Fubo TV, Sling TV, Pluto TV and Haystack News." 

From Wikipedia

The United States is still the most important country in the world, because we are still the strongest power in the world. We still have the largest economy in the world with living standards that other countries are striving to match and we still have the strongest military in the world. And when there's some crisis in the world, Europe and others pay attention to America and expect us to do something about it. 

Because of this, we have more influence on any other country in the world, when we decide to use it and can use that influence to benefit ourselves. But also benefit other countries, like helping other countries that are moving from being authoritarian states to democracy like Tunisia and Libya and help them get the resources that they need to be able to defend themselves and we can also help developing countries that are implementing capitalism to help them become more developed, like what we've been doing in aiding and trading with Latin America.

America no longer and perhaps never had the resources to police the world. This is an area where Europe needs to step up and help us. Saudi Arabia being a better influence in the Middle East would help that as well and Japan and Korea doing more to defend themselves would benefit us as well. But we are too important of a power to simply ignore what's going on in the world. Because as 9/11 has shown, what goes on in other countries, effects what happens in the United States as well.