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A look at the electoral map Wednesday morning showed U.S. Republicans sweeping the Senate and expanding their majority in the House of Representatives.
In many ways, the political shift relegates U.S. President Barack Obama to lame duck status for his remaining two years in office. Still, we must be mindful of the fact that the U.S. government's architecture endows the presidency with far more authority than Congress when it comes to foreign policy. In fact, a more conservative Congress could even help detangle the president's foreign policy objectives in select cases, though it will also be sure to muddle others.
Pushing Trade and Energy Forward
On the immediate agenda is Obama's upcoming trip to Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Unlike Obama's previous trips to the Far East, where the United States' so-called "Asia pivot" has left much to be desired, his message this time could end up carrying a lot more credibility. In early 2015, Republican leadership of the Senate will likely bring forward a vote on fast tracking trade authority that would enable the U.S. administration to streamline what has become a very long and complicated negotiation. The shift would enable the president to submit to Congress a straight up or down vote without amendments instead of leaving room for quibbling over individual provisions.
Fast track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations is especially important for Japan, the Asian lynchpin to the agreement that has been watching and waiting to see just how seriously the United States would pursue this trade deal. From Japan's point of view, if a trade deal was unlikely to make it out of the U.S. Senate in the first place, why should Tokyo battle its agricultural and automobile manufacturing lobbies, risking its political capital at home? With fast track authority in place on the U.S. side, both Washington and its Asian trading partners are likely to become more pliable and less risk averse in this strategic trade deal.
Fast track authority would similarly have a positive effect on the struggling Transatlantic Trade and Investment Pact, a free trade agreement between Europe and the United States. Negotiations have stalled over the United States' insisting on the inclusion of an investor-state dispute settlement, or the right of a foreign investor to initiate dispute settlement proceedings against a foreign government. The issue has become a political hot potato in Europe, with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggesting a removal of the clause altogether -- a move that could upset the U.S. side, possibly torpedo the deal and, in the end, deprive the Europeans of a robust consumer market for their exports. The adoption of a fast track, however, could replenish political capital on both sides of the Atlantic to make the necessary compromises to try and push this deal forward.
Closer to home, the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline is in focus once again. The Republican Congress could possibly break the political stalemate to bring some 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta tar sands crude oil through Steele City, Nebraska, and southward to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, against the will of a powerful environmental lobby. A lack of infrastructure development has greatly isolated Canadian crude oil from international markets. Only one oil pipeline connects Alberta, Canada's dominant oil-producing province, to the nearest coastal province, British Columbia. Moreover, that pipeline primarily feeds U.S. and Canadian refineries. The only other option for exporting crude oil to non-North American markets is to ship it by rail or pipeline to distant ports -- an expensive and inefficient proposition, but one that is currently being employed while progress on the pipeline lags. It still falls to Obama to decide whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, but the political momentum behind the project is set to increase.
Implications for Negotiations
While we see the potential for forward movement on pending free trade deals and tighter energy integration in North America, Obama will still have to fight a prevailing perception abroad that views him as an increasingly ineffectual U.S. president whose hands are tied by a hard-line Congress. This perception could complicate his developing rapprochement with Iran, a foreign policy legacy the U.S. president is eager to achieve. Furthermore, some of the Republican opposition could try to deny him this legacy for the remainder of his term. Washington and Tehran will not reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program before the upcoming Nov. 24 deadline, but the Obama administration will have to create enough momentum to continue pushing negotiations forward. Legislation that attempts to place conditions on the U.S. president when it comes to easing sanctions on a gradual basis will still fall on the president's desk, where it can be vetoed. Regardless, even a campaign to harden sanctions could politically constrain Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, who is already facing growing resistance at home.
A Republican Congress could also attempt to harden the U.S. position when it comes to Russia. The current set of sanctions against Moscow isolate some Russian companies from Western capital markets, freeze several top Kremlin officials' travel and assets and ban certain technology transfers in energy and military hardware. The U.S. president has the authority to expand, extend or repeal the sanctions by executive order, but the Senate could attempt to codify these sanctions into law (as was done with the Iran sanctions) to make it more difficult for the president to repeal the sanctions, denying Obama flexibility in negotiating with Russia.
Furthermore, a Republican-led Senate could also expand the current Ukraine Freedom Support Act by amending it to include direct U.S. arms sales or aid to Ukraine. Russia would be particularly irritated if the incoming Congress gave fresh life to the long-stalled Russian Aggression Prevention Act, which provides "major non-NATO status" to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova while making it possible for the United States to transfer defense materiel to these countries on the Russian periphery. These are all highly sensitive areas where the U.S. president would like to retain the flexibility to ramp up or de-escalate pressure on Russia as the need arises. While he still has the ability to veto any effort to provoke Moscow, the U.S. president also wants to fight the perception that he is taking a soft line against a perceived aggressor when countries on the front line are pleading for aid.
Even in facing a more intractable Congress on certain issues, Obama will be able to rely on executive power to influence his foreign policy agenda for the remainder of his term. The question then becomes to what extent the U.S. president will be forced to react to crises abroad as opposed to using executive authority and freedom from re-election to shape the world according to U.S. national interests.
Courtesy : Stratfor (www.stratfor.com)