The White House released a video of Barack Obama making history as the first U.S. president to visit Laos. Reflecting on his visit, Obama explains:
For so long the United States has been so big, so powerful that we felt that we could afford not to know about a country like Laos. But the world has shrunk, it’s interconnected—and if we want to deal with issues from climate change to wildlife trafficking, to dealing with terrorism, we need the cooperation of everybody. That’s part of what we’ve been able to accomplish, I think over the last seven, eight years is open up places that previously were closed and engage people in ways that will pay huge dividends in the future.
The video is a lovely celebration of international diplomacy, plus the president makes this face:
