The exuberance at home and abroad which greeted the inauguration of Barak Obama as President of the United States was, perhaps, compounded from a range of emotions. That a black man could be elevated to that prestigious office is noteworthy evidence that the U.S. has excised the demons of slavery which have haunted its collective conscience for generations. The celebratory mood was augmented with widespread relief at the official departure of George Bush, whose presidency is generally blamed for the undermining of constitutional law and as broadly detrimental to international relations.

A pervading disquiet over the chronic problems besetting the U.S. and the broken state of its economy snaked its way through the President’s hopeful but sober address to the massive crowd, many of whom are facing the gritty realities of shuttered homes and businesses and pinched incomes.

The President’s assertion that the U.S. will lead the world out of the financial crisis may strike a discordant note in some quarters, especially in foreign capitals, considering that a flamboyant U.S. precipitated the crisis in the first place. Then, too, the President must be acutely aware that America is not what it used to be. Exaggerations aside, a declining standard of living, heavy personal and public indebtedness, a dodgy dollar, and steady erosion in the manufacturing and financial sectors, have undercut the nation’s prosperity and generated a querulous social divide along lines of wealth and class.

Although Obama’s election has, for good reason, been well received by Americans of all political stripes, not all are enamoured of his social policies. Evangelical Christian groups and social conservatives are troubled by his civil rights agenda which, if implemented, will impart a decidedly liberal slant to American society.[fn1]

Obama’s attempts to restore confidence in the domestic banking system and the credit markets will be hampered by the nation’s debts relative to the scale of its commitments on the home front and overseas. The much-touted ‘stimulus’ measures, already underway, in which thousands of millions of dollars are being disbursed to a variety of financial entities and industries, come with no guarantee of success. Nor can the U.S. continue to count on borrowing massive amounts from other countries, who are in similarly difficult circumstances.

The first foreign tour for President Obama will be to Canada. The trading partnership between the U.S. and Canada is the largest in the world. Canada’s natural gas reserves and the tar-sands of Alberta supply about one-fifth of America’s energy needs, oil imports alone exceeding those from Saudi Arabia. Canada is a staunch ally in the war in Afghanistan, to which it has committed thousands of troops. It is, perhaps, significant that this will not be a state visit.[fn2] Obama’s meetings with Prime Minister Stephen Harper will likely be of the rolled-up sleeves variety, touching on the shared interests of the two countries, territorial disputes over the Arctic, emerging protectionist trade legislation in the U.S. Congress, climate change, and the deepening recession in both countries.

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[fn1] President Obama has expressed his determination to press Congress to legislate for same-sex civil unions or marriage and the introduction of various statutes to advance the legal rights of homosexual groups in American society. Such changes, if enacted, would mirror those introduced in recent years in the United Kingdom and Canada.

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Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/

[fn2] The President of the United States is both Executive head of state and the country’s chief politician. A ‘head-of-state’ visit to any country is usually marked by lavish ceremony and is hosted by the other country’s head of state, who may be a president or a monarch. Queen Elizabeth II is Canada’s head of state; she is represented in that country by a Governor General, currently Michaelle Jean. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as leader of the party in power, the Conservatives, is the political head of the federal government.

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