Bill Clinton’s foreign policies Essay

Bill Clinton was the forty second president of United States of America serving between the years 1993 to 2001. As the president of the United States of America, Bill Clinton promised the Americans that he would be “the most ethical administrator ever seen in the history of the nation” (Clinton 67).

Among his major concerns was the administration of foreign policy. However, he did not administer the foreign policy on his own; he had his “foreign policy advisors who were Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright the secretaries of state as well as Anthony Lake and Sandy Berger who were National Security Advisors” (Clinton 54).

Foreign policy can be defined as the way a nation interacts with other global countries through economic, political and social relations. Also referred to as international relations policy, foreign policy is of great importance in any nation state.

During his term, Bill Clinton did all he could to make sure that the United States of America had good relations with other nations through proper foreign policy administration. To begin with, Clinton increased the number of free trade agreements between America and other countries from three to seventeen.

This, he did to “boost the economy of the state as well as other developing and young democracies such as Jordan and Morocco” (Clinton 502). The Expansion of the US role to Somalia nation-building was another foreign policy under the leadership of President Clinton. He facilitated aid to Somalia during the political chaos by sending his troop to provide security as well as food.

In the year 1992, as part of his foreign policy, Clinton helped the refugees from Haiti who came to the United States to seek refuge. In the following year, 1993, President Clinton pushed for an aid package to Russia worth $1.6B. He did this in a bid to stabilize the economy of Russia despite its unpopularity.

In his fear for global crisis, Clinton pushed for a Mexican bailout whereby Mexico was forced to repay all the loans so that the other countries including the United States of America could not face economic collapse.

He also initiated peace throughout the globe by making peace deals with especially the war-faced nations. For example in the year 1993, he signed a peace deal for the Middle East countries with the then Israel prime minister, Yitzak Rabin and Yasir Arafat who was a Palestinian leader (Clinton 476).

Clinton was able to deal with the nuclear energy issue that has been of global concern for many years. During his policy administration, he made China, one of the Asian countries to sign the free trade agreement that included the clause of nuclear non-proliferation. Indeed, it was a success since China agreed with the terms thus making a positive change for itself and the world at large.

Being the president of the super power nation in the world Clinton was also obliged to make decisions concerning any wars and terrorists attacks as part of foreign policy administration.

In 1998 after the United States embassies bombings in two capital cities of Kenya and Tanzania which are East African countries by Osama bin Laden, Clinton ordered missile attacks to Afghanistan as way of retaliating for the bombings.

Just like any normal human being with success and failures, Clinton failed in some instances of his foreign policy administration. The greatest failure in his foreign policy administration was when he declined sending troops to Rwanda during the 1994 Rwanda genocide that led to death of about 800, 000 people through manslaughter. However, he later apologised his mistake in 1998 when he visited the country.

It can therefore be concluded that Bill Clinton was successful in his foreign policies which upgraded the country’s relations with the others of the world.

Works Cited

Clinton, Bill. My Life. New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2004.