If Hillary Clinton keeps on her path that she has set for the way she conducts Washington’s foreign policy, Obama’s presidency will not be remember for its progress in international relations. Recently, Clinton went to Japan to meet with officials and discuss how Washington and Tokyo can better collaborate on issues regarding the environment. All would be going well, if she hadn’t made such a show of her meeting with Japanese who were kidnapped by North Korea.

United States and North Korea have made slow, but steady progress in the past 10 years. Most prominent progress made was that the Bush administration took Pyongyang off of the terrorism list, which prohibits a country on the list from participating in the world banking system. Needless to say, North Korea is not happy to see the new Secretary of State siding with people who are radically set against North Korea and who want it on the terrorist watch list, and who want the country to be isolated from the world until there is a radical change in the regime.

The radical change in the regime will not happen any time soon. The fact that most people in North Korea live in poverty only exasperates the problem because when a population of a country is poor and in fear, it is easier to control and for those in power to retain power. Any positive change in Western relations with North Korea provide for a hopefully improved conditions within the country, although most likely the money will go to the elite that rules the country with an iron fist. Regardless, a more open dialogue with the rest of the world could only do well for the relations between Pyongyang and the world.

However, the North Korean government seems to take everything regarding Pyongyang as a personal matter. The fact that the new US Secretary of State, as a first order of business decided to meet not with a prominent politician in Japan to somehow smooth out the relationship between Tokyo and Pyongyang, but with a group of people radically set against North Korea did not do any good. To rub some salt into the already huge wound that is the US-North Korean relations, Clinton stated that “we [the United States] have not forgotten the families of Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea.”

Hillary Clinton claimed when she was running against Barack Obama that she had experience, that she knew how to bring America back to the top of international relations. Well, it has not been running too smoothly and she really needs to rethink her stance on a lot of things because throughout her trip she’s already managed to mess something up. This is not the way a new Secretary of State should start the next four years.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.