Obama says will urge creditors to give Greece space for recovery

“You know, talk to me if he wins”. Journalists traveling with Obama aren’t being permitted to witness the event. During his time in Berlin, he will also meet the leaders of Britain, France and Italy, as Europe desperately seeks clues to future USA policy in a Trump world.

Opening his final overseas trip as president, Obama acknowledged he was surprised by Trump’s victory – and said it stemmed from deep-seated anxieties among working-class Americans that government must do better to address.

Air Force One touched down midmorning in Athens after an overnight flight from Washington.

Obama has described Merkel as “probably… my closest global partner these last eight years”.

“It gives the world a framework for the common protection of our planet”, Merkel and Obama wrote. Yet they may be greeted with skepticism: For months throughout the campaign, Obama repeatedly assured world leaders in public and private that Trump would not be elected, only to see him emerge victorious from last week’s election.

It has pinned its hopes on him persuading some of the financially stricken country’s more reluctant worldwide creditors to grant debt relief, as well as pressuring other European countries to share more of the burden of the continent’s refugee crisis.

Obama says increasingly people feel disconnected from their government and institutions.

Mentioning the president-elect briefly by name, Obama said he and Trump, a billionaire property developer and reality TV star whose fierce, often divisive rhetoric helped produce one of the ugliest election campaigns in living memory, “could not be more different”.

President Barack Obama arrived in Greece yesterday on the first stop of his final foreign tour as president, the first visit to Greece by a sitting US president since Bill Clinton in 1999.

“This impulse to pull back from a globalised world is understandable”.

President Barack Obama pointed Tuesday to fears of globalization, economic uncertainty, suspicion of elites – anything but his own performance – as he grasped for ways to explain the unexpected rise of Donald Trump.

Obama assures that he’ll work with Trump’s team in the coming weeks on a smooth handover of power. More than 60,000 people are stranded in Greece after their onwards journey into Europe was sealed off this year as borders were shut in the Balkans.

“Across Democratic and Republican administrations there is a recognition that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance is absolutely vital”, he said.

Trump, in his campaign, said he would not defend North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies who spent too little on defence and that he wanted to make a new deal with Russian Federation.

Obama argued nations must strengthen alliances and expressed his confidence that the US would remain loyal to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation despite Trump’s suggestions to the contrary during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump has already rocked the Western security establishment by indicating U.S. military support for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would depend on member countries’ payments to the defense organization, the cornerstone of global security since World War Two.

Obama with Eleni Banou, Ministry of Culture director of Ephorate of Antiquities for Athens, during a tour of the Acropolis. “But what I also believe, after eight years, is that the basic longing to live with dignity, the fundamental desire to have control of our lives and our future, and to want to be a part of determining the course of our communities and our nations-these yearnings are universal”. The whole site is closed just for his visit.

The 5th Century B.C. Parthenon temple built by Ictinus is surrounded these days by scaffolding.

As they begin their meeting, Pavlopoulos is telling Obama that the US has every reason to look forward to a strong and prosperous Europe, and that Greece is committed to the European Union.

“We hope that the labours and sacrifices of the Greek people will bring results very soon and they’ll be positive developments in the debt crisis negotiations, which concern all of Europe and the global economy”.