The White House sidestepped a question Thursday on whether the crash of the EgyptAir plane and early theories that it was downed by terrorists will overshadow President Obama’s trip to Asia, as terrorist acts have done to several previous trips.
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters that the administration is worried about the situation involving the EgyptAir flight, and said U.S. authorities will do their own analysis of what caused the crash. He indicated the administration is still not ready to link the event to terrorism.
Still, he indicated that terrorism is likely to come up during Obama’s trip. At the G-7 summit in Japan at the end of next week, Rhodes said the U.S. will be “pursuing a substantive agenda that has a long-term bearing on the American people as it relates to terrorism.”
He also stressed that the U.S. and countries like Vietnam and Japan already have similar interests when it comes to fighting terrorism. “We obviously have enormous economic and national security interests in the Asia-Pacific region just as we have a profound and enduring interest in preventing any acts of terrorism,” he said.
Obama had hoped to focus the trip on promoting the final approval of his sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, as well as U.S. progress with both Japan and Vietnam over the decades. Obama will be the first president to visit Hiroshima, the site of one of the two nuclear bombs President Truman dropped on the country at the end of World War II.
White House officials have said Obama hopes the visit to Hiroshima will highlight the tragedy of war and the president’s “continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Obama, however, may instead be forced to deal with the aftermath of the EgyptAir crash and any evidence shoring up Egyptian officials” suspicions that terrorism is to blame.
It would be familiar juggling territory for Obama.
A deadly terrorist attack at an airport and near a metro stop in Brussels in late March forced Obama to engage in an awkward balancing act of talking about the attacks and new terrorism fears while continuing his previously arranged schedule in Cuba. Obama was there to highlight his new diplomatic thaw with Cuban President Raul Castro and went on with his plans to join Castro in attending an exhibition baseball game between the the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team.
And in November, Obama was poised to embarked on a globe-trotting mission to Turkey, Malaysia and the Philippines to tout his massive Asian trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership when the Islamic State terrorist attack hit Paris and killed 130 people.
In 2013, just a few months after his re-election, the president headed to Southeast Asia for a historic visit to Burma after opening diplomatic ties with the country. Instead of solely showcasing the democratic steps the country had taken in recent months, he had to spend time huddling with Hillary Clinton, secretary of State, to decide how to respond to violent clashes between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
