President Nixon's '72 trip to China was historic and exceptional. It was remarkable watching the President and First Lady on The Great Wall or sitting down with Mao.
President Reagan's visit to the Berlin Wall in '87 was dramatic. He said "tear down this wall". Two years later, the wall came down and so did the evil empire!
Overall, presidential trips are courtesy calls. They have very little impact here and there.
So I didn't expect a lot to change from Bush's 2005 visit to Europe.
The most important part of the trip was the meeting with Putin but it did not get much attention from the Euro-press. Putin and Bush had a lot to talk about. Yet, everyone was obsessed with the dinner that Bush and Chirac having dinner!
Nevertheless, Europe and the US did some fence mending. There are several reasons.
The first one is pragmatic. Bush won with a majority (51.4%) of the US popular vote. In fact, most of Bush's European critics would love to have his mid-50's approval ratings in the latest Gallup. They wouldn't mind having his 5.2% unemployment rate either!
Bush arrived in Europe in a stronger political position than any of his hosts. Take a poll in France or Germany or Spain. Do you think that the majority of their citizens think that their leader is doing a good job? I don't think so!
The second reason is economic. As the US moved from recession to 4% annual growth, much of Europe is still stuck in their malaise and 2% growth. Europe can't create jobs and this is turning into a serious domestic concern for the continent's leaders.
The third reason is the Iraq election: 8.5 million Iraqis put the exclamation point on the removal of Saddam Hussein.
In the end, not much happened but nothing much was supposed to happen.
Old Europe is in decline as it falls behind China and India in economic terms. Things will never be the same between the US and Europe.
We are not going in the same direction, as Mark Steyn wrote in his book.
