Firstly, whats all the hankering about Harley Davidson motorcycles? Does anyone really expect the President, or any President, to be able to convince another nation into a one-sided trade deal which only benefits the US?
Secondly from my understand the Harley Davidson deal only creates jobs. American workers in the US will be creating the parts which will then be shipped to India for assembly. The assembly process that will take part in India, NEVER WAS DONE IN THE UNITED STATES. Its not jobs going to India, its new jobs being created in India, but at the same time creating new jobs in the US because Harley Davidson know has to hire more workers to make new parts. So in the end both India and the US win.
Now I'm aware that Harley Davidson does assemble bikes in the US, I'm simply talking about the additional bikes that will be produced by Harley globally, those additional jobs have never existed in the US. So there is no loss for us on that part.
This deal was done beforehand. It did not happen today. This is not a result of this costly over priced trip.
Yes it is. While I'm sure diplomats have been hammering this deal out for months, maybe even years. There's still a value to face-to-face talks, not only to politicians, as humans, still like to see their partners in person because it fosters trust and improves relations. When a foreign leader takes time to physically attend a trade summit, which you bet will also including talks on other topics besides trade, it shows how valuable that relationship and adds extra emphasis.
It also as a benefit of forcing the host nation to pay attention to the visiting nation. No nation will let it be said that when the US President shows up at their doors, or asks to show up, they aren't hospitable or friendly enough to accept his invitation and show off their country.
Lastly, this trip is about more than India, Obama is visiting Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. SECDEF Gates is visiting Australia to hammer out new Defense deals. Clinton is also visiting several other Asian countries like Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Cambodia, China and Vietnam.
Also at the end of this trip there's the G-20 meeting in South Korea, where world leaders are expected to met. To discuss hundreds of billion of dollars in trade deals, as well as in some ways the future of the global economy. It sounds pretty important to me.
Every other world lead is going to show up, should it be said that America is too poor to show? Or just doesn't care enough to show up? Or any other reason people would come up with for America not showing?