From: sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari)
Subject: Election '92: Clinton Faces Challenges In Foreign Affairs
Originator: sehari@class1.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, Iowa.
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 04:08:02 GMT

---
11/05 (WJ) Election '92: Clinton Faces Challenges In Foreign Affairs

    By Gerald F. Seib and Robert S. Greenberger
    WASHINGTON -- President-elect Bill Clinton hopes to focus his early
energy on tackling domestic problems, but he awoke yesterday to see
clear signs the rest of the world may not cooperate, The Wall Street
Journal reported.
    Just hours after Clinton won a handsome election victory by
stressing America's domestic ills, the U.S. and Europe began moving
toward a trade war over agricultural subsidies. At the same time, there
were rumors in financial markets of a coup in Russia -- rumors that
weren't true but that underscored the serious and rising political
tensions there.
    If those two foreign-policy problems aren't enough to fill Clinton's
plate, others are waiting. First, Clinton must assure nervous Arabs and
Israelis that he stands behind the promising Middle East peace process
that President Bush launched. A bit farther down the road, Clinton will
have to grapple with the war in the former Yugoslavia, where an
expansion in fighting may force an increase in American involvement. He
also faces tensions with China stemming from his sharp criticisms of
Beijing as a candidate.
    Beyond that, Clinton faces the broader task of generally reassuring
world leaders, who don't know him, that he is knowledgeable and
concerned about world affairs.
    On the immediate foreign-policy problems, Clinton can do only a
little during his transition period to steer events. On the trade front,
a long-festering dispute erupted yesterday when the Bush administration
said it plans to impose penalties on millions of dollars of imported
European goods in retaliation for the European Community's failure to
reduce its subsidies on European oilseed products. The U.S. won't
actually put the penalties in place for 30 days, in hopes an agreement
can be worked out. Still, the move means a trade war could be rolling
when Clinton takes office in January.
    At the same time, events in Russia could be turning nasty. President
Boris Yeltsin is under mounting pressure from leaders of Russia's
legislature, who are unhappy with his economic reforms, and from a
coalition of Communist diehards and Russian nationalists, who want a
change in government.
    In the Middle East, President-elect Clinton will have to show during
his transition that he supports the current peace process. A quick
public show of support is particularly important because of widespread
fears in Arab capitals that Clinton's administration will have a
pro-Israel tilt.
    Once in office, he will have to move quickly to spur the talks or
risk an early foreign policy failure.
    A Clinton administration faces another potential crisis in what
formerly was Yugoslavia. A continued lack of forceful action by the U.S.
and its European allies is likely to allow the crisis to spread, some
experts fear. Serbian forces could continue their consolidation of power
by moving south to the republic of Kosovo, which has a small but
influential Serbian minority.
    Such a move could trigger an internationalization of the crisis, by
bringing in Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and perhaps Turkey, warns George
Kenney, a former State Department official.
    The new administration also could be heading toward a confrontation
with China. In one of his sharpest foreign policy differences with
President Bush, Gov. Clinton said during the campaign he would tie
China's trade status to its human-rights behavior and record on
democracy. In June, a President Clinton will have to decide whether to
take such a step; that's when the U.S. must decide whether to continue
to extend to China preferable, or most-favored-nation, trade status. If
Clinton adopts a tough posture, he could set off an angry clash with
Beijing, which already is agitated by Bush's decision to sell F-16 jets
to Taiwan.
    10 11 AM
                                 -END-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ENTER ANOTHER REQUEST.

-- 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian