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Kyoto, Japan -- With less than three weeks before Bill Clinton leaves office, the international media is already analyzing his foreign policy legacy. Tufts' Alan Henrikson told a major Japanese news outlet that the US President's crowning diplomatic achievement may be his work to expand global economics. "President Clinton's principle achievement was in the realm of international economic liberalization with an emphasis on completing the Uruguay round of GATT, in getting the World Trade Organization set up, and on the basis of his completion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)," Henrikson -- a diplomatic historian at Tufts' Fletcher School Of Law and Diplomacy -- told Japan's Kyoto News Service. The foreign policy expert said Clinton may even be credited for economic initiatives that he didn't create.
Henrikson also said that the President's work with Boris Yeltsin was crucial to the fate of Russia. "I think he saved Boris Yeltsin's leadership of the Russian federation in the early days when he met bilaterally with Yeltsin in Vancouver at a time when Yeltsin was under a great deal of pressure at home," the Tufts expert said. However, Clinton's foreign policy legacy isn't without flaws. Henrikson told the Kyoto News Service that the US foreign policy in Haiti lacked consistency. He suggested that foreign policy towards Haiti under the next president should include "support and reinforcement for a continuation of Haitian democracy and education and employment programs." Posted 01-03-01
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International
Economics May Define Clinton's Legacy In Foreign Policy 
"Even
though he didn't invent it, he was the one who really established
the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation arrangement, which is very
important," Henrikson said. 