Daniel Hannan was a supporter of Barack Obama when he ran for president in 2008. Eight years later, the British member of the European Parliament sees Obama’s presidency as a failure.
“He approached the economy like he approached everything else: He wanted to spend more. And he, therefore, exacerbated the problem instead of soothing it,” Hannan said in an interview with The Daily Signal, adding:
… Eight years that could have been spent on tackling the basic economic problems and allowing growth to begin on a more sober and realistic basis, were instead spent on just inflating the bubble over and over again.
Hannan described the Obama presidency as a “wasted opportunity,” pointing to the role that the United States has played on the world stage for the past eight years.
The world’s security and prosperity depends more than anyone likes to admit on the strength of the English-speaking democracies, and we’ve had a very strong alliance for 120 years at least, which has only been neglected twice.
Once was over Suez … and the other was, of course, during the last eight years, when a number of traditional American allies—Israel, Poland, Britain, and the newer ally of India—all felt neglected and overlooked, and yet the new friends after whom the Obama administration chased have not reciprocated.
In April, Obama faced criticism for remarks he made prior to the United Kingdom’s voting to leave the European Union.
Obama said if the British people voted for Brexit, the country would be at the “back of the queue” for any future trade negotiations with the United States. Britain, of course, voted to leave the European Union in the June referendum.
Hannan indicated that he appreciated President-elect Donald Trump’s shift in tone from Obama’s in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.
“There’s one very welcome change in rhetoric from the previous president, which is Barack Obama said [Britain was] going to be at the … back of the queue, as he put it … and Donald Trump, adopting the same vernacular, said we’ll be at the front of the queue,” Hannan said.