captions by: caption colorado, llc (800) 775-7838 e- mail: from washington, "the mclaughlin group." for over two decades, the sharpest minds, best sources, hardest talks. "the mclaughlin group" is brought to you by -- issue one, whole new world. >> i come to berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before.

although tonight, i speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen. a proud citizen of the united states and a fellow citizen of the world. >> one year and six weeks ago, candidate obama traveled to europe and said that he was not appearing as a candidate for u.s. president but as a fellow citizen of the world. mr. obama sees the world under his leadership as an active and interactive player as part of the international community. apparently the international community believes that we are and obama sees himself on center stage of that grade world amphitheater. the effect of this transformation is that pulariti soaring. the percent of germans who ewed the dato is 64%, up 31from 2008 poll. ng to the pugh, global

the , k.u.69%, up from 16% k.la year. the french three-quarters, 75% of frenchmen nosee america favorably versus 42% in 2008. so what is the big lever that has moved the seesaw of america's popularity so radically upward? acknowledgement of world citizenship? yes. but was it also this public apologetic admission by president obama? >> in america, there's a failure to appreciate europe's leading role in the world. instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where america's showed arrogance and been dismissive, even der rissive. >> question. the u.s. has a long standing

tradition of not tritticizeing a former president in front of foreign audiences. did obama violate this protocol using terms like arrogance, dismissive, derisive, pat buchanan? >> yes, he did. i think thats with a mistake, and i think he's been scoring off his country repeatedly abroad, and i think it is hurting him very much with the american people. no doubt he's enormously popular and people welcome the first african-american president. he's gone abroad repeatedly to trinidad in front of the latin americans with the ortega thing and in effect apologizing for the record of the united states of of america, which actually in those years won the cold war for the west and the world. i think this is hurting him frankly pip talked to middle americans who kind of like him, and they say why is this guy going abroad and apologizing? he's the leader. he's the leader of the nation,

head of government, and chief of state. he's got a duty to defend his country abroad. >> before we get carried away, let's go this. bush versus obama. mr. obama's predecessor, president george w. bush, was presented by the press as highly unpopular abroad. but the world demonstrablely has greater faith that president obama will do the right thing when it b@comes to foreign affairs. the breakout, britain, bush 16%, obama 86%. france bush 15%, obama 91%. germany bush 14%, obama 93%. turkey bush 2, obama 33. russia bush 22, obama 37ch ina bush 30, obama 62. japan, bush 25, obam85. argentina, bush 7, obama 61. brazil, bush 17, obobama 76.

mexico bush 16, obama 55. the big skeptic in the group, israel. bush 57, obama 56. by the way, the united states' popularityratings? bush 37, obama 74. question, for mort, israel a tradition ale american ally is odd-country out by a small margin that favors bush over obama. why is that? >> first, i'm not going to let pat's diatribe go unchallenged. president obama, candidate obama was acknowledging attitudes that were widely held. much of the world was delighted to see george w. bush go, as was america. the secretary of defense under bush talked about old europe. >> what was his name? >> donald rumsfeld. >> right. >> so the president has restored america's standing in the world to where it was

before bush came in and wrecked it. now, in terms of israel, israel is the exception here, although obama's certainly popular there, too, but not as differentially popular as bush because israel did very well under president obama. bush basically gave their polic and this president has challenged them on the settlement issue in particular, which is a controversial issue in israel as well where you have about half the public, you know, siding with what obama has said. plus, the president's cairo speech, which he made after he was elected. i think we can credit that for denying hezbollah, a majority in lebanon and he may have helped precipitate the iranian dissent that we're saying. he made a positive impact. >> i have to answer all of this. first of all, in terms of apologizing to the united states no american president should stand on foreign soil and apologize for anything. no other country in the history

of the world has done so much for so many, and asked for so little in return. also, the united states should not apologize for defending our national interests, especially after we were hit and at tacks were brought to us on 9/11. thirdly, those international popularitily numbers that you put up on the screen, that and $5 will get you a starbucks. it doesn't mat fert mexican appeal or indian people like us a little bit more. what matters to the global super power to the united states is that we're respected, not that we are liked. leaders change but national interests do not. is it great that the germ be people like us a little more? yeah. but the german government and german country still has national interests that will come right up against the united states, and we hire an american president to represent us not to represent the world. the other thing you didn't put up are those pugh poll numbers on the muslim world because obama has not improved the

united states' image in pakistan and egypt. >> mort, can you improve on that? >> well, i think i support a lot of what monika has just said. i do think there is a big difference in terms of the way obama iser is seerved by the leadership, especially the arab world who are critical of him and his approach to the middle east primarily because they think it's naive and counterproductive. so i think he's got a long way to go before he make niz progress. if you look at europe, they did not help us on increasing the stimulus program when we asked them to do it. they did not help us with afghanistan in terms of providing additional troops. they wouldn't even take any of the prisoners in guantanamo. the arab world is convinced that the big threat to their world is iran and not israel. they know iran is trying to overthrow them. egypt is unbelievably publicly hostile. morocco has broken relations with iran. i've been in those countries and they speak differently privately, the leaders do, rather than what they are

saying publicly. as far as israel is concerned, who can blame them at this stage of the game. what he has done, whether it was the right policy or not is a different issue. the way he did it shows he didn't know how to play the game. >> you mean admonishing israel about removing palestinian settlements -- >> a couple families [ all talking at once ] >> this was something that could have been settled privately which is the way it's always been done. there's no intimacy in that relationship. no consultation. it's just public attempts to impose it on him. the palestinians who were prepared to negotiate without resolving these issues now will not negotiate unless they are resolved. the israelis now are in a position where only 6% of the israeli public believes that obama is pro israel. >> john, the isn't, and everybody's raised it, these numbers no doubt that obama is enormously popular in a lot of places where bush was not. how does this translate into support for united states policies in areas where --

>> i'll tell you how. >> i haven't seen it show up anywhere. >> you don't think that we're easier to deal with because of obama and by reason of that, we can have military negotiations, economic negotiations much more easily, readily -- >> give me an example of how this is really translated into great benefit for -- >> if a country is unpopular, you don't think it filters down? >> give me an example. >> into a stiffness and diplomatic relations? >> job, as mort pointed out, europe hasn't done a thing that obama wanted, not one thing. >> nor has russia, for example. nor has china, which would not support the dollar. you could go around the world and you will find that. this isn't to diminish the value of his popularity. >> sounds like it. >> it sure does. >> because he doesn't know how to play the game. that's my point. he doesn't know how to translate properly. angela merckle when she came

here, he agreed to give her a 45-minute meeting no press conference. she canceled. sarkozy, obama wanted to be the sole person walking along the beaches of normandy. sarkozy hit the roof on that. a lot of things do not reflect well on the way obama -- >> the europeans often find things to complain about -- >> you can dismiss everything that happens because it's not pro obama. >> excuse me, please. we have just gone through an enormous economic downturn. the fact that he is liked and respected by much of the world has blunted the impact of that downturn, which many of these countries believe the u.s. led them into. and i can't believe that you can sit here and turn positive numbers into a negative. he has been in office for six months. [ laughter ] i gave you two examples. the elections in lebanon and the uprising -- >> you think -- excuse me. >> you think that these numbers had nothing to do with the

united states? the elections in leb nobody had to do -- lebanon had to do with the fact saudi arabia funded a huge amount of efforts. >> do you remember where you were -- >> eleanor -- >> do you remember when we were pouring -- >> hold on, please. >> to you remember when we were pouring french wine down the sewer and forbidding french fries to be served in the house of representatives? >> i understand. >> you remember rumsfeld saying i like new europe, i don't like old your? >> i'll tell you what bush's problems were, iraq wore, axis of evil, moving nato in georgia and ukraine. i agree with that. he does have an asset, but again it is not being translated. >> exudes me. he's been in office for six months. it's a little difficult to convert all of these -- >> oh, come on! [ all talking at once ] >> the other thing -- >> hold on. hold on. >> the other thing -- [ all talking at once ] >> the other thing he has done is changed the language on the

war against terror. we are no longer fighting a war. >> make a quick point. >> come on. you can't parlay his personal popularity in the first six months, he's sunk and never going to be able to do it. he sold himself during the campaign as a guy who could transform our relationships with the rest of the world including in the muslim world. those numbers -- >> you are looking for -- >> you stay informed -- eleanor -- >> hold on -- [ all talking at once ] >> my points are inconvenient to you but they are true. >> do you think afghanistan will be a true yardstick of of where the rest of the world -- >> afghanistan is a great yardstick. mort is right, they haven't ponied up a thing. obama's approval rating in the u.s. has dropped to 52%. wiz his international support also drop? pat? >> much more slowly. i do think they see from a distance no doubt they admire

the guy. it just hasn't been translated. >> what do you think? >> the high approval ratings never last at that level, but he has the respect of the world, and he has some opportunities here that did not exist over the last eight years. you can't change the world in six months. >> monika? >> look, the rest of the world saw his apology tour and read that as weakness. of course they envy the united states, we're the world's greatest super power. that apology signaled a real vulnerability, and if they believe they can roll this president, that's yes' popular. >> the international standing will continue to be strong as long as he apologizes -- >> he's in the apologizing. >> and as long as he's helping the other countriesp. >> maybe not quite at those levels, but i do think it is an asset. i think in part because he's not bush that he became very popular. at some point, his policies and whether or not they work internationally will determine whether he remains as popular as he is now. >> i can't improve on that

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issue two. ing with a dorr's isolation. >> history tells us that turning inward can help turn a downturn into a depression. protectionism is a classic example. >> there are exceptions to every rule, mr. president. protectionism may be the classic exception. in ecuador at least, protection is the hero not the villain. background. the nation of ecuador is on the western side of south america with columbia to the north, peru to the south, and roughly the size of nevada with a population of 14 million. ecuador's key industries are oil and agriculture. it ranks high with a total gdp of over $107 billion. it ranks 66th out of 228 countries, well ahead of sear ya the dominican republic,

lebanon, iceland, et cetera. but the current economic meltdown threatened to hit ecuador hard, nevertheless. this led ecuador's president, a university of illinois ph.d to choose protectionism as a way to escape the economic christ thas now ravages the world. he levied tariffs over 600 products. the total imports have rates of up to 35%. when he did admit imports, he sharply limited them with quotas cutting the inflow of foreign products by over one- third. as a result, ecuador's trade deficit narrowed from 1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 to a 820 million dollar deaf fit in the first quarter of '09. ek with ecuador's overall outlook is also solid. the unemployment rate is roughly the same as before the

downturn. the economy will grow by 1% in 2009 and 2.5% for 2010. protectionism, by the way,not only in vogue in ecuador, the wto reports protectionist measures have been enacted in 24 nations plus the additional 27 nations of the union. that's 51 nations in total. question. if the president of ecuador were to give economic add vase to president obama, what would he say? mort? >> he would say, i hope you had an economy that did as well as the protectionist pressure as mine. >> he talked all about china? >> why would he be interested in talking to obama about china. >> because of the comports. >> we have a huge export business to china as well. china's whole economy is based on it without question. >> you are exactly right.

china is behaving like 19th sen typewrite america protecting its markets, sending its goods out to capture the whole world. between 1860 and 1928, the u.s. was the most protectionist in history and at the end of that, we produced 42% of the manufacturing. protectionism worked. frankly, it will destroy the country. >> bat buchanan's going to lead the cause to bring back smoot hawly. i hope the tourism board of ecuador could response their show because that was a nice little sequence you did on them. they can't print money like they do. they use the u.s. dollar so they didn't really have much choice but to try to beef up her domestic industries, keep employment up and have less consuming of western frills. he's doing the right thing for ecuador, but as ecuador goes, not the united states.

>> right. >> it's like looking at chile and saying chile privatized social security. that was all of the rage on this set a few years ago. >> ecuador is a completely different economy. we're talking about a wholly different animal than the united states of america. you can't expect the world's global economic super power to put in the kind of protectionist measures that president yorrea put in. the horses left the barn on that. the united states is still engaged in some protectionism but not to that extent. >> take pakistan. the one thing that pakistan wanted was to have more opportunity to export textiles to the united states. why? because it would employ a lot of women, and it would be a very good thing for them politically at home for the governments we want to support. i was directly involved. you speak to our people, what do they say? >> what does that do for our balance of trade and payments. >> it sends dollars out of this

country. we have an $800 billion trade deficit for 20 years. that's why the dollar's collapsing. >> very good question. to restore job growth, will president obama resort to tariffs against china? >> no. >> absolutely not. >> no. >> he has no choice. >> no, and we need to be sending dollars to pakistan, but i don't necessarily favor taking them out of the pockets of the textile workers in the south. get them from the pentagon. >> no, president obama's not going to resort to tariffs, no. he is a new found free trader. despite how he campaigned, he is a new found free trader. >> no worker safety rules over there. they don't follow our rules. >> of course not. they want to beat us, for heaven's sakesp. >> you can't see a tariff policy? >> they won't do it. a trade war we're getting crushed. >> no way that would happen. we are also dependent. not as dependent as china on exports but our economy depends

on exports. you start a world class trade war and every country in the world will git in on that. >> that's it. not while there are bankers. >> it's more than $1 trillion, but that's not the point. >> what do you think they are waging against us if not a trade war, mort? >> they are trying to develop their economy. >> at our expense. >> well it is not only at our expense it's also to our benefit. >> you know that our safety rules for the worker and so who tube. we can't compete with china in that regard. >> they have wage costs. >> they have -- >> they have human capability. we are not going to be a manufacturing economy anymore. >> we're not? >> no, we're not. >> you know any great power that's not? >> i predict stairives against -- tariffs against china. >> john, we're exporting -- >> but

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