Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte accused former U.S. President Barack Obama of inaction when China began building artificial islands in the South China Sea which resulted in the international tensions in the region.
“Why did [Obama] not reprimand [China]? Why did you not send five aircraft carriers? You had to wait for the problem to ripen to an international issue involving, this time, so many countries,” President Duterte said at a news conference.
China is now planning to build several monitoring stations on the Scarborough Shoal, located just 124 miles off the Philippines coast.
“Why did you not, the first instance, go to Chinese working there, building structures there?”
The Philippines isn’t the only country to decry the former administration’s foreign policy.
Middle East nations also experienced the negative effects of the former president’s failed foreign policy. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told Fox News that Obama’s failure to hold the “red line” in Syria caused “a vacuum” that “evil forces” flowed into.
