When President Obama touches down at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi Kenya on July 25th, five key foreign policy challenges await him in Kenya. First, Obama will be visiting the birth country of his father. This will give his critics valuable ammunition.
Obama's opponents from the right wing in America have long had the “birther” conspiracy. The idea that argues that he was not really born in America. Birthers contend that Obama was really born in Kenya and somehow managed to forge a birth certificate claiming he was born in Hawaii of a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya.
This assertion has been used by his opponents to delegitimize his presidency since the US Constitution requires every US president be native born.Republicans will use his trip to Kenya as red meat to motivate their base in an effort to win the Republican nomination for president.
Secondly, the trip to Kenya raises the troubling issue of cost. According to media reports, previous trips by Obama to Africa have cost the US tax payer over 100 million dollars (10 Billion Kenya shillings). Put into context, this figure is 20% of Kenya’s health care budget for 2015. His detractors will argue this is not money well spent. This is because there are other pressing domestic and global policy issues such as the sluggish economy in the US, the rise of ISIS in North Africa, the Grexit (Greece’s challenges in the Euro Zone) and the rising threat of Russia in the Caucuses. Critics feel the trip is not a major priority at the moment.
Thirdly, the pressing issue of the International Criminal Court. Kenya’s reluctance to cooperate with the court and the current case against the Deputy President William Ruto for crimes against humanity will definitely factor out. This will be a delicate balancing act for Obama. He will not want to appear to be lecturing his host about Kenya’s obligations to the ICC process, but he will also be looking to advance the primacy of human rights as a universal value while in Kenya.
Obama has to address the question of insecurity in Kenya and regional instability more broadly. Al Shabbab has been a major terror threat to Kenya and its regional allies. In addition to this, there is the pressing issue of instability in the Great Lakes region with electoral chaos in Burundi and rampant ethnic militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo. America will need to take a stand on these regions of concern.
Lastly, Obama is looking to build a legacy in the lame duck period of his presidency. He has successfully entrenched Gay Rights and health care reform (via the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare) as legacy issues. Overseas, he is looking to consolidate this with reestablishing diplomatic ties with Cuba and a détente with Iran. In his thinking, advancing a major policy initiative via the Global Entrepreneur Summit in Kenya would be a significant legacy issue for an African American president reaching out to the continent of his ancestors. History will be the judge of Obama’s foreign policy. He however appears to have an indefatigable yearning to see his foreign policy legacy succeed.
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