President Obama Declares Global 'Economic War,' Orders World Leaders to Pick a Side by Dinner

WASHINGTON — President Obama opened a sweeping new campaign of economic warfare this week, directing the Treasury to sanction dozens of foreign companies, ships and individuals across several countries and instructing his Treasury secretary to inform the rest of the planet that doing business with the target nation is now a choice between the United States and its enemies, with no third option available at this time.

According to the administration, the President has been personally telephoning world leaders with what one official described as 'specific requests,' a phrase that in diplomacy means the same thing it means in a parking lot at night. Countries that decline the requests were advised that they, too, may find themselves added to the list, a policy analysts described as either muscular statecraft or a protection racket with a flag on it, depending on the analyst's party registration.

Reaction abroad was uniform; reaction at home was not. Supporters hailed the move as long-overdue American resolve, praising a President finally willing to make the world choose. Opponents warned of dangerous unilateralism, reckless cowboy diplomacy and the alienation of allies. The Press notes that both groups delivered these remarks from scripts that were, four years ago, stapled to the opposite lecterns.

The Press's foreign desk takes no position on the sanctions themselves. Our beat is narrower: we observe only that the words 'crippling economic pressure' are a war crime when the other party's President says them and a sign of strength when ours does, and that the transition takes roughly one inauguration to complete.

Asked whether the campaign risked isolating the United States, a spokesman said the country was not isolated but rather 'leading,' and that the difference between the two would be explained to allies by phone, one specific request at a time.