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As Head Diplomat the president represents
the United States in negotiations with foreign
countries. Article II of the Constitution grants the
President the power to negotiate and sign treaties
on behalf of the United States (treaties do require
ratification by the Senate to take effect). The
president also extends or removes recognition of
nations and their governments. As head diplomat the
president sets US foreign policy, to be carried
out by the Department of State, via the Secretary
of State, US Ambassadors and US envoys around the globe.
NOTE: The examples
listed below are selected for their value in study for
the Regent's Examination,
and represent a small fraction of the possible examples.
Jefferson
makes the Louisiana Purchase:
 In
1803 France presented then president Thomas Jefferson
with a deal much too good to pass up. Napoleon of
France wanted to sell France's territories in North
America, in part to finance war against Britain in
addition to ridding France of colonial territory
thousands of miles away.
Since the Constitution made no
provisions for the president purchasing territory,
Jefferson decided to push through the $15 million dollar
sale as treaty with France. Even though treaty
making was a power of the presidency, this action was
seen as a loose interpretation of the
Constitution, clearly in opposition to Jefferson's own
strict views on the document. Regardless
of the Constitutional debate, the sale was completed and
later ratified by the Senate and the size of the United
States' territory doubled overnight.
Woodrow
Wilson's 14 points:
President Woodrow Wilson
had led the United States throughout the First World War
and wanted to insure the war truly was a war to end
all wars, so following the Nov. 11th
armistice he began to work for his 14 point framework
for lasting world peace.
While many of Wilson's 14 points
were rejected or undermined by the leadership of the
European Allies, his 14th point calling for the creation
of League of Nations survived the negotiations in
Versailles. The League of Nations was intended as an
international peace keeping body that would mediate
international disputes in order to prevent the eruption
of another wide-ranging conflict.
The Treaty of Versailles (with
Wilson's provision for a League of Nations included) was
then sent to the US Senate for ratification (as required
by the Constitutional process). The Senators feared that
the League would threaten US autonomy and security by
requiring the US to follow direction from an
international body. Despite Wilson's best attempts to
convince the Senate and the American people of the
League's merit, the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles
and along with it membership in the League of Nations.
Without US support and lacking any real enforcement
powers, the League of Nations was doomed to failure and
was in fact ineffectual in preventing the early
aggressions that later erupted into World War II.
Camp
David Peace Accords:
Amid tensions in the Middle East
and an on-going energy crisis, fueled by high
prices dictated by OPEC (Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Nations) President Carter attempted
to broker peace between the Israelis and their Arab
neighbors.
These attempts at peace
bore fruit in the 1977 Camp David Peace Accords,
during which Carter brought Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
(pictured with Carter below) together at the
presidential retreat of Camp David. The Camp David Peace
Accord resulted in a lasting peace between Israel and
Egypt, stationed US troops as observers in the Sinai peninsula
that separates the two nations and started a framework
for talks on the status of the Palestinian refugees
While tensions and violence in the Middle East remain
high, the 1977 accords remain an example that lasting
peace agreements can be crafted given the proper
circumstances and diplomatic initiative.
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