Foreign policy experts agree that while President Obama will want to keep his foreign policy focus domestic in his second term, global challenges will force their way into the president's agenda.

Aaron David Miller argues that it may not be possible for President Obama to turn around foreign policy legacy in the second term of his presidency.

House Speaker John Boehner gave these remarks, regarding the fiscal cliff and spending cuts, in the House on December 11, 2012.

President Obama gave these remarks at the Daimler Detroit Diesel Plant in Michigan on December 10, 2021.

House Speaker John Boehner released this column discussing the fiscal cliff on December 7, 2012.

The challenge that is facing President Obama now is how to regain the ground lost in foreign affairs and shaping U.S. national security policy.

In the past, U.S. officials have been less than eager to define a specific redline for the Iranian threat. While setting a March deadline could provide more certainty and coercive leverage to compel Iran to cooperate with the IAEA, it also places U.S. "credibility" on the line, says Micah Zenko.

Politico provides a guide to the dance of getting to a deal on the fiscal cliff.

President Obama gave these remarks on the economy in Hatfield, Pennsylvania on November 30, 2012.

House Speaker John Boehner gave these remarks on the fiscal cliff on November 30, 2012, following President Obama's speech in Pennsylvania.

Egypt today is a different country from the one encountered by previous U.S. administrations, and as a result, the Obama administration's foreign policy strategy approach has to change.

Middle East expert Robert Malley discusses how the United States is crafting policy for a Middle East it may no longer be accustomed to.

Secretary of State Clinton gave these remarks at the Foreign Policy Group's "Transformational Trends 2013" forum at the Newseum on November 29, 2012.

CFR Fellow Shannon O'Neil and former Foreign Minister of Mexico Jorge Castañeda discuss newly elected Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and what this new administration means for U.S.-Mexico relations going forward.

Listen to CFR Senior Fellow Shannon K. O'Neil and former foreign minister of Mexico Jorge G. Castañeda discuss President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto and the future of U.S.-Mexico relations.

In an op-ed that appeared this week in USA Today, O'Neil argued that the main obstacle to better relations between the two countries is Americans' perceptions of Mexico and its people:

"In Americans' psyches, drugs dominate. When advertising firm GSD&M and Vianovo strategic consultants asked Americans to come up with three words that describe Mexico, nearly every other person answered 'drugs,' followed by 'poor' and 'unsafe.' Other questions reveal Americans see Mexico as corrupt, unstable and violent, more problem than partner. Americans had more favorable views of Greece, El Salvador and Russia."

Read O'Neil's USA Today op-ed "Mexico Isn't a Gangland Gunbattle."

In the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs, Castañeda and historian Héctor Aguilar Camín claim that there is a political mandate in Mexico that calls for less corruption, greater rule of law, and improved economic justice:

"Mexicans' clamor for prosperity is no longer negotiable, and today, the country is less than a generation away from becoming the full-fledged middle-class society it aspires to be. But only if it gets to work now."

Read Camín and Castañeda's essay "Mexico's Age of Agreement."

President Obama and Vice-President Biden released this foreign policy plan in November 2012, following President Obama's re-election.

Conflict in the Middle East could change the foreign policy course of President Obama's second term in office.

Micah Zenko says, "Like Dick Cheney 21 years ago, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has engaged in an exhaustive effort to avoid both sequestration and any further reductions in the Pentagon's budget. The distinction between Panetta and his predecessors, however, is in the tactics he has employed to protect his bureaucratic turf."

Hillary Clinton's statement that she will not stay on as Secretary of State in President Obama's second term has unleashed speculation about her plans for the future.

The sharpening partisan divide within United States politics is routinely affecting foreign policy, far more than in years past.