Obama's Big Damage-Control Tour

The centerpiece of Obama's trip will be a stop in Hanover, Germany, where his relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel is strong — the Atlantic described her as "one of the few foreign leaders Obama respects" — but where America's relationship with the German people is not. Obama will try to address that with a speech on Monday that Rhodes said will "step back" and "review" the relationship, which has been tested by recent revelations of U.S. spying in Germany, including NSA monitoring of Merkel's personal phone, and disdain towards what many Germans see as a militaristic U.S. foreign policy: A June 2015 Pew Research Center poll found that Germans have only a slightly positive attitude of the U.S. overall, with just 50 percent viewing America favorably and 45 percent unfavorably.