Barack Obama: the first year Comprehensive coverage of President Barack Obama’s first year in office
Barack Obama faces the next big test of its push for healthcare reform this evening when the Senate meets to decide whether to proceed to a debate on its $848bn draft legislation
A bond between president and the secretary of state helps when it comes to executing foreign policy. While Mrs Clinton’s relationship with Mr Obama is cordial, one would be hard-pressed to call them buddies
US President Barack Obama warned that the US economy could head into a “double-dip recession” unless urgent steps were taken to rein in mounting public debt
President Barack Obama effectively ditched his own deadline to close the detention centre at Guantánamo Bay by January 22, while his attorney-general came under fire for deciding to try the most high-profile detainees in New York City.
The US government wasted almost $100bn in tax dollars in fiscal 2009, prompting the White House to pledge a crackdown on fraud and mistakes in federal spending
Obama should have made clear the need for China to revalue its currency and rebalance the global economy when he met Hu Jintao, writes Martin Wolf. He could reasonably threaten punitive action, such is the need for change
Obama should know that there are three – not two – parties to any discussions about the US-Japan alliance, writes David Pilling
Obama’s challenge is to adapt America’s role by bringing US interests and the new reality of Asian regional co-operation together, writes Evan Feigenbaum
America and Asia: China may be chief beneficiary of the financial crisis and the latest challenger to US hegemony but a dependence on exports limits Beijing’s room for manoeuvre
The US president has been weighed down by a tedious fight between Keynesianism and tax cuts. What is needed is structural change that comes with a new set of economic tools, writes Jeffrey Sachs
Democrats must wrap themselves in the mantle of Obama’s programme. But what is that, asks Christopher Caldwell
The US cannot afford to put additional resources behind a strategy that risks luring it into an ever-deepening quagmire, write Charles Kupchan and Steven Simon
War and politics: As Barack Obama prepares to decide on a surge in troops to Afghanistan, he risks pleasing neither hawks nor doves – a dilemma similar to that of Lyndon Johnson four decades ago
The president needs to bang Democratic heads together, so that he and the party can finally start making a coherent case to the public
The notion that Mr Obama is a weak leader is spreading in ways that are dangerous to his presidency, writes Gideon Rachman. The Nobel Peace Prize will not help. Peace is all very well. But Mr Obama now needs to pick a fight in public, and win it quickly.
Interactive feature: Few presidents have taken office facing such daunting challenges as Barack Obama. Here we look at his first 100 days in office and the key policy decisions, appointments and early political crisis as they unfolded
Graphic: Obama’s rescue plan explained by FT reporters
