2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: If I were President Obama, I would be righteously pissed off at Hillary [View all]karynnj
(59,509 posts)that nearly 200 countries joined. President Obama gets the main credit and with ACA and saving the economy to the degree he did they are the high points of his legacy. However, the Iran deal would not have happened if not for the intense perseverance and skill of John Kerry. Obama himself publicly never gave it more than a 50/50 chance even after the frame work was done. As to the Paris Climate change pact, when Kerry came in he wanted climate change to be a signature issue, but was told that the view was little was possible diplomatically. On his first trip to China, Kerry met with the people he knew in China who had been negotiators on this in previous climate change summits and returned to tell Obama that there was an opening. Negotiations, including at Kerry's Boston home, led to the US/China pact, which led to the Lima summit, that no one had much hope for before that being successful to the accord in Paris.
As to trustworthy, Kerry is as trustworthy as it gets. He consistently offers Obama the respect and credit due to him as President.