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Pacific region is also successful," he said. Obama has indefinitely put on hold a campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA.
War on terror/detainees: Obama signed an executive order closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center as one of his first actions as president. The facility remains open, however, largely due to congressional opposition over where to house the remaining prisoners. Obama has put a halt to the "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed by George W. Bush's administration but has enraged some civil liberties advocates by authorizing the extrajudicial killing of alleged al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen. Obama has also disappointed some liberal supporters by resuming military trials of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo.
Environment: Despite his stated support for environmental legislation and green energy, there has been little progress on passing major climate-change bills under Obama's watch. Thanks largely to Obama's public intervention, an agreement was reached at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, but in failing to impose enforceable emissions targets, the meeting was widely considered a failure. This year, Obama abandoned tough new air-quality rules, adopted early in his administration.
Russia/reset: One of the centerpieces of Obama's first-term foreign policy was the effort to "reset" relations with Russia. The president successfully negotiated the New START nuclear reduction treaty, though there have been significant disagreements with both Russia and his GOP opponents over the contours of missile defense. Human rights advocates have criticized the president for ignoring the erosion of Russian democracy. Russia has also continued to stymie U.S. efforts to impose tough international sanctions on Iran and Syria. Obama seemed to have made friends with President Dmitry
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