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Pacific region is also successful," he said. Obama has indefinitely put
on hold a campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA.

War on terror/detainees: Obama signed an executive order closing
the Guantánamo Bay detention center as one of his first actions as
president. The facility remains open, however, largely due to
congressional opposition over where to house the remaining
prisoners. Obama has put a halt to the "enhanced interrogation
techniques" employed by George W. Bush's administration but has
enraged some civil liberties advocates by authorizing the extrajudicial
killing of alleged al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen.
Obama has also disappointed some liberal supporters by resuming
military trials of terrorism suspects at Guantánamo.

Environment: Despite his stated support for environmental
legislation and green energy, there has been little progress on passing
major climate-change bills under Obama's watch. Thanks largely to
Obama's public intervention, an agreement was reached at the 2009
Copenhagen climate summit, but in failing to impose enforceable
emissions targets, the meeting was widely considered a failure. This
year, Obama abandoned tough new air-quality rules, adopted early in
his administration.

Russia/reset: One of the centerpieces of Obama's first-term foreign
policy was the effort to "reset" relations with Russia. The president
successfully negotiated the New START nuclear reduction treaty,
though there have been significant disagreements with both Russia
and his GOP opponents over the contours of missile defense. Human
rights advocates have criticized the president for ignoring the erosion
of Russian democracy. Russia has also continued to stymie U.S.
efforts to impose tough international sanctions on Iran and Syria.
Obama seemed to have made friends with President Dmitry

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