World Waits on Obama

In May, I raised concerns that the "first steps" taken by President Barack Obama had given the administration some "breathing room" in terms of deliverables. No one expected back then that Washington would be moving on key initiatives. It was understood that the new team needed to get settled: The first hundred days is not a good time for breakthroughs.

But six months later, it still doesn't seem like a good time for them. At the Guadalajara summit in August, any effort to move forward on a series of important issues dealing with North America -- trade, energy security, coping with the growing challenge of drug cartels -- was put off. As the president made clear to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, "I've got a lot on my plate."