Former US president Barack Obama will meet with China’s president Xi Jinping and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi this week before flying to Paris.
He is expected to speak at various summits in the three countries, including the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in India and a global conferences on education in China.
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An Obama spokesperson said:
As president, Obama forged a close and cooperative partnership with president Xi on issues ranging from growing the global economy to combating climate change, and he looks forward to catching up with his former counterpart.
The former president also still appreciates the “close partnership” he shared with Modi, including “their work together to strengthen the US-India relationship and to combat terrorism and climate change,” the spokesperson added.
Since leaving the White House earlier this year, Obama has made public statements criticising US president Donald Trump’s policy decisions on healthcare, climate change, and immigration.
Obama responded to Trump’s announcement that he would suspend the the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program “cruel” and “self-defeating” in September.
Obama introduced DACA in 2012 to give temporary deportation relief for young undocumented immigrants who came to the US when they were young.
Obama has also attacked Republican proposals to repeal his signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act as well as Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accord.
In June, Obama said he remained confident that “states, cities, and businesses” will continue to pursue a low-carbon future “even in the absence of American leadership”.
He said:
The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created.
I believe the United States of America should be at the front of the pack. But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got.
Earlier this month, Trump returned from his five-nation tour of Asia where he met with both Jinping and Modi.
